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Monday 20 March 2006


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IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 319 covering 25 February - 3 March 2006

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

CONTENTS:

NIGER: New cases of bird flu suspected, government calls for help to fight H5N1
BENIN: Campaign winding up for historic but problem-fraught poll
GUINEA: Grinding poverty drives unprecedented general strike
COTE D IVOIRE: In groundbreaking talks, faction leaders recommit to peace
COTE D IVOIRE: After years of delay students in north sit exams
NIGERIA: Delta militants free six foreign hostages, three still held

NIGER: New cases of bird flu suspected, government calls for help to fight H5N1

New suspected cases of bird flu have emerged in three locations in Niger, days after the country became the third in Africa to be confirmed to be infected by the deadly H5N1 virus.

Dead birds have been found in the towns of Goure and Dogo - in the centre-south of the country near the border with infected states in Nigeria, and in N’Guigmi farther east, which also shares a border with Chad. Tissue samples from the three areas are on their way to the capital Niamey to be sent to a laboratory in Italy for testing.

The same lab on Tuesday announced that the bird flu virus was found in domestic ducks from Magaria, Niger, near the border with Nigeria, the first African country to be struck.

Government spokesperson Mohamed Ben Oumar told Radio France Internationale on Thursday that authorities plan to destroy poultry within a three-mile radius of infected areas, and put all birds in a 10-mile radius under “high medical surveillance.”

Niger - among the world’s poorest countries - has a plan to fight bird flu, but not the means. The government called on the international community this week to help, saying it needs essential equipment such as protective clothing including masks and boots, vaccines, disinfectant and diagnostic kits. The government says even the vehicles and refrigeration units it has available are not sufficient to handle the bird flu threat.

Full report

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BENIN: Campaign winding up for historic but problem-fraught poll

The billboards are up, the candidates are on the campaign trail, the bands are playing and the voodoo priests are praying for peace. In two days Benin votes for a new president in a poll whose run-up has been fraught with problems.

The 5 March elections will bring down the curtain on two of the tiny country’s most celebrated politicians - incumbent President Mathieu Kerekou, who has served two consecutive five-year terms, and his longtime rival, ex-president Nicephore Soglo. Both have outlived the 70-year constitutional age barrier to run for the presidency.

Their parting opens the floodgates to a bevy of would-be presidents, with 26 candidates - two of them women - currently criss-crossing the country in search of support.

“Things will change! Things must change,” “The right man,” “He knows the country best,” say posters plastered across the country of seven million. Political parties brought musicians and dancers out to drum up support and hired as escorts scores of the country’s iconic motorcycle taxis, or “zemidjans”, their drivers turned out in crisp neat new uniforms for the occasion.

Despite weeks of financial problems in organising the poll and a series of glitches in the voter registration process, the two-week campaign winding up on Friday has been essentially trouble-free.

Full report

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GUINEA: Grinding poverty drives unprecedented general strike

Mineral-rich and free of conflict, Guineans should be able to enjoy a relatively high standard of living compared to war-torn or resource-deficient neighbours. Instead, life in the normally hectic capital ground to a halt this week due to an unprecedented general strike called over desperately low wages and soaring prices.

The strike, which began on Monday, slowing the usually traffic-clogged seafront capital to a Sunday-like hush, was still largely in effect five days later on Friday despite government appeals to people to return to work.

“The people suffer from poverty. They work and work, but the money they get is not enough. For us taxi drivers the price of petrol is just too expensive so I decided to strike,” said Mamadou Cherif Diallo, who works the tumbledown city built on a skinny peninsula home to around a quarter of the country’s nine million people.

On Tuesday, stone-throwing youths trying to enforce the stoppage targeted the cavalcade of President Lansana Conte. His bodyguards returned live fire, killing an innocent bystander. Anxious to keep a lid on potential trouble, the government stepped up negotiations with unions to end the strike, but its efforts largely failed.

“We have had enough,” said Diallo. “This has been going on for years. I don’t know how old I am but I’m more than 25 and still not married and I can’t marry because I don’t have the money.
“It’s a big, big problem for me and my friends,” he complained. “A man must marry but I barely make enough to feed myself, never mind maintain a wife and children.”

