Weekly ANB0918_05.txt #7

[anb-bia <anb-bia at village.uunet.be>]

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 18-09-2003      PART #5/7

* Liberia. Casques bleus  -  Kofi Annan recommande de créer au Liberia une 
puissante force des Nations unies comptant au moins 15.000 hommes et près 
de 900 policiers civils. Dans un rapport que le Conseil de sécurité devait 
examiner le 16 septembre, le secrétaire général précise que ces troupes 
devront être déployés en leur permettant le recours à la force. Outre la 
sécurité de la population, les soldats auront en effet la charge du 
désarmement des milices. Le rapport note que "si la situation au Liberia 
continue à s'améliorer, le pays reste instable car de groupes armés, des 
milices et des éléments criminels continuent à y opérer". L'Onu estime à 
38.000 le nombre de combattants incontrôlés dans la nature, dont une forte 
proportion d'enfants. Médecins sans frontières affirmait que la vie de 
centaines de milliers de civils était toujours menacée par les violences ou 
le manque d'aide. - D'autre part, le Nigeria a adressé un avertissement à 
l'ancien président du Liberia, en exil sur son territoire. En échange de 
l'asile politique, Charles Taylor, inculpé de crime contre l'humanité par 
un tribunal de l'Onu, s'était engagé à ne pas intervenir dans les affaires 
de son pays. Les Etats-Unis l'accusent d'être en contact quotidien avec ses 
partisans à Monrovia.   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 17 septembre 2003)

* Liberia. Peacekeepers deploy  -  10 September: Thousands of displaced 
civilians, who fled renewed fighting between government forces and rebels a 
week ago in central Liberia, have begun returning to their camps following 
the deployment of West African peacekeepers in Bong County today. The 
peacekeeping force has fully deployed along the road from Kakata, 45 km 
north of the capital, Monrovia to Totota, 64 km further north. Over 50,000 
internally displaced people had fled from four large camps in Totota, 109 
km north of Monrovia, and moved southwards to Salala because of fighting 
between the government and rebels of the Liberians United for 
Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). 14 September: West African 
peacekeepers have moved south of the Liberian capital Monrovia, reaching 
the war-shattered country's second-largest city, Buchanan. Ecomil forces 
failed to gain permission from the rebel group Model to enter Buchanan on 
13 September but deployed on the outskirts of the port. A fragile peace is 
just about holding in Liberia since former President Charles Taylor stepped 
down on 11 August and an interim government was formed. Rebels however 
still control large parts of the country, where many people are suffering 
from malnutrition and disease. 16 September: General Festus Okonkwo, 
commander of the force deployed by ECOWAS, says that soldiers of the 
African peace force are not able to take up positions in the northern and 
eastern zones of Liberia still under rebel control. 17 September: The 
United Nations food agency says it plans to begin distributing urgently 
needed food supplies to the port city of Buchanan, today. A truck convoy 
reached the city yesterday, but a WFP official said that a curfew prevented 
the distribution from proceeding immediately. The convoy was carrying 
enough to feed 16,000 people for a month.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 17 September 
2003)

* Libya. Sanctions lifted  -  11 September: France's foreign minister says 
that an agreement with Tripoli on compensation for the victims of the 1989 
UTA airliner bombing means Paris will now vote for UN sanctions against 
Libya to be lifted. Paris has repeatedly delayed the UN vote, saying it 
would not agree to ending the sanctions imposed on Libya for the 1988 
Lockerbie Pan Am bombing unless Tripoli also met the demands of the UTA 
victims' families. "France naturally has no more opposition to the security 
council voting for the lifting of sanctions against Libya as quickly as 
possible," says Dominique de Villepin, ending the fraught prospect of a 
French veto. Libyan sources had said earlier that a Libyan charitable 
organisation and representatives of the families of the 170 UTA victims, 
negotiating in Tripoli, "appear to have succeeded in removing the final 
hurdles before a final deal can be signed". 12 September: The United 
Nations Security Council has voted to lift more than a decade of sanctions 
against Libya. The move clears the way for the payment of compensation to 
families of the victims of the bombing of a Pan Am jet above the Scottish 
town of Lockerbie in 1988. Libyan state radio hailed the vote as a 
"victory" which opened a "new page" in Tripoli's drive to normalise 
relations with the West.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 12 September 2003)

