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Weekly anb12123.txt #5

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 12-12-2002      PART #3/5
* Côte d'Ivoire. A mass grave - The BBC's Joan Baxter describes the scene at a mass grave in Côte d'Ivoire, where government troops are being blamed for the deaths of more than 100, mainly immigrant, workers. "We saw two mass graves here in the village of Monoko-Zohi in western Côte d'Ivoire. They are almost joined together and are probably 30 metres by about 10 metres in size and not very deep -- unfortunately. The earth has been heaped up over bodies, but there are still body parts visible. This is because local people here were terrified of further attacks and buried their dead in a great hurry. With the stench of death all around us, Ibrahima Ouedrago, head of the Burkina Faso committee in the village, said that some 120 people were killed, including Ivorians, Burkinabes, Malians, and people from Guinea. Over two days, 27-28 November, soldiers shot some victims where they found them, and gathered others for execution together, he said. Some had their throats slit. Six trucks full of men wearing Ivorian military uniforms, and with Ivorian Government licence plates drove into the village, just inside rebel-held territory, and began firing in the air. Many of the villagers fled. Many of those who did not are now buried in the grave. Accusing the villagers of feeding rebels, soldiers went house-to-house in the hamlet with a list of names, survivors alleged. "Those were [President Laurent] Gbagbo's men," they said. "We heard the shooting -- we panicked, and we all ran," said Kamousse, a merchant who was showing a customer a radio when the soldiers arrived."But my brother stayed in the house. He said, "Maybe it's just someone shooting into the air". Afterward, they took him behind the house to the latrine and shot him." One Burkinabe woman, Adiara Ouedrago, said the arrival of rebel fighters saved their lives. "If the rebels were like the government forces, we'd all be dead," she said. She has now fled the village of Monoko-Zohi. (BBC News, UK, 9 December 2002)
* Côte d'Ivoire. Fierce fighting - 4 December: South Africa has launched an investigation into reports that its nationals may be fighting as mercenaries on both sides. -- Government troops say they have launched an attack on the rebel-held western town of Toulepleu near the Liberian border. Four western towns were captured by two new rebel groups at the end of last week - the latest twist in a 10-week uprising which has left the country divided in two. Since then government forces have recaptured Man and have also set their sights on Danane, also in rebel hands. A rebel spokesman said government forces had bombarded Toulepleu with helicopter gunships, but were unable to take it. Earlier, Mali's President Amadou Toumani Toure arrived in Lome to brief Togo's President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who has been trying to broker peace in Côte d'Ivoire. This follows talks in Mali on 3 December between Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and his Burkina Faso counterpart Blaise Compaore. 5 December: Bodies are reported to be littering the streets of Man after a prolonged government attempt to recapture the town. Yesterday, shooting was still being heard there. -- Thousands of fearful civilians have fled the hilly west, some on swollen feet, others crammed into rickety minibuses, as the army wages an all-out attack on Man. -- Talks which were due to have taken place in Accra, Ghana, on 7 December, have been postponed at least until next week. 8 December: The Government has called on young men to volunteer for the army in what it is calling a mobilisation against the almost three-month-long rebellion. All men aged 20-26 have been asked to turn up at army headquarters on 10 December. There are reports that rebel factions have advanced eastward from the Liberian border through cocoa-growing country. Various French army sources are quoted as saying that rebels have taken the town of Blolekin, and were also threatening Guiglo, 120 kilometres from the Liberian border. Mercenaries have been seen heading towards the front alongside the Côte d'Ivoire army. "We are calling for the mobilisation because, with the increase in the number of fronts, we also need to increase the size of the security and defence forces," Defence Minister Bertin Kadet told reporters. "Ivorians are showing the desire to go to the front and they should be satisfied," he said. The news conference came after the leader of Monoko-Zohi's Burkina Faso community, Ibrahima Ouedraogo, said that 120 men in his village had been killed by Ivorian soldiers. 