IRIN-West Africa Weekly Roundup no. 2 for 1999.01.15

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

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IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup No 2 of Main Events for West Africa covering the period 8-14 January 1999

SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG forces back in control of Freetown

West African ECOMOG forces were back in control of almost all of the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown by the end of the week after bitter house-to-house fighting against rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the ousted Armed Forces Revolutionary Council(AFRC). Hopes of a ceasefire were first dashed and then raised again after RUF leader Foday Sankoh spoke by satellite telephone to his field commander Sam Bockarie. Diplomatic efforts were being made on several fronts to bring peace to the country.

Fires raged in Freetown's Eastend on Monday as the rebels began to flee from the advancing ECOMOG troops, AFP reported, quoting evacuees from the war-torn city. Witnesses told the agency the fires had been started by rebels who torched warehouses in the Kissy dockyards area. "The rebels burn, pillage and kill as they go through," ECOMOG commander General Timothy Shelpidi told AFP. He said the rebels used civilians as human shields. A humanitarian source in the city said the rebels forced people from their homes and gave them white handkerchiefs to wave in a show of pro-rebel support. Some children who refused to comply were shot, the source said.

Shelpidi said another 500 Nigerian troops were flown in last weekend and by Monday his men had cleared the port and seat of government of rebels. He said his troops had pushed the rebels southeast towards Kissy, Wellington and Calaba Town. Kissy is an Eastend suburb, and Wellington and Calaba a further five km to the south. By Wednesday, Shelpidi was reporting that his troops were mopping up the last pockets of resistance. He said some rebels were hiding in shantytowns around the Kissy area. He said the damage caused by the rebels was "colossal" but that electricity and phone lines might be fully restored by the weekend.

He declined to give ECOMOG casualty figures, preferring to describe them as light. He said at least 1,000 rebels had died in the city. He added that ECOMOG could have finished off the rebels had the subregional force been equipped with the right military hardware, especially helicopter gunships such as the MI24. ECOMOG has only one helicopter, he said.

Diplomatic efforts

The Foreign Ministers of Togo and Cote d'Ivoire, Joseph Koffigoh and Amara Essy, arrived at Freetown's Lungi International Airport on Monday to begin talks on a peaceful solution. They met President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and later talked to Foday in the Guinean capital Conakry. They told AFP that in a three-hour meeting with Sankoh on Tuesday he had called for a political solution to the crisis and expressed "willingness for peace". Sankoh has called for a ceasefire but army commander Bockarie has rejected this unless he gets his orders in person.

On Wednesday, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Sierra Leone, Francis Okelo, arranged for Sankoh to talk to Bockarie by satellite phone. A UN official declined to disclose the outcome of the conversation but said ceasefire proposals were still under negotiation. Details of the proposals were not made public. Okelo has been in consultations with the Ivorian, Togolese and Guinean foreign ministers and with other members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as the diplomatic efforts continued.

Two priests regain freedom, bishop held

Roman Catholic priests Giuliano Pini and Maurizio Boa were freed from rebel captivity on Monday by an ECOMOG patrol, the missionary news agency, MISNA, reported on Wednesday. Father Mario Guerra, a Xaverian missionary kidnapped by RUF rebels on 15 November 1998, was also released for a few hours on Tuesday, AFP reported quoting missionary sources. It said he spent the few hours of freedom eating with members of his order before returning to his captors.

But on Thursday, MISNA reported that the rebels had taken the Roman Catholic archbishop of Freetown and Bo, Joseph Ganda. It said Ganda, 66, was being held in the same location as Father Guerra.

Last UN Officer leaves Freetown

United Nations spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Monday the last international staff member of the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) had left Freetown safely. A UN official in West Africa identified him as Michael Booth, a security official.

On Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council extended UNOMSIL's mandate until 13 March 1999. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan intends to reduce the number of UNOMSIL military observers and retain a small number in Conakry. They would return with civilian support staff under Okelo, when conditions permitted, the UN said at a news briefing. The mission was sent to Sierra Leone in 1998 to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate the rebels into society.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement on Thursday it had airlifted its five remaining representatives out of Freetown on Wednesday on the orders of the Sierra Leonean government. The Committee said it regretted having to leave at a time "when the humanitarian situation is still giving cause for the gravest concern". Although unable to carry out humanitarian work due to fighting in the city, it said, the presence of the delegates was reassuring to the 180 civilians who had sought help in the ICRC compound, and to the wounded being treated in the ICRC's Netland surgical hospital.

