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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly 253 covering 27 Nov-3 Dec - OCHA IRIN

Sunday 16 January 2005


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IRIN-WA Weekly 253 covering 27 Nov-3 Dec

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Money runs out to train, rehabilitate disarmed fighters
COTE D IVOIRE-LIBERIA: Ivorian refugees start trickling home – UNHCR
MAURITANIA: President raises wages ahead of oil boom
COTE D IVOIRE: Row develops over killings by French troops
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Mercenary trial was unfair, legal observers say
BENIN-WEST AFRICA: Regional intervention force begins 10-day training in Benin
GUINEA-BISSAU: 65 senior officers readmitted to armed forces

LIBERIA: Money runs out to train, rehabilitate disarmed fighters

The Liberian authorities have run out of money to provide education and training for over 100,000 people who have registered as former combatants in the country's 14-year civil war, a spokesman for the country's disarmament commission said on Thursday.

“Presently, the Trust Funds for the reintegration and rehabilitation of fighters have run out. There is need for additional funding...because the disarmed fighters have exceeded the target mark of 100,000”, Molley Passaway, the official spokesman of the National Commission on Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration, told IRIN.

“Out of those disarmed, only 26,000 are now benefiting from skills training and formal education, but the rest are of serious concern to the commission”, he added.

Gyude Bryant, the Chairman of Liberia’s transitional government, said in September that US$44 million was still needed to pay for the rehabilitation of former combatants.

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COTE D IVOIRE-LIBERIA: Ivorian refugees start trickling home – UNHCR

The flood of refugees fleeing Cote d’Ivoire into north-eastern Liberia since early November trickled to a halt for the first time this weekend, with a few even returning home as tension eased, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Monday.

“Today the Cestos river that divides the two West African countries is no longer bustling with canoes carrying Ivorian refugees to Liberia,” UNHCR spokeswoman Francesca Fontanini said in a statement. “Instead, the population movement has been reversed, with small groups of refugees crossing back to their villages in Cote d’Ivoire,” she added.

A total 10,045 Ivorian refugees have been registered in Nimba county, north-eastern Liberia, by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Liberian National Red Cross Society since the latest round of hostilities erupted between Ivorian government troops and rebels on November 4. Aid workers have estimated that up to 19,000 people may have crossed the border.

Liberia is still struggling to recover from 14 years of brutal civil war, and the WFP estimates that nearly a third of its three million people will need food hand-outs in 2005.

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MAURITANIA: President raises wages ahead of oil boom

Brushing aside plots to overthrow him and a weakening national currency, President Maaouiya Ould Taya has announced a massive increase in pay and pensions as Mauritania prepares to become Africa's newest oil exporter.

He announced a flat-rate pay rise of 8,000 ouguiyas (US$31)per month for all civil servants in a speech at the weekend to mark the 44th anniversary of independence. That will boost the salary of the lowest paid government employees by a third when it comes into force in January.

Some of the 2.8 million people in this desert country in West Africa may have wondered how Ould Taya was going to pay for such a huge pay rise following this year's devastating invasion by swarms of locusts which destoyed half of all crops and much of the pasture used by nomads to graze their animals.

But Ould Taya, a former army colonel who seized power in a 1984 coup, pointed to new riches on the horizon. He said in a speech broadcast on radio and television that Mauritania would start to export copper and gold during the first half of 2005 and its first offshore oilfield would come on stream in December next year.

This is the second year in a row that Ould Taya has announced hefty pay rises for the civil service. He badly needs to secure a strong base of civilian support following three failed coup attempts staged by dissident army officers over the past 18 months and his suppression of Islamic radicals who form the backbone of the civilian opposition.

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COTE D IVOIRE: Row develops over killings by French troops

The French government has admitted that its soldiers in Cote d'Ivoire killed "about 20" people in Abidjan last month when they fired into angry crowds of supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo.

The revelation, in a statement by the Defence Ministry on Tuesday, has raised questions within France and furher afield about whether the French troops used an excessive amount of force to control the situation during four days of anti-French rioting in the city.

The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) immediately called for a parliamentary investigation of the killings and the opposition Communist and Socialist parties joined forces to demand a commission of enquiry.

The FIDH also called for a separate inquiry into the Ivorian government's suspected role in instigating the violence. "The xenophobia shown by the the Young Patriots (pro-Gbagbo militants) with the complicity, possibly even at the instigation of certain Ivorian authorities could only have exacerbated these demonstrations of hatred," it said.

