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IRIN Africa | West Africa | WEST AFRICA | WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly 299 covering 8 - 14 October 2005 | Children, Democracy, Early Warning, Economy, Education, Environment, Food Security, Gender issues, Health, HIV AIDS, Human Rights, Natural Disasters, Peace Security, Refugees IDPs, Other | Weekly

Sunday 25 December 2005


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IRIN-WA Weekly 299 covering 8 - 14 October 2005

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

CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Voters thirsty for news as counting begins after landmark polls
COTE D IVOIRE: Killings, torture and rape go unpunished on both sides of the front line
WEST AFRICA: Rights activists urge UN to investigate abuse of migrants
GABON: Two top opposition figures to challenge Africa’s longest-standing president
GUINEA-BISSAU: President, prime minister try to iron out tension, avert crisis
GUINEA: Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink

LIBERIA: Voters thirsty for news as counting begins after landmark polls

Liberians with a radio were in demand on Wednesday as a nation hungered for any scrap of news about who might be their next president following polls on the 11 October, but elections officials warned voters were in for a long wait.

Officials said results were in from only one percent of the electorate, a day after thousands of people braved huge lines to cast their ballot for a leader they hope will lead them away from their war-torn past and out of abject poverty.

These partial results, compiled from 39 polling stations, put presidential favourites Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and George Weah neck and neck.

The National Elections Commission said Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist who would be Africa's first elected female leader if she won, had 24.6 percent of the votes so far, with millionaire soccer star Weah just behind on 21.2 percent.

Lawyer Charles Brumskine -- who led the Senate under former president Charles Taylor before falling out with him -- and Winston Tubman – the nephew of the country's longest serving president -- were in joint third, with 10.2 percent.

However, Liberia's electoral chief, Frances Johnson-Morris, stressed that this was an incomplete snapshot.

"Remember... there are 3,070 polling places that need to be compiled, counted and tallied," she told a packed press conference on Wednesday. "The entire process is expected to take three to seven days."

On the streets of the capital, Monrovia, where only two years ago residents hardly dared venture out for fear of random mortars and stray bullets, people stood on street corners with radios glued to their ears.

Full report

For the full package of IRIN’s Liberia election reports see:

LIBERIA: Voters queue for hours to make history in first post-war polls
Full report

LIBERIA: Generation of war-scarred youths yearn to turn the page with polls
Full report

LIBERIA: Observers give election preparations the thumbs-up
Full report

LIBERIA: Presidential hopefuls for 11 October polls
Full report

LIBERIA: How a nation moved from war to democracy
Full report

LIBERIA: Voting cards not guns, the new weapon of choice
Full report

[Top of the Page]

COTE D IVOIRE: Killings, torture and rape go unpunished on both sides of the front line

More human rights violations including summary executions, politically motivated arrests, torture and rape are taking place across war-torn Cote d’Ivoire according to a UN report released this week.

The report came as the UN Security Council opened a special meeting on Cote d'Ivoire in New York.

Spanning a three month period from June 2005, the report found that the human rights situation in the one time bastion of stability and economic success, continue to raise alarm.

“There is definitely a lack of improvement in the human rights situation as more and more violations are taking place,” UN human rights chief Simon Munzu told IRIN. “The level of violations we observe is still so high that we continue to be concerned.”

Things took a serious turn for the worse in the cocoa-growing western region, where in late May and early June, a spate of ethnic-motivated revenge killings left some 70 people dead and tens of thousands of villagers temporarily displaced.

Women and children were among those disembowelled and beheaded in the violence. And with tensions unresolved, the risk of more killings remains, Munzu warned.

But it isn’t just the west that has been blighted by human rights abuses, the rebel held north of the country, the government south and even the zone of confidence that divides the two sides and is patrolled by UN peacekeepers also had reported incidents of human rights abuses.

Full report

See also:

COTE D IVOIRE: UN must take decisive steps to avert disaster, think tank
Full report

COTE D IVOIRE: Rebels lay out peace proposals in letter to UN chief
Full report

COTE D IVOIRE: Opposition alliance calls on UN to reject 12 more months of Gbagbo
Full report

[Top of the Page]

WEST AFRICA: Rights activists urge UN to investigate abuse of migrants

While Morocco continues deporting masses of West African migrants in the face of international condemnation, a pan-African human rights group is calling on the United Nations to investigate charges of rights violations linked to border control.