Red cross societies ready to receive refugees

Red Cross societies in Guinea and Liberia have upgraded contingency plans to receive an influx of Sierra Leonean refugees should the fighting in Freetown deteriorate, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement on Tuesday. It said the Red Cross societies of The Gambia and Cote d'Ivoire, traditional asylum countries, were also monitoring the situation.

It said refugees were unlikely to reach Liberia because the border with Sierra Leone is being patrolled by ECOMOG and some 5,000 Liberian troops and fleeing Freetown residents were more likely to head for Conakry. Therefore, the Guinean Red Cross and the Federation planned to provide camp management, food, basic supplies, water and sanitation, as well as health education for some 20,000 refugees over an initial six-month period. The UNHCR said that so far there had only been 450 asylum seekers in Conakry and Forecariah, east of the Guinean capital.

The UNHCR said in a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that unless a ceasefire was arranged and humanitarian supplies brought into Freetown, aid agencies would be faced with a possible disaster in the capital, where the population has now been estimated at one million. WFP warned in a report on Monday that hundreds of thousands of Freetown residents could face starvation unless the fighting stopped soon. Residents had been confined to their homes with little or no food, water or electricity since the rebels attacked last Wednesday.

The city depends on food supplies from the countryside but the highway linking the capital to the rest of the country has been closed by fighting. Before the attack on Freetown, WFP was feeding some 63,000 people in the country, mainly war affected farmers, orphans, disabled persons and hospital patients.

30,000 more IDPs registered in Kenema

Humanitarian aid agencies have registered 30,000 newly displaced people who have arrived in Kenema, an official from the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (UN-HACU) in Abidjan told IRIN on Tuesday. There are now about 75,000 IDPs in the town. The official, who is in regular contact with aid bodies still in the country, said food posed no problem but shelter, water, sanitation and other non-food needs could not be met. These materials are in Freetown and it is impossible to move them to the country.

In Kambia, 62 km north of Freetown, the 10,324 IDPs are being cared for by humanitarian workers who, for security reasons, commute from Pamalap, 20 km to the north in Guinea. Kambia is guarded by Guinean ECOMOG troops.

UNICEF said at a news conference in Geneva that the IDPs included thousands of children under five years old.

LIBERIA: Monrovia backing rebels, US and Ghana say

The United States condemned Liberia on Monday for backing the rebels. "We have told the government of Liberia that we know they are supporting RUF activities, and we condemn support from any source to the insurgents," State Department spokesman James Rubin said in Washington. He pointed to "a growing body of evidence" of Liberian government aid to the rebels.

Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings also told a visiting Liberian government delegation on Wednesday that Monrovia must end its support for the rebels, PANA reported, quoting the Ghana News Agency. He told the delegation, led by Liberian Vice President Enoch Dogolea, that continued support amounted to a stab in the back for countries which sacrificed men, money and materiel to bring democracy to Liberia after seven years of war. Ghana, Nigeria and Guinea - which have troops in Sierra Leone - were among the countries contributing troops when ECOMOG was active in Liberia. Rawlings also said a north African country, which he did not name, was supporting RUF rebels.

Liberia has consistently denied supporting the rebels and has called for an international investigation to monitor its border with Sierra Leone. In a statement issued in Monrovia on Tuesday, it challenged Rubin to prove the US allegations, independent Star Radio reported.

WFP, Education Ministry sign deal on school feeding programme

The United Nations World Food Programme and the Ministry of Education have signed an agreement with the Liberian Ministry of Education to strengthen the ministry's school feeding programme, a WFP official told IRIN on Monday. Commenting on a report by Liberia's independent Star Radio, the official said WFP had already rehabilitated the offices of the ministry's school feeding division and provided a vehicle, computers, communications sets and stationery. WFP Country Director Arnt Breivik puts the total cost of the project at US $80,000, Star Radio said. He said the facilities would enable the division to collect vital statistics on the programme. The data, he said, would help the division cater for needy students.

Diarrhoea outbreak in Nimba

Results of laboratory tests are expected soon on the cause of a bloody diarrhoea outbreak in Nimba county, a WHO official in Abidjan told IRIN on Friday. A team travelled to Nimba last week to investigate the outbreak and collect samples after local authorities reported a recent increase in the number of cases in the area, the official added. Liberia's Star Radio said last week that at least 39 people in the county had died of the disease since June.

