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Sunday 25 December 2005


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IRIN-WA Weekly 279 covering 28 May - 3 June 2005

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

CONTENTS:

COTE D IVOIRE: UN delays signing off on peacekeeper reinforcements
TOGO: Torture and bullets used against government opponents - victims
NIGER: Government launches "anguished appeal" for food aid
CHAD: Fraud allegations surface ahead of referendum to lift presidential term limits
WESTERN SAHARA: Polisario asks world to intervene after what it calls repression by Morocco
SENEGAL: Uproar after opposition leader charged with inciting rebellion

COTE D IVOIRE: UN delays signing off on peacekeeper reinforcements

Peacekeepers in war-divided Cote d'Ivoire will have to wait at least another three weeks for reinforcements, the UN Security Council said on Friday at the end of a week of ethnic violence that critics said highlighted how stretched the force in the West African nation was.

Ethnic violence erupted this week around the western town of Duekoue, with people being hacked, shot and burnt to death. The exact number of dead is still not known. Minister for Administrative Reforms Eric Kahe, who is from the region, said 70 people had been killed. UN officials in Abidjan have put the death toll at 56.

The Security Council voted to extend the mandate of the ONUCI peacekeeping mission, which was due to expire on Saturday, by just three weeks until June 24, a copy of the resolution obtained by IRIN showed.

After that they plan to adopt a second resolution approving extra troops and prolonging the mandate for another seven months. Diplomats said that the delay in reinforcements, the third in as many months, was due to the fact that the U.S. Congress had yet to clear the extra peacekeepers.

Full report

Related reports:

Fresh ethnic violence in volatile West kills at least 41

Revenge killings claim 10 lives the day after massacre in Wild West

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TOGO: Torture and bullets used against government opponents - victims

Five weeks on, Bangana's slight frame is still battered and bruised. He says he was tortured and beaten unconscious by paramilitary commandos, or "red berets", inside the Justice Minister's private residence when post-election violence hit Sokode, in northern Togo.

Justice Minister Katari Foli-Bazi denied the allegations.
Many witnesses to violence across Togo told IRIN that government security forces had used live ammunition to put down the dissidents.

Thomas, who like others refused to give his real identity, said he was one of many shot by soldiers with Kalashnikovs when he took part in opposition demonstrations in Kpalime, close to the Ghanaian border, on election day.

The soldiers first hurled teargas and then fired on people - even as they were running away.

Full report

Related reports:

Hunger drives displaced women home despite fears

All calm in the heartland of the ruling elite

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NIGER: Government launches "anguished appeal" for food aid

Niger made an "anguished appeal" last weekend for food aid to help millions of hungry people, in a bid to stifle its critics who have called for a day of street protests against the government's handling of the crisis.

Later in the week, thousands of protestors took to the street demanding free food distributions to people they said were starving in the interior.

"Almost three million people in Niger are today at risk of hunger." Prime Minister Hama Amadou told parliament on Saturday. "I want to....solemnly launch an anguished appeal to the international community for emergency food aid."

Granaries lie empty and cereal prices are soaring while the market price for cattle and other animals has plummeted. With more than 150,000 children already showing signs of severe malnutrition, the UN has called the disaster unfolding in Niger "the number one forgotten and neglected emergency in the world".

Full report

Related report:

2,000 march in capital to demand free food after drought and locusts

[Top of the Page]

CHAD: Fraud allegations surface ahead of referendum to lift presidential term limits

Chadian President Idriss Deby is expected to be cleared to stand for a third term after a referendum next week but diplomats, human rights activists and opposition parties have already alleged massive fraud and say the result has been fixed in advance.

The people in this arid land-locked country will vote on Monday on whether to abolish the constitutional clause that stipulates that a president can only be re-elected once. Deby's second term in office is set to expire in 2006.

"There's no doubt about the result. The Yes campaign will win because the registration was fixed," one western diplomat told IRIN by telephone from Chad's capital, N'djamena, this week.

"They only did door-to-door registration, so the government just registered who they wanted to. If you lived in an opposition neighbourhood, no-one came," the diplomat said.

Chad's National Electoral Commission (CENI) has said 5.6 million voters registered for a ballot paper for the referendum on 6 June, but that figure has been widely contested.

"It is not statistically possible. Chad's population is about nine million and only 45 percent of Chadians are over 18 and eligible to vote," the diplomat said.

Full report

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WESTERN SAHARA: Polisario asks world to intervene after what it calls repression by Morocco

The Polisario Front, the group seeking independence for Western Sahara, has accused the Moroccan government of ferocious repression following disturbances this month and has called on the international community to intervene and protect civilians.

Trouble broke out in the main city of the disputed desert territory, Laayoune, last week. The Moroccan authorities say the Polisario instigated politically motivated riots; the independence movement counters that the demonstrations were peaceful protests against Morocco's occupation.

"The riots had been organised with a political agenda," the governor of the affected province, Mohamed El Rharabi, was quoted as saying in Moroccan newspapers.

The senior government official said the trigger for the unrest had been the transfer of a prisoner from a jail in Laayoune to one in Morocco, and not to a Polisario camp as the inmate had requested. The Moroccan flag had been burnt and people had brandished Polisario flags, he added.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

SENEGAL: Uproar after opposition leader charged with inciting rebellion

Senegal's opposition parties are up in arms and planning a protest march against President Abdoulaye Wade after authorities charged an opposition leader with incitement to rebellion for calling for street demonstrations.

Abdourahim Agne, the vocal leader of the small centre-left Reform Party (PR), was charged on Monday with threatening the state and faces three to five years in jail if convicted.

He has been detained in a special hospital cell because he has a weak heart.

The tough judicial response to his call for street protests at a political rally last week has caused waves in this generally peaceful West African nation. But it comes as 79-year-old Wade is facing increasing political agitation ahead of parliamentary elections next year.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

Other recent WEST AFRICA reports:

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 309 covering 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 308 covering 10-16 December 2005, 16/Dec/05

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 307 covering 3-9 December 2005, 9/Dec/05

Rejecting FGM not an affront to tradition, 7/Dec/05

Youth unemployment threatens regional stability, 2/Dec/05

Other recent reports:

RWANDA: Body found in Brussels canal confirmed that of ex-minister's, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 23/Dec/05

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 309 covering 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: IRIN-Asia Weekly Round-up 51 covering the period 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 262 for 17-23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

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