Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 17:30:00 +0000 (GMT)
From: IRIN <irin-wa@irin.ci>
To: english@ocha.unon.org
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.10005291729210.3382-100000@mail.irin.ci>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Subject: WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 726   [2000530]
Precedence: bulk
Sender: IRIN - English Service <english@ocha.unon.org>







U N I T E D  N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 726 (Monday 29 May)

CONTENTS:

SIERRA LEONE: RUF releases last batch of peacekeepers
SIERRA LEONE: Deaths on both sides at Rogberi
SIERRA LEONE: Lungi health facilities desperate
SIERRA LEONE: Amnesty calls for wider UN mandate
SIERRA LEONE: WFP distributes food to Bo and Kenema
SIERRA LEONE: RUF using terror tactics again
SIERRA LEONE: Casualties
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Low voter turnout in local polls
GUINEA-BISSAU: Politician, journalists Arrested
COTE D'IVOIRE: Draft constitution published

SIERRA LEONE: RUF releases last batch of peacekeepers

The last of the UN peacekeepers held by the Revolutionary United Front
(RUF) arrived in Sierra Leone via Liberia on Sunday. As with groups of UN
peacekeepers freed earlier, the release of the 84 Zambians and one Gambian
military observer was negotiated by Liberian President Charles Taylor.

Four of the some 500 UN personnel seized by the RUF earlier this month
remain unaccounted for. UN mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) spokesman
David Wimhurst said the missing peacekeepers were likely to be among the
bodies discovered last week in Rogberi Junction, northeast of Freetown.

[See separate item titled 'SIERRA LEONE: Last peacekeepers freed']

SIERRA LEONE: Deaths on both sides at Rogberi

Reports from defence headquarters in Freetown say both rebel and loyalist
forces sustained casualties in heavy fighting at Rogberi Junction on
Friday, Sierra Leone radio reported on Sunday.

Up to a dozen government soldiers and 29 Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
rebels were killed before the 2nd Infantry Brigade of the Sierra Leone
Army forced the rebels to withdraw, state radio said. At least 14 RUF were
wounded during the battle, it added.

SIERRA LEONE: Lungi health facilities desperate

A Ministry of Health assessment mission led by Sierra Leone's deputy
health minister visited the Lungi referral hospital - close to Freetown -
and five local clinics on Thursday and was told that help was needed
urgently, according to a 25-26 May situation report by the UN Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

An International Medical Corps doctor working at the hospital said that
facilities were "desperately overextended and we're looking for any kind
of intervention from NGOs and international organisations". The week prior
to the visit there were 78 patients, suffering mainly from gunshot wounds,
in a hospital not equipped to deal with trauma cases.

The team was told that the hospital was also receiving 300 to 350 cases of
bloody diarrhoea every week from just two of the local health units and
that some of its equipment had been vandalised. The mission expressed
concern over conditions but "funding was pending for an emergency
intervention", OCHA reported.

Meanwhile around 350 former child soldiers from the Interim Care Centre
(ICC) in the northern town of Lunsar were relocated to Lungi on 12 May by
the Roman Catholic NGO CARITAS. A spokesman for CARITAS told OCHA that
some of the children, whose average age was 10, still had problems with
bed-wetting and nightmares.

SIERRA LEONE: Amnesty calls for wider UN mandate

Pierre Sane, secretary-general of Amnesty International, has called for
the UN peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone to have a wider mandate to
be able to protect civilians fully, according to an Amnesty statement
issued in Freetown on Friday.

Referring to a letter AI sent last week to the UN Security Council
emphasising the need for the peacekeeping mandate to be expanded, Sane
said: "Peacekeepers must actively protect civilians at all times, not just
those 'under imminent threat of physical violence' which is currently
their mandate.

"UNAMSIL forces must have the necessary training and logistical support to
carry out this mandate throughout the country."

Sane paid a two-day visit to Sierra Leone during which he met with
President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, government officials, UN representatives,
foreign officials and members of the NGO community. He outlined the human
rights agenda of AI saying that it must be "at the heart of international
concern if this crisis is to be resolved".

He also said that impunity must end and an international commission of
inquiry established to investigate human rights abuses that occurred
during the internal conflict. He also called on all governments to enforce
the existing UN arms embargo to prevent weapons from reaching rebel forces
and demanded an end to the international diamond trade from rebel-held
areas in Sierra Leone.

