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IRIN Africa | West Africa | WEST AFRICA | WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 303 covering 5 - 11 November 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

Tuesday 21 February 2006


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IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 303 covering 5 - 11 November 2005

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

CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Tear gas fired as Weah supporters take to streets
TOGO: Official inquiry says 154 died in political violence
CHAD: Government to scrap unique measure for sharing oil wealth
MAURITANIA: Junta pledges presidential poll earlier than expected, in March 2007
GUINEA-BISSAU: New government named but national unity still a long way off
COTE D IVOIRE: Opposition divided over nominations for prime minister job
WEST AFRICA: Rampant cholera prompts UN regional appeal

LIBERIA: Tear gas fired as Weah supporters take to streets

United Nations peacekeepers fired tear gas at supporters of Liberian presidential candidate George Weah, as a protest against the election results spilled onto the streets of the capital, Monrovia, on Friday.

Hundreds of young Liberians, many wearing ripped T-shirts and flip-flops, marched from Weah’s party headquarters via the elections commission and on to the US embassy to voice their anger about a poll they say was rigged.

“Stones were thrown during this protest and tear gas was used by UN police to disperse the crowd,” said Paul Risley, the spokesman for the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). “Two individuals were injured and taken to hospital.”

With votes counted from 97 percent of polling stations across the heavily-forested West African country, former finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has 59.4 percent of the votes and an unassailable lead over Weah.

But the onetime AC Milan striker is insisting that Tuesday’s run-off ballot was rigged.

“There’s no need to cry. We have to be courageous because we have not lost the election,” Weah told his supporters on Friday.

His Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) party has now taken its complaint to the highest court in the land.

“This morning, the CDC filed a writ of prohibition with the Supreme Court of Liberia to intervene and stop the counting process,” Sam Stevequaoah, his campaign spokesman, told a press conference.

“We have a stream of people out there bringing in new evidence… the complaints we have received include intimidation, harassment and prohibiting our polling workers from going into polling stations,” he said.

International observers have said the polls, designed to draw a line under 14 years of civil war, were generally free and fair.

Full report

LIBERIA: Sirleaf heads for victory as authorities study Weah’s complaint
Full report

LIBERIA: Soccer star or economist? The nation decides
Full report

LIBERIA: Worries about turnout for presidential run-off
Full report

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TOGO: Official inquiry says 154 died in political violence

A much-awaited official probe into the political violence that rocked Togo earlier this year says 154 people were killed and 654 hurt, and calls on the government to punish those responsible.

“Those who carried out and ordered these acts of violence must be charged,” said the 90-page report issued Thursday after a more than four-month-long inquiry in which the eight-member committee interrogated more than 1,800 people.

Set up in May on the orders of then newly-elected President Faure Gnassingbe, the National Commission of Inquiry placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the government, political leaders, the army and the police and in a series of proposals called for a sweeping overhaul of the country’s institutions and practices.

Among those questioned by the commission were some of the almost 30,000 Togolese who fled to escape persecution in the wave of violence that shook the country spanning the death 5 February of its leader of 38 years, president Gnassingbe Eyadema, to the disputed April election of his son, Faure Gnassingbe.

A separate United Nations inquiry released in September estimated that 400 to 500 people had been killed when the opposition took to the streets to protest that Gnassingbe’s election had been rigged. Scenes of urban warfare subsequently unfolded as armed militia and security fought the rioters.

Asked to comment on the difference in figures, the head of the National Commission of Inquiry said its work had produced a list of names while the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had produced an estimate.

Full report

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CHAD: Government to scrap unique measure for sharing oil wealth

Brushing aside international concern, cash-strapped Chad has decided to scrap a key component of its model law on oil revenues requiring the government to set aside petrodollars for the well-being of future generations.

The government of Chad, newcomer on the burgeoning African oil scene, approved draft legislation to amend law 001, which lays out unprecedented provisions for avoiding the misappropriation of oil revenues and ensuring funds go toward reducing poverty.

Despite concerns raised by the World Bank, sponsor of the Chad-Cameroon oil project, the government said it needed to tap the revenue now to deal with fiscal problems and bolster the country’s security.

President Idriss Deby late last month dissolved the presidential guard days after scores of troops deserted the army.

“Chad is facing great financial difficulties,” Communications Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor told IRIN on Wednesday. “We need these funds now to assure development and peace in the country.”

