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Weekly anb01174.txt #7

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 17-01-2002      PART #4/7
* Madagascar. Bush urges peace - On 14 January, the White House called for "a transparent, just and democratic resolution" to the presidential election in Madagascar, rocked by protests over accusations that the government tampered with returns. The Bush administration is urging the presidential candidates to ensure that the election process continues peacefully, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "We are certain that the democratic traditions of Madagascar will prevail, and the high constitutional court will decide these elections on the basis of the constitution and laws of Madagascar and international standards for democratic elections," Fleischer said. He issued the statement while President Bush was visiting Missouri as part of a two-day economic tour. Demonstrations have broken out across Madagascar in recent days in protest of provisional returns that, if approved by the High Constitutional Court, would set a run-off between the incumbent, President Didier Ratsiraka, and opposition candidate Marc Ravalomanana. According to the provisional results, Ravalomanana won 46.6 percent of the Dec. 16 vote and Ratsiraka received 40.4 percent. Ravalomanana rejected the figures, saying his campaign had calculated that he won outright with 52.15 percent of the vote. Protesters say the government tampered with the results, and they want a public hearing to compare accounts by election observers. Fleischer said Bush "believes that there must be a transparent, just and democratic resolution to the disputes about recent elections that are leading to these protests." The European Union, Japan, the United States and Switzerland issued a joint statement last week in support of the protesters' demands. (Washington Post, USA, 14 January 2002)
* Madagascar. En attente des résultats - Le 10 janvier, pour la septième journée consécutive, quelque 70.000 sympathisants de l'opposition sont descendus dans les rues de la capitale pour contester les résultats du premier tour de l'élection présidentielle. Ils exigent que la Haute Cour constitutionnelle tienne une audition publique afin de comparer les chiffres fournis par les différents partis politiques avant d'officialiser les résultats. Le 9 janvier, l'Union européenne, le Japon, les Etats-Unis et la Suisse ont publié dans la presse malgache un communiqué commun soutenant les demandes des manifestants. - Le 11 janvier, M. Ravalomanana a appelé ses partisans à cesser leurs manifestations jusqu'à la publication des résultats officiels, qui ne devrait pas intervenir avant une dizaine de jours. - 16 janvier. Le consortium des observateurs de l'élection a invité les principaux pays partenaires de Madagascar à faire pression sur le gouvernement afin de l'amener à organiser la confrontation des résultats des différentes parties. Il leur est demandé d'intervenir auprès des dirigeants malgaches en vue d'une confrontation commune des résultats basée sur des procès-verbaux, ce qui devrait autoriser la transparence et la sincérité des élections. -Finalement, la Haute Cour constitutionnelle a confié au Conseil national électoral le soin de procéder à "la confrontation des résultats du premier tour de la présidentielle du 16 décembre". (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 17 janvier 2002)
* Madagascar. Election recount ordered - 16 January: A recount of Madagascar's first round of presidential elections held in December has been ordered by the island's High Constitutional Court (HCC). The court said this should be done by the national electoral commission, which has yet to issue final voting figures. There have been growing calls for a recount since the opposition candidate, Marc Ravalomanana, claimed he had won an outright victory over the incumbent, Didier Ratsiraka. Provisional figures gave Mr Ravalomanana 46% of the vote against Mr Ratsiraka's 40%, a lead which was not enough to avoid a second-round run-off. Many believe the unprecedented move is an accumulation of the effects of popular protest, the intervention of the church and possibly international opinion which has forced the HCC's hand. (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 17 January 2002)
* Malawi. SADC summit - 14 January: Heads of state and government from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are meeting in Blantyre, Malawi, today, for a summit called to address problems of instability affecting several countries of the region. The conflicts in two member states, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, will be high on the agenda. But the political tensions surrounding land redistribution and presidential elections in Zimbabwe look set to dominate. The Zimbabwean crisis is already having economic effects on other countries and there are fears political instability could be catching. However, it is a delicate issue, as its problems are considered by all SADC members to be internal. This has led Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to criticise the community for being hypocritical and aggravating the situation in his country. Today, the Southern African leaders call on President Mugabe to hold a free and fair presidential election. President Mugabe promises the SADC leaders that the elections will be "free and fair". 15 January: Congo's President Kabila is reported to have met twice with rebel leaders on the sidelines of the summit (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 15 January 2002)