Guinea is rich in diamonds, gold, bauxite (aluminium ore), iron ore and uranium, not to mention the agricultural potential of this country, which is the source of West Africa’s two main rivers and spans the dry Sahel region to the north to lush tropical rainforest in the south. While average income per capita is US $2,097 according to UN figures, the majority of people earn less than US $1 a day.

Full report

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COTE D IVOIRE: In groundbreaking talks, faction leaders recommit to peace

The five key players in Cote d’Ivoire’s conflict have renewed their commitment to peace efforts after holding their first face-to-face talks at home since war broke out more than three years ago.

While there were few concrete agreements, Tuesday’s four-hour meeting behind closed doors broke new ground and brought fresh hopes of a breakthrough in stumbling efforts to reunify the West African nation, divided between a rebel-held north and government south since 2002.

Winding up the talks, interim Prime Minister Charles Banny read a statement saying the country’s political heavyweights supported UN resolution 1633, the blueprint for peace outlined by the international community in late 2005 to help end Cote d’Ivoire’s conflict.

However, Banny called the talks primarily to thaw relations among President Laurent Gbagbo, rebel leader Guillaume Soro, and the two main opposition leaders Henri Konan Bedie and Alassane Ouattara. The face-to-face meeting of the four faction leaders plus Banny had been scheduled for Monday but was delayed by one day by a row over security. Notwithstanding, Banny described the atmosphere as "fraternal.”

Full report

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COTE D IVOIRE: After years of delay students in north sit exams

Students in the rebel-held north of Cote d’Ivoire, their educations stopped cold by conflict, have begun sitting school exams after more than two years of doubt.

The exams opened to mixed reactions in the northern city of Korhogo, most students and parents happy to move past years of limbo, but others complaining that after such a long wait the government – who announced less than two weeks ago that the exams would go forward – should have given more notice.

Issiaka Soro, one of nearly 9,000 students expected to sit the final secondary school leaving exam, the “baccalaureat,” said, “I am very happy that the exams are being held. Of course, my most ardent wish is to succeed, because we have been in limbo for too long.”

After years of utter uncertainty for more than 90,000 students, oral exams began in the north on Monday, with teachers from around the country present to supervise, along with officials of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Mission in Cote d’Ivoire. Written tests are to take place 2 March to 4 March.

Some students and parents said after such a long hiatus they were caught off-guard by the government announcement two weeks ago that exams would go forward and their results would probably show it.

Full report

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NIGERIA: Delta militants free six foreign hostages, three still held

Armed militants in Nigeria's turbulent oil-producing region have freed six foreign oil workers after 11 days in captivity but the group is holding on to three others, continuing threats of more attacks to cripple oil exports.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) on Wednesday initially released 69-year-old US national Macon Hawkins to a group of visiting journalists, and later released five others – two Egyptians, Shalky Aly and Faysal Mohamme; two nationals of Thailand, Damsak Mhaduho and Arak Suwanna; and Filipino Anthony Santos.

The group said they released Hawkins due to his age and poor health and the remaining five because they were considered "low-value" hostages whose countries have no interest in the oil region. The three still being detained are two US nationals and a British citizen.

The released men appeared haggard but not injured, and said they were treated well by their captives.

All nine hostages, employees of US oil service company Willbros Inc., were seized on 18 February from a barge used in laying pipelines on the Forcados River.

MEND is demanding that President Olusegun Obasanjo free two ethnic Ijaw leaders held for alleged offences against the state. The group is also insisting on local control of oil wealth and wants Shell to pay $1.5 billion in compensation for pollution damage; a Nigerian court last week ruled that Shell must make the payment.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

Other recent WEST AFRICA reports:

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 321 covering 11-17 March 2006, 17/Mar/06

Meningitis breakthrough could be on horizon, 15/Mar/06

Hundreds die in seasonal meningitis outbreak, 10/Mar/06

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 320 covering 4-10 March 2006, 10/Mar/06

Over 50 clandestine migrants feared dead, 7/Mar/06

Other recent reports:

IRAQ: Kurdish authorities vow to upgrade services after protests, 19/Mar/06

ZIMBABWE: One half of the divided MDC heads for 'watershed' congress, 17/Mar/06

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 321 covering 11-17 March 2006, 17/Mar/06

HORN OF AFRICA: IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 318 for 11-17 March 2006, 17/Mar/06

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 322 11-17 March 2006, 17/Mar/06

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