600,000 targeted in polio campaign

The first round of a polio eradication campaign is set to begin on 18 January and will target the country's estimated 600,000 children under five years of age, UNICEF told IRIN on Wednesday. Vaccines, cold boxes and other materials are being distributed throughout the country in preparation for the three-day campaign, while public education activities are underway in the various counties to encourage people to bring their children to the vaccination centres, UNICEF said. The campaign, which will employ some 600 vaccination teams, is coordinated by the Ministry of Health with technical support from UNICEF and WHO. The second round of immunisations is scheduled for 22-24 February, UNICEF added.

NIGERIA: PDP win state-level elections

The centre-left Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won 19 out of 35 states in Saturday's gubernatorial elections, which were largely orderly and peaceful. Results released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showed the centre-right All Peoples Party (APP) winning the governors' posts in nine states while six governorships were won by the third participating party, the radical Alliance for Democracy (AD). AFP said the PDP was strongest in most northern and eastern areas with the APP making some gains in the north and the AD dominating in the Yoruba southwest. Voting in one state, Bayelsa, did not take place because of unrest over control of local oil resources. The PDP also topped state assembly elections. Legislative and presidential elections are due in February.

News agencies said voting at some 100,000 polling stations in the country was generally well-organised although some tension and disturbances were reported in the troubled Niger Delta region.

46 percent voter turn-out

Some 24.6 million people voted in the elections, representing a turnout of 46 percent, according to INEC figures. "The elections were very largely free and fair and the results acceptable to the generality of Nigerians," AFP quoted INEC chairman Ephraim Akpata as saying. However, Reuters quoted INEC officials as acknowledging that up to 20 million voting cards may not have been issued to genuine voters.

Elections "successful", monitoring group says

The elections were conducted successfully with improved performance by INEC, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) said. In its preliminary report, the TMG said its 3,000 monitors deployed across the country had observed a better state of logistical preparedness than during December's local government elections and that electoral officials appeared better trained. However, it said there was still a "worrying level of arbitrariness" in the application of voting rules. In some areas, no election could be held due to lack of ballot papers, some voters' registers were incomplete or appeared to have been altered, voting by underage persons was reported in certain places and allegations of bribery were widespread, the report said.

While the elections were generally peaceful, there were many reports of intimidation and harassment and attempted seizure of ballot boxes, it said, adding that students alleged to be members of secret cults were used as "political thugs" in Ogun, Oyo and Ondo states. The TMG, a coalition of 56 human rights and other grass roots organisations, noted a lower turnout of voters compared with last month's elections, and the proportion of women voters was poor. The report, a copy of which was received by IRIN on Tuesday, said pre-election education and information about voting procedures had been inadequate, and lack of knowledge about the candidates and their programmes had resulted in apathy about the exercise in many places.

Irregularities force partial re-run in Rivers State

Fresh gubernatorial elections will take place in several areas of southeast Rivers State on 16 January due to irregularities in the first poll, news agencies said. The Nigerian daily 'The Guardian' said that INEC declared the gubernatorial elections in Rivers to be "inconclusive" because voting had not been conducted in some areas while polling results in other areas had not been submitted properly. "Something funny has taken place," 'The Guardian' quoted resident electoral commissioner Alhaji Mala Alamai as saying. Poll re-runs will be held in 38 wards, the newspaper added. The PDP was initially credited with victory in the state.

Two parties merge challenge for presidency

Following Saturday's poll the APP and the AD agreed to present a single candidate for the presidential elections. "We have approved the plan for a working alliance," Josiah Odunna, the national secretary of the APP told AFP. He said an alliance with the AD was necessary if they were to stop the PDP from making a sweep of the presidential poll. The AD has approved the plan and the two party leaders are to meet soon, AFP reported, quoting an official. The agency said the electoral pact had been blocked by major differences between the parties. The AD, which is strong in the Yoruba southwest, proposes a populist programme and staunchly opposed the late military ruler, General Sani Abacha. The APP, which offers a conservative economic regime, includes many former Abacha supporters.

Government "war" actions condemned

Niger Delta communities have called for international mediation to resolve the civil strife in the oil-producing region, 'The Guardian' said last Thursday. Quoting a statement by the Consultative Assembly of Ijaws, Isokos and Ndokwas, the newspaper said the communities condemned the "unprovoked" killing of Ijaw youths and the "persistent and increasing threat of the use of force" in response to local demands for greater control of the area's resources.

