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Subject: WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 939 [2010328]
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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 939 (Tuesday 27 March)

CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Cameroonian to head UN panel on Liberia
LIBERIA: Rights body denounces crackdown on students
SIERRA LEONE: Government won't condemn Guinean attacks
SIERRA LEONE: Ambassador to Liberia returns home
WEST AFRICA: ECOWAS summit on regional crisis
GHANA: Refugees attack police post at UNHCR facility
NIGERIA: 80 die in meningitis outbreak
GUINEA-BISSAU: Opposition against new government

LIBERIA: Cameroonian to head UN panel on Liberia

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has named Martin Chungong Ayafor as head of
a five-member panel to monitor Liberia's compliance with Security Council
measures aimed at ending Monrovia's support for rebels in Sierra Leone. 

Other panel members are Atabou Bodian of Senegal, from the International
Civil Aviation Organization; Johan Peleman, an expert on arms and
transportation from Belgium; Harjit Singh Sandhu of India, an expert from
Interpol; and Alex Vines, a diamond expert from the United Kingdom. Ayafor,
who comes from Cameroon, had chaired an earlier panel of experts that dealt
with violations of the sanctions in Sierra Leone, the UN reported. 

The panel will sit for six months during which it will investigate
violations of the sanctions, as well as links between the exploitation of
natural resources and the fuelling of the conflict in the region, the UN
reported. 

Annan nominations to the Council on Friday came the week Liberian President
Charles Taylor informed Annan that Monrovia had taken steps to comply with
the Council's sanctions on diamond dealings and support for the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF). In addition, Taylor renewed on Monday his
demand that UN peacekeepers be deployed to Liberia to verify it was not
supplying the RUF with arms, Reuters reported. 

LIBERIA: Rights body denounces crackdown on students

Liberia's leading rights watchdog, the Catholic Justice and Peace
Commission, has asked the government to punish all state security agents and
their commanders who assaulted unarmed students at the University of Liberia
last week.

"The JPC notes particularly the brutal and personal involvement of Deputy
Police Director for Operations Saah Gborlie, who was conspicuously seen
flogging and assaulting unarmed and helpless university students," the
organization reported.

It was action the radical Student Integration Movement described as "the
importation of violence, barbarism and atrocities" onto the campus.  

The students were meeting to raise legal fees for four reporters detained on
21 February for publishing a story critical of the US $50,000 used to repair
helicopters while civil servants went unpaid for months. The journalists
were charged with espionage and the Criminal Court has refused them bail. 

"The JPC views this latest attack on the media as a calculated design to
systematically muzzle and stifle the Liberian press into submission and self
censorship, thereby creating a quiet and passive civic society," the
commission said. 

It noted that all these developments were occurring at a time when the
country faced a serious image problem and the imposition of sanctions on 7
May. 

"These incidents do not speak well of the government's commitment to human
rights and good governance," the commission said. 

SIERRA LEONE: Government won't condemn Guinean attacks

Despite taking civilian casualties, Sierra Leone will not condemn Guinea's
recent cross-border pursuits of rebel forces, Information Minister Julius
Spencer told IRIN on Tuesday. 

He said Freetown did "not want to jeopardize the relationship between Guinea
and Sierra Leone". Guinea and Sierra Leone are long-standing allies - and
with Liberia form the Mano River Union, a trading bloc set up in 1973.

However, in retaliation against rebel attacks on its soil, the Guinea Air
Force has been bombing rebel positions in Sierra Leonean border towns.
Guinea accuses Liberia, Burkina Faso and the rebel Revolutionary United
Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone of supporting the insurgents. Civilians have
been killed and wounded, and tens of thousands of refugees and Guineans
displaced by the fighting. Spencer, who described the Guinean actions as
having been "provoked by the RUF", said that his government was trying to
prevent further civilian suffering.
 
