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IRIN-WA Update 523 of events in West Africa (Friday 6 August)
SIERRA LEONE: Two more hostages freed
Two more hostages, a UN human rights officer and a Reuters journalist, were released late on Thursday, bringing the total to seven, a humanitarian source told IRIN.
The humanitarian source said the hostage-takers, ex-members of the former Sierra Leone Army (SLA), insisted on the release of former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) leader Johnny Paul Koroma, whom they claimed was being detained by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
However, RUF leader Foday Sankoh said in a BBC radio broadcast on Friday that Korama was free to travel to Freetown if he wished.
"He is not being held," Sankoh said.
Sankoh described the hostage taking of the others as an isolated incident that would not affect the implementation of the Lome peace accord that ended a bitter war against the government of President of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. The humanitarian source confirmed that a British hostage negotiation team was expected in the country soon.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Voter registration dates set
Voters in Guinea-Bissau have between 22 August and 2 September to register for upcoming presidential and general elections, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest situation report.
The country's largest political parties, Resistencia da Guine-Bissau- Movimento Ba- Fata (RGB-MB) and Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) have scheduled party congresses for 13-15 August and 18-22 August respectively.
Presidential and legislative elections are due on 28 November, as part of a peace accord concluded late in 1998 between then president Joao Bernardo Vieira and the leaders of a military revolt which eventually led to Vieira's overthrow on 7 May 1999.
PAIGC leader criticises justice authorities
The interim president of the PAIGC, Saturnino da Costa, has said recent arrests by authorities investigating participants in the military uprising would do nothing to enhance national reconciliation, Lusa reported on Thursday.
The agency said some 300 people remained imprisoned on charges related to the conflict which began on 7 June 1998. Most of the prisoners are soldiers loyal to Vieira and leading figures close to him.
Da Costa said although those implicated in wrong-doing should stand trial, national reconciliation called for a willingness to forgive. Lusa said the justice authorities were targeting leaders of the PAIGC - the party that fought and won the independence war against Portugal - for political reasons. The party ruled from independence in 1973 to February, when a government of national unity took over after the military revolt.
UNICEF programme on war trauma
Meanwhile, UNICEF has sponsored a programme to help sensitise health care employees to the trauma caused by war, OCHA reported. A child psychologist spent six weeks training heath staff to detect and treat post-conflict stress disorders in children, OCHA said.
SAO TOME E PRINCIPE: Contacts with Nigeria over sea border
Sao Tome and Principe has begun contacts with Nigeria
for negotiations over the delimitation of their common
maritime border, LUSA reported Sao Tomese Foreign Minister
Paulo Jorge as saying. He said on Wednesday that a
similar situation had been resolved with Equatorial
Guinea and negotiations were underway with Gabon. Lusa
said a private petroleum company, Hidrocarboneto SA,
had recently complained that Nigeria was selling rights
to off-shore oil in Sao Tome's economic exclusion zone.
WEST AFRICA: Benin to host meeting on subregional gas
project
Petroleum ministers from Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo are due to meet mid-August in Cotonou, Benin, to review plans to commission the West African gas pipeline before rising costs put the project beyond the reach of these countries, PANA reported on Tuesday. The agency said the meeting would finalise negotiations on the 960-km pipeline designed to bring Nigerian gas to industrial and domestic users in the four countries.
TOGO: Government to collect weapons
The Togolese government plans to collect and destroy
weapons held by civilians in the next few days as part
of the agreement concluded with the opposition at the
inter-Togolese talks, PANA reported.
In a statement on 4 August the government said: "This operation, which will lead to a national reconciliation forum, is aimed at ending armed robberies and hold-ups so as to restore confidence, security and calm among the population." A committee comprising the ministers of justice, defence, interior and security was set up to work out details of the operation. The government has also called owners of weapons of war to hand them over voluntarily.
AFRICA: Workshop on small arms trafficking
The United Nations could help further the goal of eradicating illicit arms trafficking by providing technical and financial help to states in developing law enforcement data collection and reporting procedures, participants in a recent workshop said.
The type of data considered important for policy development in this area includes the volume and nature of illegal trade in weapons, participants in the 'Workshop on Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms: African Issues' said.
Countries also need help in collecting information such as the national stocks of small arms held by the security forces and other government institutions, and firearms held legally by private citizens, according to a report reaching IRIN and containing a summary of discussions at the workshop.
Other key information includes statistics on lost and stolen weapons, firearms seizures, estimates of illegally held weapons and data on arms-related deaths and injuries.
