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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 803 (Wednesday 13 September)

CONTENTS:

GUINEA: Detainees released but tension lingers
GUINEA: Prime Minister blames Liberia for attacks
GUINEA: Outcry against sentencing of opposition leader
SIERRA LEONE: Drug shortage at Waterloo IDP camp
SIERRA LEONE: NCDDR to help 1,110 ex-fighters get jobs
SIERRA LEONE: Wives of ex-fighters get small loans
NIGERIA: Bishops urge government to solve Sharia issue

GUINEA: Detainees released but tension lingers

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Wednesday that the
some 5,000 West Africans, mainly from Sierra Leone and  Liberia, detained in
Guinea at the weekend had been released, but there was fear of further
violence or arrests. 

The detentions followed three cross-border attacks from Liberia and Sierra
Leone which, the government said, left about 80 people dead. A Sierra
Leonean humanitarian source in Conakry said some people were still afraid to
leave their homes and, if they did, to speak Krio, the Sierra Leonean lingua
franca, in public. The situation in hinterland areas was still tense. A
humanitarian source told IRIN that in areas such as Forecariah, there was
fear and apprehension among humanitarian officials, who reported hearing
shooting at night.

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday blamed the Guinean government for alleged
beatings and rapes of refugees. It released testimonies from more than 40
victims, including 10 women who said they were raped. Of these, seven
reported that they were gang-raped.  Chrys Ache, UNHCR's resident
representative in Conakry, told IRIN the reports of abuses would be
investigated.
  
[See separate items titled 'GUINEA: Rights group blames government for
attacks on refugees' and 'GUINEA: Fear prevails despite release of detained
Liberians and Sierra Leoneans']

GUINEA: Prime Minister blames Liberia for attacks

Officials from Guinea and Liberia are to hold talks before the end of the
week to reduce the tension between the two countries that has endangered
some 500,000 refugees living in Guinea, reports said Wednesday.

The announcement of the talks followed discussions between Malian President
Alpha Oumar Konare, chairman of the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS), and Liberian President Charles Taylor and Guinean President
Lansana Conte in Monrovia and Conakry respectively. 

The president of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, met with Conte on Tuesday
in Conakry. While armed men from Sierra Leone, as well as Liberia, are
accused of carrying out the cross-border attacks that have raised regional
tension, the dispute is largely between Liberia and Guinea. Each country has
accused the other of harbouring dissidents seeking to destabilize its
government. 

Konare was quoted by AFP after his meetings with Taylor and Conte as saying
"hope was permitted" regarding resolving the dispute. "I think his coming
will help to lower tension in the sub-region," Taylor told the BBC.

Guinea's prime minister, Lamine Sidime, on Tuesday blamed Liberia for the
recent attacks. "Everything points to the fact that it is an external
aggression from Liberia which has, for years, been preparing to engage in
war with Guinea," Lamine told Radio France Internationale. He accused
Burkina Faso of complicity. 

GUINEA: Outcry against sentencing of opposition leader

Human rights groups and foreign governments have protested the sentencing on
Monday of Guinean opposition leader Alpha Conde, saying his penalty was a
setback for democracy.

Supporters of Conde, meanwhile, said his jailing on sedition charges was
expected and accused President Lansana Conte of trying to eliminate his
political adversaries so as to complete, without hindrance, the five-year
term he won in 1998 elections. 

"It's no surprise" that Conde was jailed for five years, Sekou Tatia
Coumbassa, a senior member of Conde's Rassemblement du Peuple de Guinee told
IRIN on Wednesday. "It has nothing to do with the current situation in
Guinea."

Coumbassa was referring to recent cross-border attacks by armed men from
Sierra Leone and Liberia that prompted the Guinean government to round-up
5,000 West Africans at the weekend for screening. They have been released
but authorities remain cautious. Prime Minister Lamine Sidime on Tuesday
blamed "opponents in the Alpha Conde camp", along with Liberia and Burkina
Faso, of being behind the attacks. 