SIERRA LEONE: Ambassador to Liberia returns home

Sierra Leone's ambassador returned to Freetown on Monday following his
expulsion from Liberia, Information Minister Julius Spencer told IRIN on
Tuesday. On 19 March the Sierra Leonean envoy, Kemoh Salia-Bao and his
Guinean counterpart, Baba Soare, were told to leave Liberian because of what
the government said were "acts incompatible with their status". 

WEST AFRICA: ECOWAS summit on regional crisis

A regional heads of state summit meeting will take place early on 11 April
and high on the agenda will be the ongoing crisis on the borders between
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, news organizations reported on Monday
 
This was one of the decisions taken at a summit Sunday between Malian
President Alpha Konare - currently chairman of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS)- and Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo. 

The extraordinary ECOWAS summit will take place in the Nigerian capital,
Abuja, to try bring the presidents of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone
together to make peace. Hundreds of people have died in fighting along the
borders since the conflict began in September 2000. Each side blames the
other for the cross-border attacks by unidentified insurgents.

GHANA: Refugees attack police post at UNHCR facility

Liberian leaders at the Bunduburam refugee camp, near the central city of
Kumasi, have criticised newly arrived inmates for vandalising property and
attacking the police post at a UNHCR office, the Ghana News Agency reported
on Monday.

The head of the Liberian Welfare Council at the camp, Joseph Myers, blamed
Saturday's rioting on "undisciplined, new refugees". The refugees damaged
the camp's police post and living quarters, the offices of the National
Mobilisation Programme, and the Ghana National Fire Service.  

Trouble started when an unknown assailant slashed a refugee, Thomas Davies,
in the abdomen with a cutlass while he was asleep, camp manager Edwin
Acheampong told GNA. Davies was treated at the 37 Military Hospital and
discharged.

On Sunday a group of refugees stopped Kwame Amoako, a Ghanaian resident, in
the area and questioned him about his movements. A scuffle broke out 
and police took Amoako in for questioning and to conduct an investigation.
Meanwhile, word reached the camp that a "suspect" had been arrested. Then,
refugees went to the police and demanded they release Amoako to them for
instant justice. The police refused and the refugees attacked, Acheampong
said.

Police used tear gas and fired warning shots to disperse the attackers.
Police also restrained residents of Kasoa and Wutu who rushed to the camp to
retaliate against the refugees.

NIGERIA: 80 die in meningitis outbreak

Meningitis has killed at least 80 people in the past week in central Niger
State, AFP quoted state Health Commissioner Zagbayi Nuhu as saying in a
radio broadcast on Monday.

Another 200 people, from the municipalities of Lavum, Shiroro and Suleja,
have been hospitalized, Nuhu said. The commissioner blamed the outbreak on
overcrowding in villages and "intense heat" throughout the state, AFP
reported.

Recent reports said that at least 30 people had died after meningitis hit
the northern state of Sokoto. Reports that some vaccines distributed by
western agencies were contaminated have led to a fall in immunisation levels
in some parts of the country.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Opposition against new government

Guinea-Bissau's main opposition parties said on Monday they would not
cooperate with the new government because it was unrepresentative of all
political forces in the country, Lusa reported. 

Their statement came few hours after the newly appointed prime minister,
Faustino Imbali, announced his new team of 14 ministers and eight state
secretaries. Imbali was appointed on Wednesday to replace Caetano Intchama
and promised to concentrate on resolving the instability in the country. 

However, the opposition objected to Imbali's nomination, by President Kumba
Yala. Local political observers had said Imbali's appointment would likely
add to the prevailing political uncertainty that has gripped the country
since May 1999 when President Joao Bernardo Vieira was overthrown by General
Ansumane Mane. Mane was killed in November 2000 by forces loyal to Yala over
a dispute about promotions within the armed forces. 

Abidjan, 27 March 2001; 18:27 GMT

[ENDS]

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(Editorial Desk): +225-22-41-9339; e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci]


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