The workshop, organised by the Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa of the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs, was held in Lome on 2-4 August and attended by NGO and government representatives from 25 countries.
Arms in West Africa
In West Africa, it is estimated that two million people have been killed by small arms since 1990, more than 70 percent of them women and children, according to information provided at the workshop, which was also attended by researchers and UN officials. Some 500 million light weapons are in circulation in the world, including an estimated seven million in West Africa alone, participants heard.
Difficulty in obtaining reliable information
However, one of the points emerging from the workshop was the difficulty in obtaining reliable information on the trafficking of small arms, not just because it is illegal but also because legal arms transfers and existing stocks are treated as sensitive security matters.
What is evident though, the report states, is that there is a ready supply of small arms available to any individual or group willing to engage in illicit transactions. Many of the weapons used in recent conflicts, post-conflict violence and common crime in Africa are left over from past conflicts on the continent or stolen from legitimate firearm owners.
However, participants found that the supply of small arms from northern nations were the most troublesome for African nations since it directly supports conflicts and major crime, the report said.
Measures to curb arms flow
Measures taken by states to curb the flow of illegal arms include laws on ownership of firearms, licensing, police and border controls, weapon collection and destruction programmes and import-export controls.
However, participants pointed to the need for international
technical and financial aid to help African develop
and implement the most basic law enforcement, legal,
border control and security infrastructure to deal
with problems related to small arms trafficking.
The UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
is preparing a protocol to help control the import
and export of firearms and the meeting highlighted
the need for African nations to participate in the
negotiations process to make sure Africa's needs are
fully considered.
NIGERIA: Senate president denies having criminal past
Nigerian Senate President Evan Enwerem told a news conference in Abuja on Thursday that the claim made by a weekly news magazine that he had a criminal past were untrue, news organisations reported.
Enwerem defended himself against each of the charges, which included allegations of fraud, falsification and holding a criminal record, saying that his character, integrity and reputation were "grossly maligned", 'The Guardian reported.' He spoke ahead of an appearance on Friday before the Senate investigating committee.
The allegations against Enwerem, who holds the third-ranked post in the Nigerian constitution, were published in the weekly news magazine `TELL'.
Delta probes alleged dumping of toxic wastes
The Delta State Government on Thursday set up a six-member panel to investigate an alleged dumping of suspected toxic waste by an oil firm some two weeks ago, `The Guardian' reported.
A fact-finding delegation, led by the commissioner for health, carried out preliminary investigations and recommended that a full probe panel be put in place, the newspaper reported. The committee will be responsible for finding out if the allegations are true. If so, it will recommend appropriate sanctions against those responsible, suggesting ways of preventing such dumping in future. The committee will also recommend guidelines to the state government in drawing up policy for ending the environmental pollution, according to `The Guardian'.
The committee will be headed by a director in the Ministry of Health and include representatives from the Delta State Environmental Protection Agency, the local government council and oil firms in the region, `The Guardian' said.
MALI: Effort to make the country green
A vast tree planting effort to turn this vast semi-arid land-locked country lush green got underway on Sunday, PANA reported.
"Operation Green Mali", which will cover all eight regions of the country, will continue through end August.
So far, residents of the regions of Sikasso, Timbuktu and Koulikoro have begun planting under the supervision of local specialised services. Village associations in the region of Timbuktu, 1,000 km north of Bamako, showing the greatest enthusiasm for the effort have been paid 600,000 CFA francs (about US $1,000) as further encouragement. Similar measures have been taken in the district of Kati, in the Koulikoro region, Segou, respectively 70 km and 240 km northeast of Bamako, the Malian capital.
Government has launched the effort, PANA said, to raise public awareness and ensure a continued fight against desertification. Just 6 percent of Mali's 1.22 million sq km of land is forest or woodland.
SENEGAL: First female circumcision arrests made
Senegalese police have arrested the mother and grandmother of a five-year old girl for ordering her circumcision, in the first case of its kind since a new law was passed in February outlawing the practice, the state-owned daily 'Le Soleil' reported on Thursday.
Following a complaint by the girl's father, the two women were arrested in Tambacounda, some 450 km east of the capital Dakar. The woman who carried out the circumcision was still on the run, the newspaper said.
The new law bans female circumcision and other forms of sexual mutilation and the penalties range from six months to five years in prison, `Le Soleil' reported. However, local sources said there was widespread belief in the region of Tambacounda that a non-circumcised woman or girl was a social outcast, `Le Soleil' reported.
Opponents of the practice say it is an infringement of human rights.
Abidjan, 6 August 1999; 16:12 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1373
[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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