The level of civil strife has increased since the end of December following the passing of an Ijaw deadline for oil companies to cease operations in Bayelsa state and the government's subsequent deployment of additional troops and military equipment to quell the unrest. "The decision of the government of (head of state) General Abdulsalami Abubakar to kill defenceless Ijaw youths amounts to a declaration of war," the statement said.

Thirty student protesters arrested

Nigerian police arrested at least 30 students on Wednesday after firing shots and teargas to disperse an anti-government protest in Lagos, Reuters reported. The slogan-chanting students demanded an end to rises in school fees and fuel prices. The recent increases in fuel prices followed the government's decision to abandon fuel subsidies and spending cuts because of a sharp fall in the price for crude oil, which accounts for 90 percent of the country's export earnings.

Wheat flour imports banned

Nigeria has banned the import of wheat flour, raising prospects of potential bread shortages on local markets, 'The Guardian' said on Wednesday. The government move is designed to boost local production. Wheat grain is not on the list of non-importable items, but there is concern that local wheat mills may not be able to meet market demand, it said. The ban was announced on Tuesday by Central Bank Governor Paul Ogwuma. The import ban also applies to maize, sorghum and millet, the newspaper said.

SENEGAL: Liberians and Sierra Leoneans seek UNHCR support

Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees in the capital Dakar were scheduled to meet UNHCR officials on Thursday to discuss further the refugees' grievances after an angry protest there earlier this week. The UNHCR Regional Representative in Dakar, Osseni Fassassi, told IRIN that the meeting would discuss the refugees' demands for UNHCR protection and assistance in Senegal. On Monday, about 70 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees demonstrated in front of the UNHCR office. The refugees agreed to leave after Fassassi met them, but a few have since returned and have started a hunger strike, he said.

There are some 300 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees in Dakar, most of whom came from Guinea-Bissau last year after the outbreak of the conflict there. Fassassi said the Sierra Leoneans and Liberians do not have full refugee status in Senegal because it is not a designated country of asylum for people from those two countries. As a temporary solution, UNHCR would explore possibilities for extending assistance to the group, and some kind of UNHCR protection document could be issued to them, he added.

GUINEA BISSAU: Junta asks for observers from CPLP states

Guinea Bissau's self-styled Military Junta has proposed that observers from the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) oversee the Abuja peace accord, because of the delay in deploying the West African interposition force, ECOMOG, a Western diplomat told IRIN last Friday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the atmosphere in Bissau as potentially dangerous because Senegalese and Junta forces were facing off not too far from each other. "There is nervousness in the Junta because of the continued presence of the Senegalese in the country," the diplomat said.

Senegal and Guinea sent troops to support President Joao Bernardo Vieira following an army mutiny in 1998. The Junta, which controls most of the country, has demanded the withdrawal of the Senegalese and Guineans. Their departure and, simultaneously, the deployment of ECOMOG troops is a provision in the Abuja accords signed in November 1998 between the Junta and the beleaguered Vieira government. The withdrawal was due to start on 10 January.

ECOMOG, which is battling rebels in Sierra Leone, has not deployed fully in Guinea Bissau. So far, only about 120 Togolese ECOMOG troops have arrived in Bissau to secure the city's airport. The Gambia is also supposed to send a company.

ICRC food for isolated villages

The ICRC has delivered food aid to the Empada area of southern Guinea Bissau for distribution to some 8,000 people in 24 villages that were particularly affected by last year's conflict. In a statement received by IRIN on Wednesday, ICRC said the population in those villages had been unable to cross the front lines and were cut off from the outside world between June and November 1998. People also faced severe hardship because the collapse of a dike and the resulting floods had destroyed their food crops. The ICRC food will meet the inhabitants' needs over the next two months, the statement said. The ICRC is now targeting its assistance to particularly vulnerable areas of the country, it added.

More donor help essential, EIU says

Guinea Bissau, one of the 15 poorest countries in the world, will need even more donor help if it is to recover from the effects of months of fighting between the government and the rebel military junta led by sacked army chief Ansumane Mane, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) says.