SIERRA LEONE: WFP distributes food to Bo and Kenema

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has distributed some 360 mt of food aid
to communities in the south and east of Sierra Leone, an emergency report
dated 26 May said.

In the southern town of Bo, some 177 mt of food was delivered to 13,102
people in need while in the eastern town of Kenema 19,482 people received
some 192 mt, WFP reported. The Bo office said that its activities had now
returned to the same levels reached before the current crisis, sparked by
the detention of up to 500 UN peacekeepers by rebel forces. However, in
Kenema security concerns were still hindering activities outside the town,
WFP said.

WFP also distributed food to displaced people in Freetown while some 1,664
people participating in a food-for-work road repairs project between
Freetown and Loko Massama have received some 44 mt of food, the report
said.

SIERRA LEONE: RUF using terror tactics again

The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels have reportedly committed
atrocities against civilians in the Masiaka area some 70 km east of
Freetown, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday.

"These fresh reports of RUF atrocities underscore the need for the
international community to make protection of civilians its first priority
in Sierra Leone," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa
division of the New York-based HRW, said. "UN forces must aim to expand
the circle of protection beyond Freetown as soon as possible."

Not long after the detention of some 500 UN peacekeepers in early May the
RUF launched an offensive into the Masiaka area, the statement said.
During its week-long occupation, the RUF committed murder, mutilation,
rape, looting, abduction and other abuses against civilians, before being
repelled by a coalition of pro-government forces, HRW reported.

SIERRA LEONE: Casualties

Eleven or 12 UN troops have died in Sierra Leone since the Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) started attacking and detaining peacekeepers in early
May, UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) Force Commander Vijay Jetley
said on Monday. Another 25 to 30 were wounded, he said. Of the dead, two
were killed in Freetown, while the others died in northern localities:
Port Loko (1), Lunsar (4 or 5), and Makeni/Magburaka (4).

EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Low voter turnout in local polls

Low voter turnout characterised municipal elections in Equatorial Guinea
on Sunday after opposition parties calling the event an "electoral farce"
asked people to stay away, AFP reported.

AFP said that many polling centres closed early in the absence of voters
in an election which the ruling Partido Democratico Guinea Equatorial is
expected to win. Three radical opposition parties - the Convergencia para
la Democracia Social, Union Popular and Alianza Democratica Progresiva
called for a boycott because of a lack of transparency.

Eleven other opposition parties, considered close to the government, did
not participate in the two-week campaign leading to the elections.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Politician, journalists arrested

State television in Guinea-Bissau was off the air for the second day on
Monday as employees protested against the detention of two of their
colleagues, arrested on Saturday, the Portuguese news agency Lusa
reported.

Lusa and other news organisations reported that the journalists were
arrested after a statement by Alianca socialista da Guine (ASG) leader
Fernando Gomes accusing the country's prime minister of corruption, was
read out on the television station.

Gomes, who had been responding to a similar accusation Prime Minister
Caetano Intchama had made against him and which he had denied, was
arrested on Sunday, Lusa said.

COTE D'IVOIRE: Draft constitution published

The draft of a new constitution that requires any presidential candidate
"to be of Ivoirian origin, born of a father or mother themselves of
Ivoirian origin" was published on Friday in the official gazette of Cote
d'Ivoire.

Presidential hopefuls must never have relinquished their Ivoirian
citizenship or adopted any other nationality, must have resided
continuously in Cote d'Ivoire in the five years preceding the election and
must have lived a total of at least 10 years in the country.

Diplomats posted abroad, international civil servants and political exiles
are exempted from the residency requirement, according to the draft, on
which the population is to vote at a referendum on 23 July.

The draft also bans political parties created on the basis of regional,
ethnic, racial or religious affiliation, and outlaws job discrimination on
grounds of sex or political, religious or philosophical beliefs.

Elections will now be organised by an independent commission which, a
political analyst told IRIN, is a new development since polls have
hitherto been organised by the Ministry of the Interior.

If passed, the draft constitution would likely disqualify a key opposition
politician, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, from running for president. His
candidacy has been the centre of political controversy in Cote d'Ivoire in
recent years.

ABIDJAN, 29 May 2000; 17:45 GMT

[ENDS]

[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 22-40-4440; Fax (Admin): +225 22-40-4435; Fax (Editorial
Desk): 225-22-41-9339; e-mail:irin-wa@irin.ci]




[This item is delivered in the English service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org 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 2000
 

Subscriber: zdwf-@t-online.de
Keyword: IRIN-WA