Doumgor said the draft legislation now goes to parliament for debate and a vote.

Full report

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MAURITANIA: Junta pledges presidential poll earlier than expected, in March 2007

Mauritania’s military leaders offered a fresh sign of their commitment to democracy on Thursday by pledging to hold presidential elections months earlier than expected, in March 2007.

The junta seized office last August promising a new era of openness and democracy slated to climax with a handover to an elected president after two years.

Speaking to political and civil society leaders and the media, Prime Minister Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar said a presidential poll is scheduled for 11 March 2007, following municipal and parliamentary elections as well as a constitutional referendum.

Members of the ruling Military Council for Justice and Democracy (MCJD) itself have pledged not to run for the presidency.

Full report

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GUINEA-BISSAU: New government named but national unity still a long way off

Guinea-Bissau has got its new government after nearly two weeks of institutional paralysis, but with the volatile country’s largest political party left on the outside looking in, promises of national unity look to have gone unfulfilled.

“This government doesn’t have the parliamentary base it needs,” a spokesperson for the country’s former ruling party said on Thursday. “It won’t be able to last for long.”

The tiny West African nation had been without a government since late last month when President Joao Bernardo Vieira sacked Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior with whom he had been feuding for months.

The president’s decision to replace Gomes Junior with a close ally and former campaign director enraged the sacked prime minister and his African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) which, as the largest contingent in parliament, claimed the constitutional right to nominate a new prime minister.

Speaking after his inauguration last week, new Prime Minister Aristides Gomes promised to form a government of consensus that would include all the country’s political forces.

But PAIGC members were conspicuously absent from the list of 27 new ministers.

Full report

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COTE D IVOIRE: Opposition divided over nominations for prime minister job

One week after a lapsed deadline to find a new prime minister to lead a battered Cote d’Ivoire back to stability, the armed and unarmed opposition are locked in bitter disagreement over who to propose for the top job, newspapers close to both groups reported.

The rebels say their leader, Guillaume Soro, should be prime minister as they control half of the country.

But the former ruling Democratic Party of Cote d’Ivoire (PDCI), a heavyweight within the opposition coalition known as the G7, is dragging its feet and has come up with half a dozen more possible candidates.

President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria visited Cote d’Ivoire last week, in his capacity as chairman of the African Union, to try to force some action.

But after his departure, Nigerian aides were only able to draw up a list of 16 possible candidates.

The new prime minister is expected to be named on 15 November.

Full report

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WEST AFRICA: Rampant cholera prompts UN regional appeal

The United Nations is asking donors for US $3.2 million to help six West African countries fight cholera, which the UN says has killed at least 700 people and stricken over 42,000 in the region since June.

This is the first appeal of its kind for West Africa, where cholera appears every rainy season but where unusually heavy rains this year sent infections skyrocketing. The movement of populations throughout the region – including religious pilgrimages and rural-to-urban migration – also contributes to the spread.

“We must contain cholera in the sub-region and assist health care systems to eradicate this epidemic, in order that it not become a chronic problem or spread to neighbouring countries like Chad, Nigeria and Cameroon,” said Herve Ludovic de Lys, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for West Africa.

About half the funding – which will bolster ongoing efforts by governments and UN humanitarian agencies – is earmarked for Guinea-Bissau, a country of about 1.5 million where cholera had killed 320 people and stricken 20,415 as of mid-October, according to the UN World Health Organisation (WHO).

Full report

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Children

Other recent WEST AFRICA reports:

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 317 covering 11-17 February 2006, 17/Feb/06

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 316 covering 4-10 February 2006, 10/Feb/06

Africa’s poorest nations fight to ward off deadly bird flu, 9/Feb/06

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 315 covering 28 January – 3 February 2006, 3/Feb/06

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 314 covering 21-27 January 2006, 27/Jan/06

Other recent Children reports:

IRAQ: Thousands of families still displaced after flooding, 21/Feb/06

SOUTH AFRICA: Govt adopts more focused approach to help orphans, 21/Feb/06

YEMEN: Two killed in flash floods, 21/Feb/06

YEMEN: Measles vaccination campaign launched to prevent children’s deaths, 21/Feb/06

TAJIKISTAN: UN appeal for 2006 launched, 16/Feb/06

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