In its fourth quarter 1998 report on the Guinea Bissau economy, the EIU said public amenities had been destroyed and the government coffers were nearly empty. "Once the conflict is over, the country will face the enormous challenge of rebuilding not only its weakened economic infrastructure but also the social and political edifices on which that infrastructure depends," it added.

It said there were no reliable estimates of war casualties, but reportedly bodies had been left to decompose in the streets. This, "together with the lack of hygiene and sanitary facilities, increases the risk of epidemics. Humanitarian and reconstruction aid will therefore remain the authorities' top priorities," the EIU said.

The full EIU report can be found on the EIU website: http://www.eiu.com

GUINEA: Opposition leader moved to prison

Opposition leader Alpha Conde, who was arrested on 16 December two days after presidential elections in which he came in third, has been transferred to the central prison in the capital Conakry at his lawyers' request, AFP said on Wednesday. Conde has been held under house arrest on charges of illegally crossing the Guinean-Ivorian border and of threatening state security, news agencies said. AFP quoted Conde's lawyers as saying they had only been able to see their client once since his arrest and that they had not been given access to court documents in the case.

The government sealed its land borders one week before the elections. The border with Cote d'Ivoire will remain closed "until further notice", an official at the Guinean embassy in the Ivorian capital Abidjan told IRIN last Friday. Representatives of humanitarian organisations would be allowed to cross if they had official authorisation documents. The border remained closed for security reasons, in particular to prevent the flow of arms into Guinea, he added.

Four diplomats visit Conde

Meanwhile, four Western diplomats visited Conde this week, a spokeswoman for the United States Embassy in Conakry told IRIN on Thursday. She said US Ambassador Tibor J. Nagy went to see Conde along with the ambassadors of Canada and Germany and the representative of the European Union on Monday afternoon. The spokeswoman said Nagy had requested a visit with Conde "on instructions of his government". But she would not release additional details on the meeting or on Conde's condition.

Rights committee to review situation of Guinean children

Independent human rights experts began a three-week session in Geneva on Monday during which they will examine the situation of children's rights in Guinea. A UN press release said that the 20th session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child would take up the issue of Guinea on 19-20 January. Countries that ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child are obliged to present periodical reports to the 10-member committee to defend their actions towards children.

In its initial report to the Committee, a copy of which was received by IRIN on Monday, Guinea said the government had "harnessed itself to action to improve the situation of children". In spite of several obstacles, encouraging results had been achieved, it said. The government had focused its efforts on health and education with programmes targeting women and children. The 44-page report noted, however, that the country had very high rates of infant and child mortality and that malnutrition among children was a major problem. Economic hardship was leading girls into prostitution while consumption of drugs had become a serious problem for young people in urban areas. "One of the fundamental features of the situation of young children in Guinea is the scale of the needs in the face of the scarce resources available," the report added.

AFRICA: Children are deliberate targets of war, Amnesty International says

A third of the casualties of war in the past decade were under 18 years old, Amnesty International UK says in a new book on children in war. "Modern warfare is war against children" it said in a press release marking the publication of the book, 'In the firing line', on Monday. The book, launching a new campaign on human rights for children, was issued to coincide with a meeting in Geneva of the UN Working Group on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The study outlines the extent to which children have increasingly become explicit targets in warfare. More and more are being deliberately killed, tortured and recruited as combatants. It says that 300,000 children are active combatants, 14 million children are refugees or displaced people and over a third of modern war casualties are estimated to be children. The complete press release can be found on the Amnesty International UK website at http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news/index.html

Working group puts off decision

The working group, which is trying to reach agreement on a proposal to raise the minimum military recruiting age to 18 from 15, decided after a one-day meeting on Tuesday to give themselves another year to try to find a consensus. Olara Otunnu, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, told reporters he saw this as a positive move, giving more time for consultations before negotiations resumed in earnest.

New report on child soldiers published

The Coalition to stop the use of child soldiers has published the second edition of its brochure on the problem. Currently available in English, the brochure will shortly be available in French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, Coalition Communication Officer Francoise Jaffre said. It can be obtained free of charge by sending an e-mail to francoise.jaffre@wanadoo.fr.