The confrontations took place between 6 and 9 November near Abidjan airport and the Hotel Ivoire, a skyscraper hotel situated only 200 metres from Gbagbo's official residence. The hotel was occupied by French forces as they helped to evacuate nearly 9,000 foreigners, mainly French nationals, who had decided to flee the country following a fresh outbreak of fighting with rebels occupying the north of the country.

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EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Mercenary trial was unfair, legal observers say

Specialists in international law and human rights who observed the recent trial of alleged coup plotters and mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea said on Wednesday that it had been conducted unfairly and in breach of international conventions.

Lengthy prison sentences were handed down by a court in the capital Malabo last Friday against 20 people, 11 of them foreigners. All were convicted of plotting to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema by helping to prepare an abortive invasion of the oil-rich West African nation by South African mercenaries .

Marise Castro, who observed the proceedings for Amnesty International, told IRIN by telephone from London that “it was not in our view a fair trial.”

Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the London-based International Bar Association which also sent an observer to the hearings, said “the trial fell short of international fair trial standards.”

Castro said the 15 foreign nationals arrested on 8 March in the capital Malabo - one of whom died in custody nine days later - had been held “day and night since their arrest in handcuffs and (ankle) shackles that weren’t even removed to go to the toilet.”

Ellis said the court’s refusal to take into consideration allegations of torture by the defendants and their lawyers was “a fundamental breach of internarional law.”

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BENIN-WEST AFRICA: Regional intervention force begins 10-day training in Benin

A rapid deployment force being groomed by West African countries to intervene in the region’s conflicts began a 10-day training exercise in Benin on Monday.

The Defence Ministry said in a statement that up to 2,000 West African, European and North American military personnel were due to take part in the exercise in southern Benin which was organised by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The largest West African troop contingents came from Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali and Ghana, it added.

The manoeuvres were conducted with the help of the French armed forces under a programme to reinforce Africa’s peace-keeping capabilities. Several other Western countries, including the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Austria are also providing support.

The 1,500 ECOWAS troops are due to form the vanguard of a much larger intervention force envisaged by the organisation. The deployment of this Task Force to a conflict hot spot in West Africa would be followed by the dispatch of up to 5,000 more ECOWAS troops within 30 days. West Africa remains one of the world's most conflict-prone areas.

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GUINEA-BISSAU: 65 senior officers readmitted to armed forces

General Tagme Na Waie, the new chief of staff of Guinea-Bissau's armed forces, has ordered the reintegration of 65 senior officers who were purged from the ranks following a civil war and various military uprisings and changes of government over the past five years.

The appointments, announced on Wednesday, provide more ethnic and political balance to the upper echelons of the armed forces, which were hitherto dominated by the Balanta ethnic group.

The Balantas account for a third of Guinea-Bissau's 1.3 million population, but they dominate the ranks of the country's 10,000-strong armed forces.

Announcing the return of officers purged from the armed forces in the central town of Bafata, Na Waie said he was determined to restore harmony and unity within the armed forces. He warned the country's elected politicians bluntly to keep their nose out of military affairs.

"We ask those in government to have confidence in the armed forces," said Na Waie, a veteran of Guinea-Bissau's war of independence against Portuguese colonial rule. "We cannot live eternally with conflicts amoung ourselves."

Following the latest army mutiny, which was led by a battalion seeking backpay owed for its period of service with the UN peacekeeping force in Liberia, there has been widespread agreement in Guinea-Bissau on the urgent need for military reform.

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[ENDS]

Other recent WEST AFRICA reports:

Bettter coordination and reserve funds needed to fight locusts, 14/Jan/05

Central bank gives poor more time to swap old bank-notes, 13/Jan/05

Africa’s poorest nations extend helping hand to tsunami victims, 12/Jan/05

IRIN-WA Weekly 258 covering 1-7 January 2005, 7/Jan/05

Winners and losers in bank-note swap, 4/Jan/05

Other recent Children reports:

WEST AFRICA: Central bank gives poor more time to swap old bank-notes, 13/Jan/05

YEMEN: Authorities attempt to tackle child trafficking, 12/Jan/05

ZIMBABWE: Street children trying to survive in "Sunshine city", 12/Jan/05

SUDAN: Polio campaign targets 5.9 million children, 11/Jan/05

IRAQ: Youth centre needs support to bring communities together, 10/Jan/05

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