9 December: President Gbagbo has started talks with Togo's President Eyadema who is mediating in the conflict. However peace talks could be in jeopardy after the MPCI rebels says they will decide tonight whether to continue discussion with President Gbagbo's government. -- Continued fighting in the west has driven more than 30,000 people into neighbouring Liberia and Guinea. 10 December: In calling up men aged 20-26 for the government army, the MPCI says President Laurent Gbagbo is preparing for all-out war. It says the peace talks finished at midnight because the Organisation of West African States, which is behind the talks, have not publicly condemned what the rebels call a massacre of civilians. The MPCI says that before leaving the talks it will hold discussions with the chief mediator, Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema. In fact, thousands of young men have volunteered to fight on the side of the Government. The government's recruitment drive, scheduled to take place today, has been postponed to 12 December because of the huge number of volunteers coming forward. The United Kingdom has joined several other western countries, urging its nationals in Côte d'Ivoire to leave "immediately". 11 December: Government forces have now retaken the town of Blolekin in the west. -- France has announced it is sending more troops to Côte d'Ivoire to protect French and other foreign nationals. The French foreign ministry also said Paris intends calling a meeting of all African nations involved in the fighting. The Ivorian government has appealed to the international community to intervene militarily. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 11 December 2002)
* Côte d'Ivoire. Instabilité croissante - 5 décembre. Le sommet de la CEDEAO prévu le 7 décembre, a été reporté. Après la reprise des combats, le 28 novembre, entre de "nouveaux rebelles" et les forces gouvernementales dans l'ouest du pays, les chefs d'Etat doivent revoir les plans de déploiement d'une force ouest-africaine d'interposition. Les combats se poursuivent dans l'ouest. Des témoignages d'habitants ayant fui Man ont fait état de centaines de corps éparpillés dans les rues de la ville après trois jours de combats. Les rebelles ont accusé l'armée d'avoir procédé à des massacres. Les Nations unies ont indiqué que plus de 30.000 réfugiés se sont enfuis au Liberia. D'autres sont arrivés en Guinée, où on comptait près de 14.000 réfugiés dans la région de Nzérékoré. -- 6 décembre. A Monokozohi, un petit village à 70 km au nord-ouest de Daloa, les soldats français ont découvert un charnier qui pourrait bien contenir une centaine de corps. Les troupes gouvernementales et les rebelles du Mouvement patriotique de Côte d'Ivoire (MPCI) se sont aussitôt accusés mutuellement de la responsabilité du massacre. Mais les habitants semblent bien accuser l'armée. Pendant ce temps, les combats se poursuivent entre les soldats loyalistes et les deux nouveaux mouvements rebelles dans l'ouest du pays, particulièrement autour de Toulepleu, près du Liberia. Quant aux négociations de Lomé, qui semblent bloquées sur des questions politiques, elles pourraient être élargies à toutes les formations politiques du pays en vue d'aboutir à une solution globale. -- 7-8 décembre. Après la découverte du charnier, les rebelles du MPCI menacent de se retirer des pourparlers si les médiateurs ne condamnent pas les exactions. Les médiateurs ont promis une enquête. (L'agence Misna a aussi fait état de la découverte de cadavres d'au moins 86 gendarmes et soldats tués lors des affrontements avec la rébellion, ensevelis dans une fosse commune près de Bouaké). D'autre part, le gouvernement a appelé à la "mobilisation générale", exhortant tous les jeunes hommes valides à se mobiliser pour aller se battre contre les rebelles. Les hommes de 22 à 26 ans sont priés de se présenter à l'état-major de l'armée à Abidjan. Par ailleurs, un groupe de rebelles dissidents a annoncé avoir attaqué la localité de Blolekin, à 120 km à l'est de Toulepleu, près de la frontière avec le Liberia, où des combats sont en cours. -- 9 décembre. Les rebelles du MPCI ont décrété un couvre-feu à Bouaké et ses environs. D'autre part, ils ont déclaré qu'ils étaient prêts à passer à l'offensive si "rien de concret n'est fait" par le gouvernement ivoirien et la communauté internationale. Le président togolais Eyadéma, faisant preuve d'un bel optimisme, a annoncé la signature "dans les jours à venir" d'un accord global sur la crise ivoirienne. -- 10 décembre. Des milliers de jeunes Ivoiriens ont afflué pour se faire enrôler. Face à la montée des périls, après les Etats-Unis, le Royaume-Uni et la Belgique ont invité leurs ressortissants à quitter sans délai le pays. Le 11 décembre, l'Allemagne et les Pays-Bas ont fait de même. La France a décidé de renforcer "immédiatement" son dispositif militaire. Paris propose aussi d'accueillir les chefs d'Etat africains concernés et d'organiser une réunion des représentants des forces politiques ivoiriennes. Sur le terrain, l'armée a reconnu que ses hommes étaient responsables de la mort des personnes dont les corps ont été retrouvés dans le charnier à Monokohozi. Les combats se poursuivent dans l'ouest, où les forces loyalistes ont repris la ville de Blolekin. (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 12 décembre 2002)