The Coalition, which has its headquarters at GEC, 12-13 Chemin des Anemones, 1209 Chatelaine (GE), Switzerland, has also set up a website at http://www.child-soldiers.org

MAURITANIA: Opposition party pulls out of elections

The opposition party Front populaire (FP) announced on Tuesday that it was "freezing" its activities and withdrawing from the 29 January municipal elections in Mauritania, AFP reported. The FP said in a statement that it had taken the decision following the arrest of three opposition leaders on 16 December. Two opposition parties, the Union des forces democratiques (UFD) and the l'Union nationale pour la democratie et le developpement (UNDD) will face five presidential majority parties in the poll, the interior ministry said. The opposition leaders were detained after accusing the government of planning to agree to store Israeli nuclear waste in Mauritania.

BURKINA FASO: Ouedraogo returns as prime minister

President Blaise Compaore has asked Kadre Desire Ouedraogo to head the new government in Burkina Faso, AFP reported on Tuesday, quoting a presidential communique issued on Monday. Ouedraogo tendered his resignation as Prime Minsiter along with that of the government on Friday following Compaore's victory in November 15 elections. Ouedraogo, originally named prime minister in February 1996, did not have a specific political affiliation, but has since joined Compaore's Congres pour la democratie et le progres (CDP) party and was also elected to parliament.

Thousands demonstrate over journalist's death

About 3,000 people marched through the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, at the weekend in protest over the death of Norbert Zongo, the editor of the local weekly, 'L'independent', and three of his colleagues, news reports said on Monday.

Political opponents of Campaore and members of human rights organisations in Bobo Dioulasso, the country's second city, also joined Saturday's rally. AFP reported that police stayed at a discrete distance while a helicopter hovered over the march. Zongo, 49, was found dead in a burnt-out car in December on a deserted road 100 km south of Ouagadougou. The opposition has called his death foul play.

Government changes composition of Zongo commission

In a related development, the government decreed changes to the composition of the independent commission of inquiry it set up to investigate Zongo's death. The change gives greater representation to non-government bodies on the 14-member commission. PANA reported that the commission had been given five rather than eight months to complete its work.

Collective opposition refuses to take part in commission

The "Collective of Mass Organisations and Political Parties" said on Saturday it would only take part in the commission if what it called a state of seige was lifted, detainees released and sanctions lifted on those who took part in an anti-government strike last week. Zongo's death has promoted a wave of anti-government demonstrations in the country and protests by international human rights bodies and media organisations. The collective groups journalists' associations, lawyers, defenders of human rights, some political parties and grassroots organisations.

CHAD: Economy grew seven percent in 1998, government says

Chad's economy grew by seven percent in 1998, helped by good rains which pushed up food production, according to a bulletin published by the presidency's economic service. It gave no comparative figure for 1997 growth, Reuters reported on Monday. The Bank of France's Franc Zone secretariat has estimated Chad's 1997 economic growth at 6.5 percent, it said.

"Gross domestic product growth in 1998 was seven percent in volume terms, mainly thanks to exceptional levels of rain which led to an increase of about 25 percent in the production of foodstuffs," the presidency bulletin said. It noted a clear improvement in state revenues, the payment of civil service salaries and control over government expenditure since Chad signed structural adjustment agreements with the IMF and the World Bank in 1994.

BENIN: IMF approves US $14 million loan

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a US $14 million loan for Benin and expects average real growth of 5.5 percent of gross domestic product over the coming years, an IMF statement said on Monday. The IMF said the government planned new efforts to restructure its economy, privatising firms and reforming the operation of the civil service. Some 18 percent of tax revenue would go toward debt servicing. "Benin has made considerable progress in stabilising the economy and reducing financial imbalances," the statement said. "However the situation remains fragile and vulnerable to changes in the regional and international environment."

The text and a table of Benin's main economic indicators can be found on the IMF website at www.imf.org/external/index.htm

MALI: Former president sentenced to death

Former Malian president Moussa Traore and his wife Mariam were condemned to death on Tuesday after they were convicted of economic crimes, AFP reported. Traore's brother-in-law and former head of customs Abraham Douah Cissoko was given the same sentence. They had been charged with "embezzling public funds, illicit enrichment and complicity in illicit enrichment." Traore, who led Mali for 23 years until 1991, had already been sentenced to death in 1992 in a separate trial for "crimes of violence" but President Alpha Oumar Konare commuted the sentence five years later to life imprisonment. The court acquitted former finance minister Tiena Coulibaly and Moussa Kone, who once represented the Malian Development Bank in Paris.

Abidjan, 15 January 1999, 15:00 GMT

[ENDS]

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 16:35:44 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.ocha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Weekly Roundup no. 2 for 1999.01.15

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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