“The UN high commission for human rights must open an investigation into rights violations tied to immigration,” Alioune Tine, secretary general of the pan-African human rights group, Rencontre Africaine des Droits de l'Homme (RADDHO), told IRIN.

The Moroccan government acknowledged on Thursday that its armed forces had shot at illegal immigrants trying to scale a barrier between Africa and Europe last week, and appealed for a Euro-African effort to tackle illegal immigration and its root causes.

The thorny and long-standing problem came into the world media spotlight in recent weeks, with televised images of desperate African migrants being shot at and crushed trying to enter Europe and scores of others deposited in the vacant sands of Morocco with no food or water.

Earlier this month hundreds of illegal African migrants attempted to clear barbed-wire barriers to enter Spain’s enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco. At least 14 were killed – some by crushing, others by gunfire.

Morocco has drawn a sharp reprimand from humanitarian groups and other international organisations for dumping some of the destitute migrants in the desert.

Full report

See also:

SENEGAL: Dreams of a better life deferred, but not forgotten
Full report

[Top of the Page]

GABON: Two top opposition figures to challenge Africa’s longest-standing president

Two heavyweights of Gabon’s opposition have announced they will try to shake President Omar Bongo from nearly four decades of power, after winning concessions on the make-up of the national election commission.

Speaking to supporters in Libreville on Sunday, Zacharie Myboto, a former minister under Bongo, and Pierre Mamboundou, a presidential contender in the previous election in 1998, promised a clean break from 38 years of rule under Bongo – Africa’s longest-standing head of state.

Their announcements ended an opposition boycott of the national election commission (NEC), which protesting politicians had accused of being stacked with ruling party supporters.

Up to Friday the opposition had no seats on the 120-strong NEC. But after negotiations with Bongo the opposition was granted 40 slots.

“Since the Gabon you want is one that means progress for all, I have decided to run in the next presidential election,” 67-year-old Myboto said to a crowd of nearly 10,000 supporters, many waving banners that read, “Zacharie Myboto for change.”

Having spent 23 years in Bongo’s government before leaving the ruling party in 2001 and forming the Gabonese Union for Democracy and Development party this year, Myboto asked forgiveness for the errors of the past and promised to do away with corruption and cronyism.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

GUINEA-BISSAU: President, prime minister try to iron out tension, avert crisis

After giving each other the cold shoulder for almost two weeks, Guinea-Bissau's new President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira and Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior have finally met in a bid to set aside personal differences and heal a country in crisis.

But despite this week’s first encounter between the two men since Vieira was sworn in as president on 1 October, fears remain of a top-level "cold war" in the tiny volatile nation.

Coming out of the half-hour meeting, which he described as cordial, Gomes Junior, who earlier this year called Vieira "a bandit and a mercenary who betrayed his own people", said he expected the relationship between the head of state and the head of government to be smoother sailing from now on.

"Together we looked at the most pressing questions facing the country today," he told the press outside the president's private residence. "As you know, we have made commitments to the international community that we have to keep."

This Portuguese-speaking West-African nation is hoping for more than $200 million from the international community to rebuild an infrastructure and economy devastated by years of fighting and neglect.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

GUINEA: Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink

It's the rainy season in Guinea, one of West Africa's wettest countries, but the taps in many of its towns have run dry.

Guinea is nicknamed West Africa's "water tower" because it contains the headwaters of a number of the region's major rivers, including the Senegal and the Niger. In parts of the country's interior, average annual rainfall is close to four metres.

And yet, breakdowns at the national water company's treatment centres have left major towns in the interior like Kindia and Labe with little or no running water for weeks. N'zerekore, near the Liberian border, has been without for the last five years.

This paradox is par for the course in a country where, despite large reserves of bauxite, gold, and diamonds, the majority of people live on less than a dollar a day.

Even the capital has not escaped the shortages. While the business districts have a fairly reliable infrastructure, residents of many of Conakry's areas find themselves forced to go looking for water.

"It's been two years since we had drinkable water in our neighbourhood," Thiany Yansane, a local councillor, told IRIN. "That's why I always keep jerry-cans in my car in order to fill them up with water at the office."

Full report

[Top of the Page]

[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Children

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 Children reports:

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

SIERRA LEONE: With no prospects, youths are turning to crime and violence, 22/Dec/05

SENEGAL: Everyman’s library, 21/Dec/05

LIBERIA: UN renews ban on arms, diamonds and timber, 21/Dec/05

NIGERIA: Eight children die in attack on oil pipeline, 21/Dec/05

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