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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 33 covering the period 14-20 August 1999
LIBERIA: Army in control of northwestern towns
Liberian Information Minister Joe Mulbah told IRIN on Thursday that the government was in control of all the main towns in Lofa County except Voinjama.
"We are crushing the rebellion," he said.
Heavily armed rebels calling themselves the Joint Forces of Liberation for Liberia (JFFL) burnt villages as they retreated towards Guinea, he said. The Liberian government has said that the invading dissidents came from Guinea but the government in Conakry has denied involvement in the matter.
Several dissident groups are based in north-western Liberia, an insecure and volatile region close to the borders with Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Civilians and refugees flee
The fighting has forced internally displaced Liberians and thousands of Sierra Leonean refugees to pour into the northwest districts of Zorzor and Salayea prompting Mulbah to ask the UN and donors for relief aid.
The Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission told IRIN on Wednesday that some 11,000 civilians had arrived in Zorzor and that it was conducting an assessment mission in the town.
On Thursday, news reports said, the Sierra Leone Embassy in Liberia asked the United Nations to investigate reports that refugees had been shot dead in the north-western town of Kolahun - host to more than 20,000 refugees - and that others were suffering acute food shortages.
Situation in Vahun calm, UNHCR compound looted
Reports sent to UNHCR in Abidjan described the situation in the northwestern town of Vahun as "calm", although with the evacuation of UNHCR staff last weekend the situation could no longer be monitored. Vahun hosts some 12,000 Sierra Leonean refugees who fled to Liberia early in 1998.
For the second time since the evacuation, the head of the UNHCR office returned to Vahun by helicopter on Wednesday and reported that everything had been looted in the UNHCR compound except for the base radio, the generator and a refrigerator.
Some 13 UNHCR vehicles have also been looted, 10 from Vahun, including two that were transferred from Kolahun, and three from Voinjama.
A UN official told AFP that some 800 mt of food had been stolen and another 13 vehicles used by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had been commandeered.
The UNHCR said its priority now was to have high-level meetings in Liberia between the United Nations, the Liberian authorities and NGOs to define the next course of action. The UNHCR Regional Director for West Africa, Abou Moussa, is to travel there on Monday.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Efforts to rebuild continue
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has helped rebuild 18 community schools as part of efforts to rehabilitate Guinea-Bissau's health and education sectors, damaged during last year's military uprising.
Another 20 schools are to be rebuilt under the UNICEF-supported project aimed at eliminating the need for makeshift rural schools, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Guinea-Bissau said in its latest situation report.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is supporting a pilot literacy project for 300 women in the east-central region of Bafat. with food-for-training aimed at encouraging course participation.
WFP is also providing food to support canteens, OCHA said in the report, which covers 1-15 August 1999. The Education Ministry is to create literacy centres in each of the schools with UNICEF support, it said.
Water and Sanitation
In the area of water and sanitation, UNICEF has completed the repair of 10 deep wells in Bissau and begun digging five new ones, in addition to providing drinking water in areas identified as vulnerable to potential cholera outbreaks, OCHA reported.
Seed distribution
Seeds have been distributed throughout the country with help from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Regular rains and the absence of excessive insect infestations have allowed a satisfactory development of crops such as rice, corn, peanuts, millet and sorghum. Corn harvesting has begun in the eastern regions of Gab. and Bafat..
Vaccination
The Ministry of Health has initiated a measles vaccination
campaign in the southern region of Tombali (Catio and
Timbo sectors). CARITAS and WFP have started a pilot
project to increase pre-natal check-ups by giving food
as an incentive to pregnant women in the eastern region
of Gab.. They plan to extend the project to the rest
of the country.
National reconciliation conference
Representatives of political and civil-society groups committed themselves to returning Guinea-Bissau to constitutional order at a conference on 12-14 August that marked the first time such a broad cross section of forces have met there since the 1998 military uprising.
A humanitarian source told IRIN on Wednesday the meeting of 12-14 August allowed for the provision of "principles and recommendations which, from now on, should be applied in the future governance of Guinea-Bissau".
One of the principles agreed on was that there be reconciliation without excluding anyone. However, there should be no impunity. Justice must be done but there should be no vengeance, participants noted.
Guinea-Bissau was wracked in 1998 by a war between the government of then president Joao Bernardo Vieira and a self-styled Military Junta headed by Brigadier-General Ansumane Mane. Under a peace agreement signed at the end of 1998, an interim government was set up early this year, but the Military Junta overthrew Vieira on 7 May 1999.
SIERRA LEONE: Phase one of disarmament completed
With the discharge of 1,408 former Sierra Leone Army (ex-SLA) soldiers, the government and its partners have completed the first phase of a disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme aimed at consolidating peace in Sierra Leone, a UN report said.
In its report for July and August, the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unity (HACU) for Sierra Leone said the DDR centre in Lungi - about 17 km north of Freetown - had been reopened. It has been receiving ex-SLA soldiers who surrendered before the start of the programme, which assumes that 33,000 to 40,000 combatants will need to be disarmed and reintegrated into society. The operation is expected to cost up to US $35 million.
Curfew relaxed
A curfew imposed on Freetown almost eight months ago was reduced by two hours beginning Thursday, ECOMOG Chief Military Press Information Officer Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN.
Confirming reports that the relaxation was announced in an official communique broadcast on state radio, Olukolade said the curfew would now begin at 21:00 and end at 06:00. He said it would be relaxed further "as the security situation improves". Prior to this, the curfew began at 20:00 and ended at 07:00.
