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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly 266 covering 26 February - 4 March 2005 - OCHA IRIN

Saturday 12 March 2005


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IRIN-WA Weekly 266 covering 26 February - 4 March 2005

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

CONTENTS:

TOGO: Voters to go to polls on 24 April to elect new president
LIBERIA: WFP prioritises returning refugees and IDPs in food distribution
COTE D IVOIRE: Nowhere to run, but no fun hiding
COTE D IVOIRE: Several reported killed in Monday's clash, militia promises fresh attacks
BENIN: US firm admits guilt in bribery probe connected to Benin president
MALI: More than a million people in need of food aid – government

TOGO: Voters to go to polls on 24 April to elect new president

The Togolese authorities have fixed 24 April as the date for presidential elections designed to end weeks of political turmoil following the death of veteran president Gnassingbe Eyadema.

The date was announced by Interior Minister Akila-Esso Boko and the newly sworn-in head of the National Electoral Commission, Kissem Tchangai-Walla, on Thursday night after the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) said it would be impractical to try and organise the poll any earlier.

The main opposition party, the Union of Forces for Change (UFC), said it would work with the election date set, but expressed doubt that free and fair elections could be organised in such a short time.

Interior Minister Boko said all presidential candidates would have to submit their nomination papers by 26 March.

The electoral lists would be revised between 28 March and 5 April and campaigning for the election would begin on 8 April, he added.

A coalition of six opposition parties is mulling whether to present a united front and choose a sole candidate to run against the dead president's son.
They expect to reach a decision by Saturday.

IRIN coverage on Togo

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LIBERIA: WFP prioritises returning refugees and IDPs in food distribution

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says it is running out of food to help nearly one million people stay alive in Liberia, but it pledged on Friday to prioritise the distribution of rations to refugees and other displaced people returning to their home villages.

Justin Bagarishya, the WFP country director in Liberia, told IRIN that the returnees would receive the full 2,100 calorie per day food ration. However, other beneficiaries of WFP aid, including schools that serve free meals to their pupils, would continue to get a sharply reduced ration, he added.

The amount of food distributed by WFP to most beneficiaries in Liberia has been cut in stages since August to just 1,350 calories per day - 64 percent of the normal handout - due to a shortfall in funding from the international community.

The WFP aims to help feed 940,000 people in Liberia this year - nearly a third of the country's population.

Full report

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COTE D IVOIRE: Nowhere to run, but no fun hiding

Drop down from the mansion-lined streets of Cocody, the posh diplomatic suburb of Abidjan, and nestling on the hillside is Gobele - a shantytown of some 5,000 self-proclaimed foreigners. Most have never lived in their 'homeland' and few are planning to move there, whatever troubles they have in Cote d’Ivoire.

After Cote d’Ivoire was split in two by civil war in September 2002, government forces destroyed many of the shantytowns in Abidjan which host immigrants from other West African countries. The government claimed they were hotbeds of rebel support.

“It’s true we were spared the worst of it in September (2002), but we are foreigners so we still get police visits,” said Marshood Aramu Balgum, a Nigerian citizen born in Abidjan and resident in Gobele.

Most of the inhabitants of these ramshackle houses built of corrugated iron and recycled wood are of Burkinabe origin.

Douamba Boukariy, one Burkinabe resident of the lagoon-side slum, said Gobele had suffered repeated harassment by policemen and paramilitary gendarmes on the hunt for money to steal and goods to loot.

“When they come they are all over the place!” Boukariy explained. ”They are looking for arms in houses, but they find nothing. But if they find money, mobile phones - hey! - you know the only reason they didn’t take that TV there was because they couldn’t put it in their pocket!”

Full report

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BENIN: US firm admits guilt in bribery probe connected to Benin president

An American defence contractor, accused of pumping $2 million into the re-election campaign of President Mathieu Kerekou of Benin, has pleaded guilty to charges of overseas bribery.

US regulators said Titan Corp made the payments in 2001 at a time when the company was seeking a four-fold increase in the fees it charged for managing a telephone network in the West African country.

The California-based company agreed on Tuesday to pay $28.5 million in fines to settle criminal and civil proceedings brought against it by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in respect of the Benin payments and several other charges of falsifying documents in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

It was the largest penalty ever imposed under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which came into law in 1977 to stop American companies in pursuit of overseas contracts from bribing presidents, princes and government officials.

Full report

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COTE D IVOIRE: Several reported killed in Monday's clash, militia promises fresh attacks

The situation remained tense in western Cote d'Ivoire on Wednesday as reports filtered out of heavy casualties in a clash between militia fighters supporting President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel fighters on the frontline earlier in the week.

Foreign residents in the volatile west of Cote d'Ivoire told IRIN that at least 15 people had been killed and 40 had been injured in Monday's attack on the rebel outpost of Logouale, 520 km northwest of Abidjan.

The rebel New Forces movement said in a statement that 32 people had died in the battle: two rebel fighters and 30 attackers from the pro-government militia force.

However, the UN and French peacekeeping forces in Cote d'Ivoire, which rounded up the attackers, refused to discuss casualties sustained by the combatants.

"There is no official death toll," Hamadoun Toure, the spokesman for the 6,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in Cote, told IRIN. He merely noted that UN troops had arrested 87 of the attackers, who were being held for the time being in Man, and that one Bangladeshi peacekeeper had been injured.

Full report

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MALI: More than a million people in need of food aid – government

More than one million people in regions of Mali badly hit last year by a disastrous combination of locusts and poor rain will need food aid in 2005, officials said Friday.

Crops and cattle in 101 districts have suffered, leaving food stocks dangerously low, according to a food security evaluation mission conducted by the government’s early warning department (SAP).

“101 districts, particularly Mopti, Tombouctou and Gao, recorded a strong drop in cereal production and revenues during the year, and may experience an early and more difficult-than-usual lean period,” Mamy Coulibaly, who heads SAP’s technical department, told IRIN from Bamako on Friday.

Oxfam, the UK-based NGO, said food security early February in western Gao had deteriorated since October, and up to 100,000 people would need food aid.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Other recent WEST AFRICA reports:

IRIN-WA Weekly 267 covering 5 - 11 March 2005, 11/Mar/05

IRIN-WA Weekly 265 covering 19 – 25 February 2005, 25/Feb/05

Obasanjo and Kerekou launch final onslaught against polio, 22/Feb/05

IRIN-WA Weekly 264 covering 12 – 18 February 2005, 20/Feb/05

Sahel states and donors gear up to fight locusts more effectively, 14/Feb/05

Other recent Children reports:

MIDDLE EAST: MIDDLE EAST: Weekly round-up Number 12 for 5-11 March 2005, 11/Mar/05

SOUTH AFRICA: Sensitising programme delivers positive results, 11/Mar/05

AFRICA: Report highlights plight of African children, 11/Mar/05

NEPAL: Vaccination and other health drives to continue, 10/Mar/05

ZAMBIA: Lead poisoning concern in mining town, 8/Mar/05

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