Conde, a former parliamentarian, was arrested in December 1998 near the
border with Cote d'Ivoire, a day after the presidential election in which he
finished third amid allegations of vote rigging. The parliamentary assembly
of the Francophonie on Wednesday renewed its call for Conde's immediate
release and for political dialogue in Guinea. The Beninese League for the
Defense of Human Rights called Conde's sentencing "a parody of justice".

For its part, the United States said Conde's sentencing was a blow to
confidence in Guinea's judicial system as well as its commitment to
democracy.

"Such actions against an opposition leader corrode democracy and are
destabilizing for Guinea," a State Department spokesman said."  We also find
the government of Guinea's claims that Conde was helping to organize recent
incursions from Sierra Leone into Guinea to be without foundation. We've
seen no evidence to support such claims." 

SIERRA LEONE: Drug shortage at Waterloo IDP camp

Doctors employed by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) say
they have doubled to 4,000 the chloroquine tablets they provide each week to
IDPs at a medical centre that ADRA runs in Waterloo, east of Freetown, WHO
reported. The centre is located in an IDP camp.
 
An Argentinian surgeon at the centre, Rubin Rostrand, told WHO the NGO was
having "serious trouble" maintaining an adequate supply of medicines since
many new people were coming in sick with malaria and infectious diseases,
the UN agency said in its Health Update for Sierra Leone of 8 September.
	
SIERRA LEONE: NCDDR to help 1,110 ex-fighters get jobs

A government committee for the reintegration of former fighters says it has
signed another contract with six  implementation partners that will provide
training and jobs for nearly 1,100 ex-combatants of the country's civil war.

The largest number of former fighters, 150, will be trained and employed by
the Agricultural Production Extension and General Services, which is
undertaking a small-scale animal production project in the Western Area of
Freetown, the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and
Reintegration (NCDDR) reported.

The five other partners are the Government Technical Institute, the Sierra
Leone Roads Authority, the Social Awareness and Development office, the
Social Economic Development Office, and the Yamina Skills Training Centre.

NCDDR Executive Secretary Francis Kai-Kai said 15 more projects were being
prepared that should benefit 1,020 ex-combatants. 

SIERRA LEONE: Wives of ex-fighters get small loans

Wives of former fighters in Sierra Leone will receive loans to start small
businesses aimed at reducing their dependency on their husbands, according
to the state agency responsible for the programme. 

The National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration
(NCDDR) said in a report on 8 September that 300 participants in the
programme attended a three-day workshop  in early September on good
book-keeping and efficient money management. The workshop was organised with
Counterparts in Rehabilitation and Development Sierra Leone. The committee
expects to contract another NGO to implement similar programmes in the
southeastern districts of Bo and Kenema for another 300 wives of former
fighters. 

NCDDR Executive Secretary Francis Kai-Kai told workshop participants that
the schemes would hopefully induce more fighters to leave the bush and sign
up. Those qualified to take part in the programme include the disabled, the
elderly, female ex-combatants and the wives of ex-fighters undergoing formal
education or vocational training.

NIGERIA: Bishops urge government to solve Sharia issue
The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has urged the government
to find a lasting solution to the controversy caused by the imposition of
Sharia in some Nigerian states, 'The Guardian' newspaper of Lagos reported.
If this were not done, the organisation said, democracy and national unity
could be derailed. 
CBCN President John Onaiyekan, who is the archbishop of Abuja, said on
Tuesday at the opening of a four-day bishops' conference in Kaduna that
"Christians are being negatively and unjustly affected. They are unjustly
being deprived of their legitimate means of livelihood."  He said: "Fanatics
are being encouraged to molest law-abiding citizens without cause, and
without attention to their freedom to practice and propagate their faith,
guaranteed in the constitution." 

Abidjan, 13 September 2000; 17:55 GMT

[ENDS]

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