* Mali. African Cup of Nations - 16 January: As Africa gets ready to watch its finest football players in action in the African Cup of Nations, the host Mali is working to make sure the competition runs smoothly. "The biggest technological challenge is communication," said Urbain Sangare, the president of logistics for the competition. "We took on the challenge to make sure all of Africa sees every step of each game, so we have had to work on the telecommunications for outside and the telecommunications for in the country itself," he said. The three-week feast of football kicks off on 19 January, with Mali taking on Liberia in the impressive 26 March stadium in the capital, Bamako. Getting the infrastructure in place for the competition has been made much harder by Mali's size and the fact it is one of the poorest countries in the world. The country ranks fifth from the bottom of the development index of the United Nations. "Mali is a very big country," said Mr Sangare, "and most of the pitches are located in the Sahara Desert. The challenge is to make the television images available to the whole country and then to allow the whole world to see the games organised by Mali." Mr Sangare is confident that come Saturday, everything will be in place to make sure game results will be available straight away. "We have South Africa working on the satellite communications. Once this is done, everywhere in the world, if they can take images from the satellite, will have the games available." However, the main headache may be simply finding when the competing teams are due to get to Mali. "Our biggest difficulty is the arrival of different teams because sometimes we have difficulty in communicating with the rest of Africa," said Mr Sangare. "So, we don't know exactly what time the people are scheduled to arrive." The other related problem is making sure the teams get to the stadia in the four outlying venues --Sikasso, Segou, Kayes and Mopti. So, Mali is receiving aircraft from South Africa and Tunisia to help them move players around the country. (BBC News, UK, 16 January 2002)
* Mauritius. China investment in Mauritius cotton - A Chinese company is to build a cotton spinning mill in Mauritius, taking advantage of laws that allow duty-free access to the US, the world's biggest textiles market. Textiles exported from Mauritius qualify for duty-free access to the US under the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA). The act was signed into law by President Clinton to boost trade between Africa and the US, by offering African exporters trade advantages. This investment however highlights fears that Asian countries are using Africa as a gateway to the US, raising questions about whether this investment will evaporate when trade rules are completely liberalised. The cotton mill is expected to produce 18,000 tonnes of cotton a year. Very few African countries are developed enough to take advantage of these trade preferences, with South Africa and Mauritius being the notable exceptions, Razia Khan, an economist at Standard Chartered said. (BBC News, UK, 10 January 2002)
* Morocco/Western Sahara. Kofi Annan urges Morocco and the Polisario to cooperate - UN secretary-general Kofi Annan is urging Morocco and the Polisario Front to continue cooperating with the global body for a "speedy and lasting solution to the conflict in Western Sahara," according to a fresh UN report on their territorial dispute. In a report to the UN Security Council, Annan said he "counted on Morocco and the Polisario Front, as well as on Algeria and Mauritania, to continue cooperating with [his] special envoy in efforts to reach a speedy, sustainable and concerted settlement to the conflict over Western Sahara". Annan described as "encouraging" the recent release of Moroccan POWs and Sahrawi detainees, according the report published by public media in Rabat. However, he cited that over 1,350 other POWs were still being held, most of whom have been in detention for over 20 years, posing "a serious humanitarian problem". Annan reiterated appeals to the Polisario Front to release "all prisoners without delay". On the situation of Sahrawi refugees in the Tindouf camps in Algeria, Annan said the issue was "a growing cause for concern", and called on the international community to provide generous support to humanitarian organisations to give the refugees relief assistance and means for voluntary return home. He hoped that Morocco and the Polisario Front would cooperate without reservations to enable the UNHCR to build confidence following the Security Council's resolution about Western Sahara. (PANA, Senegal, 14 January 2002)
* Mozambique. Turning guns into art - With a gun trade about to take place, the atmosphere was predictably tense and the participants very nervous. Sousa, the man with the merchandise, smiled nervously as he talked in hushed tones to Guerra, the man who had come to collect. The door of Sousa's two-roomed house remained firmly locked throughout --he did not want neighbours knowing about his illegal weapons or his past as a guerilla fighter in Mozambique's vicious 17-year civil war. So the negotiations took place in the dingy half-light provided by the only window. Sousa, 44, entered another room to return with four AK47s, six clips of ammunition, and an old East European rifle complete with bayonet. All had traces of mud still on them, having been dug up from their hiding place in the bush earlier that day. The trade then took place, but Sousa did not receive any cash for the guns -- he got a sewing machine. And Guerra was not a shady arms dealer. He works for a church-based charity -- the Christian Council of Mozambique (CCM) --which is carrying out its own imaginative decommissioning programme. Once CCM gets the guns, they are cut up in its compound in Maputo, the Mozambique capital. Then, the bits are handed to a group of local artists who fashion them into sculpture. Weapons that once had the capacity to kill become animals, birds, or even chairs and coffee tables. The government supports the scheme, realising that the CCM's "no questions asked" approach allows people to hand over weapons with confidence, where otherwise they would fear prosecution. In the seven years that CCM's "guns into ploughshares" programme has been in operation, it has collected and destroyed more than 200,000 guns, grenades and rocket launchers. The artists' extraordinary work, which has succeeded in doing what the government and the United Nations have previously failed, is touring the world. (CNN, USA, 11 January 2002) 

Weekly anb0117.txt - En of #4/7