* Ethiopia. Meles links Somalis to Kenya attacks - 7 December: Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said he has indications that a group operating out of Somalia may have been behind last month's attacks on Israelis in Kenya. Mr Meles said that the Somali group with links to al-Qaeda - known as al-Ittihad -- may have travelled to Kenya by boat to carry out their operation. He offered no evidence to substantiate these views. But with senior US officials due in Addis Ababa next week, Mr Meles will have every opportunity to convince them that the group had a hand in the attacks. The prime minister was speaking after his return to Addis Ababa from the United States, where he said he had discussed security matters with President George W Bush. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 7 December 2002)
* Ethiopie. Famine - nouvel appel d'aide - L'Ethiopie lance un nouvel appel à l'aide internationale pour obtenir 1,5 million de tonnes de vivres afin de nourrir en 2003 plus de 11 millions de personnes menacées de pénurie par la sécheresse. La directrice générale de l'Unicef a estimé que la situation en Ethiopie pourrait se transformer en un désastre comparable à la grande famine de 1984/85. A l'ouverture d'une conférence de donateurs, Simon Mechale, qui dirige la commission gouvernementale, a estimé que 11,3 millions de personnes auraient besoin d'une aide alimentaire l'an prochain et que 2,9 d'autres pourraient bientôt être menacées à leur tour de sous-nutrition. (Reuters, 7 décembre 2002)
* Ethiopia. Facing donor fatigue threat - 6 December: The world needs to act now to deal with the food crisis brought about by the drought in Ethiopia, a senior UN official has warned. Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy, who has just returned from one of the worst affected areas, warned of the dangers of donor fatigue, saying that the world must not wait for deaths from starvation. On 7 December, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is due to call for 1.4 million tonnes of food aid to meet the needs of just over 11 million people. The UN says it has enough food to last until early next year, but the needs for the rest of 2003 are still to be met. 10 December: The European Commission has pledged US $68.6 million towards providing food for the millions of Ethiopians facing starvation. -- The head of the World Bank in Ethiopia urges a greater role for private industry as the country was pledged US $3.6 billion towards tackling poverty. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 10 December 2002)
* Ghana/UK. Boys' bodies found on plane - 30 November: The bodies of two young African boys, aged between 12 and 14, have been discovered in the undercarriage of a Ghana Airways plane at Heathrow Airport. They were discovered in a gap beneath the wing. It is not clear whether they stowed away on the six-hour flight from Accra in Ghana to seek refuge, or if it was a prank that went wrong. Both boys were dressed lightly, one in a short-sleeved top and the other wore open-toe sandals. They carried only an empty wallet, an old padlock and two greetings cards. Police are working with Ghana police and Ghana Airways to try to identify them. 2 December: The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority says it has set up a panel to investigate the two boys' deaths. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 2 December 2002)
* Guinée. Projet d'hydraulique rurale - Le 9 décembre, la Banque africaine de développement (BAD) et le gouvernement de Guinée-Conakry ont signé un accord de prêt de 15 millions d'unités de compte (près de $20 millions) pour le financement d'un projet d'hydraulique rurale dans ce pays. L'objectif est de satisfaire les besoins en eau potable des populations rurales dans cinq préfectures. Le projet prévoit la réalisation de 1.100 points d'eau modernes équipés de pompes manuelles et 6 systèmes solaires de mini-réseaux d'adduction d'eau potable. Il contribuera aussi à la construction de latrines. (PANA, Sénégal, 10 décembre 2002) 

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