Olukolade said security arrangements had been modified for the Freetown metropolitan area: the number of fixed check points have been reduced and more mobile patrols have been introduced, in response to an increase in crime.
"Now that we are relaxing security we don't want people to take advantage of this," he said.
He added that the relaxation of security was meant to spur socio-economic activity, and complement the progress so far made in the peace effort.
Some US $24 million needed for UNOMSIL expansion
Over US $24 million will be required for the provisional expansion of the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) until details are finalized for an enhanced UN peacekeeping presence in the country, according to budget estimates released at UN Headquarters on 13 August.
In an addendum to a 30 July report to the Security Council, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the financing would cover a 10-month period ending in June 2000 and fund the gradual phase-in of 140 additional military observers.
The money would also cover the addition of 59 international civilian personnel and 21 local workers to UNOMSIL's staff.
The Secretary-General had recommended strengthening UNOMSIL so that it could help implement the 7 July peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary United Front.
WESTERN SAHARA: MINURSO continues identification process
The UN Mission in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is continuing
to identify members of "contested tribes"
and conduct an appeals process for people deemed ineligible
to vote in an upcoming referendum, UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan said in a new report.
Contested tribes are groups over which there is disagreement as to whether they should be identified as Sahrawi. The report deals with the status of preparations for the referendum, which will allow the people in the former Spanish colony to chose between independence or integration with Morocco.
MINURSO and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are also stepping up preparations to repatriate refugees to the territory, Annan said. Delays in solving certain issues in the identification operation, the staggered opening of appeals centres and staffing shortages have affected parts of the timetable for the referendum process, he added.
NIGERIA: Military to be slashed
Nigeria will slash military manpower over the next four years from the current 80,000 to 50,000 in a cost-cutting measure also aimed at professionalising the services, Defence Minister Theophilus Danjuma told reporters on Tuesday.
The measure will result in a leaner, better equipped military completely subordinate to civilian authority after decades of military rule, `The Guardian' newspaper quoted him as saying.
The army's strength will be 30,000, while the navy and air force will each have 10,000 troops.
Danjuma said this would imply reduced Nigerian participation in the West African regional force, ECOMOG. "The dominant role Nigeria is playing in ECOMOG, which is akin to America's role in NATO, though commendable, is not in our long-term interest because of its enormous cost to our national economy," Danjuma was quoted as saying.
Defence spending - the largest single element in Nigeria's budget - accounts for 16.7 billion naira (US $160 million), compared to 13.3 billion naira (US $127 million) for education, AFP reported.
Digital phones for 20 cities
The government has ordered the Nigerian Mobile Telecommunications
Limited (M-Tel) to introduce immediately a Global System
of Mobile communications (GSM) in at least 20 cities
in the country, `The Guardian' reported.
GSM is digital, unlike the present analogue system M-Tel
operates. The newspaper reported that the company had
asked Telnet Nigeria Limited and Telia of Sweden for
a design and survey of the 20 cities for the GSM network.
CAMEROON: Crisis committee orders urgent action on lake
Cameroon's National Crisis Committee has recommended extracting large deposits of carbon dioxide from Lake Nyos to prevent a repetition of an explosion in 1986 that killed some 2,000 people, AFP reported on Saturday. The decision followed a visit to Nyos last week by experts from the Institute of Geological and Mineral Research who said several large cracks had formed beside the lake, AFP said.
BURKINA FASO: General strike
Workers in Burkina Faso staged a 48-hour general strike that ended on Thursday and was the second such protest in less than two months.
The secretary for organisation and coordination of the Confederation nationale des Travailleurs burkinabe (CNTB), Thomas Paulin Ouedraogo, told IRIN on Thursday that one of the main reasons for the protest was the dismissal of eight shop stewards at a sugar company privatised in 1998.
The unions want the Societe Sucriere de la Comoe (SOSSUCO) to reinstate the shop stewards who, they say, were dismissed for participating in a general strike on 29-30 June. The unions also want the withdrawal of dismissal warnings issued to 47 workers of a local cement company for participating in the strike.
Another demand is the repeal of a new decree which requires holders of the baccalaureat to sit a university entrance examination which, Ouedraogo charged, "reduces the value of the bac".
CHAD: WFP nutrition project targets over 41,000 women, children
At least 41,000 women and children are expected to benefit from a project aimed at supporting rehabilitation and nutritional education in Kanem prefecture in north-western Chad, WFP announced.
WFP aid of at least US $1.4 million will be used to provide food for severely malnourished children, households with moderately malnourished children aged six to 59 months and the mothers of severely malnourished children when the mothers are hospitalised.
The two-year project is also aimed at improving the monitoring of malnourished children and their mothers as well as pregnant and nursing women, according to WFP.
The project agreement, signed on 13 August, will be
implemented by Action contre la Faim (ACF), an international
non-governmental organisation that has been operating
successfully in Kanem since 1994. WFP reported that
ACT was contributing US $325,000 to the initiative
and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) US $100,000.
MAURITANIA: Joint police unit set up on border security
Mali, Mauritania and Senegal have agreed to set up a joint police unit to stop banditry along their common border, news sources told IRIN on Tuesday. A reporter with Senegal's official news agency, APS, said about 100 Senegalese gendarmes have been operating in the border area against drug traffickers, car jackers and gangs that attack communities.
Abidjan, 20 August 1999; 18:18 GMT
(ENDS)
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1460
[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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