* Libye. L'Onu lève les sanctions  -  11 septembre. Les familles des 
victimes de l'attentat contre le DC-10 de la compagnie française UTA en 
1989 sont parvenues à un accord d'indemnisation avec la Libye, a annoncé un 
des avocats des familles. Dès lors, "la France n'a plus d'opposition à ce 
que le Conseil de sécurité vote le plus rapidement possible la levée des 
sanctions contre la Libye", a déclaré le ministre français des Affaires 
étrangères. La France avait menacé d'opposer son veto si les victimes de 
l'avion français n'obtenaient pas des dédommagements comparables à ceux 
accordés aux victimes de l'attentat de Lockerbie. L'accord obtenu établit 
le principe d'une indemnisation "juste et équitable", dont le montant sera 
fixé d'ici un mois. -- 12 septembre. Quinze ans après l'attentat de 
Lockerbie, le Conseil de sécurité de l'Onu a levé les sanctions imposées à 
la Libye. Les Etats-Unis et la France se sont abstenus. Les sanctions 
comprenaient un embargo sur les armes et les liaisons aériennes, et un gel 
des avoir financiers de la Libye. Washington, à qui "le comportement de la 
Libye continue à causer de sérieux soucis", maintient toutefois les 
sanctions bilatérales américaines, qui sont plus larges, et interdisent 
notamment aux ressortissants américains de se rendre dans le pays et de 
commercer avec lui.   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 13 septembre 2003)

* Madagascar. Le train à nouveau sur les rails  -  La société Madarail, qui 
a conclu un accord de concession du chemin de fer malgache d'une durée de 
25 ans, a réceptionné deux locomotives importées du Portugal. Quatre autres 
locomotives ayant appartenu au défunt Réseau national du chemin de fer 
malgache (RNCFM) ont déjà été remis en fonction. La direction de Madarail a 
indiqué qu'un autre investissement de 20 millions d'euros est en cours de 
négociation avec les banques pour la réhabilitation des infrastructures 
ferroviaires, dont les rails et les ponts. Des wagons de transport de 
voyageurs seront fonctionnels dans une semaine, mais ne desserviront que 
certaines régions enclavées. Le dernier train qui a relié la capitale 
Antananarivo au port de Tamatave date des années 1980. Depuis lors, la 
RNCFM, qui figure parmi les victimes de l'étatisation, a sombré dans une 
profonde léthargie.   (D'après PANA, Sénégal, 17 septembre 2003)

* Malawi. President's son arrested  -  12 September: Police in Blantyre, 
have arrested one of the sons of the country's President Bakili Muluzi, 
following a house raid, where they also seized some ammunition. According 
to the police, a group of armed officers raided the house of President 
Muluzi's late brother Dickson, in the densely populated township of 
Bwangwe. That is where they arrested Evance, the president's son and 
Willard, the son of the president's late brother. Malawi's Southern region 
police commissioner Often Thyolani confirmed the arrest of the two cousins, 
who are both in their mid-20s. In a telephone interview, today, Mr Thyolani 
says that three more gang members were also rounded up during the swoop. He 
said police have kept the gang on full remand until they appear in court on 
15 September. Mr Thyolani said as law-enforcers they are mandated to arrest 
any suspected criminal regardless of name or parentage.   (ANB-BIA, 
Belgium, 12 September 2003)

* Morocco. Bombs may nudge Morocco towards more liberalism  -  If those who 
carried out the bombings that killed 33 people in Casablanca on May 16 
hoped to pave the way to a hardline Islamic state, they may be about to 
achieve the opposite. In the wake of the attacks in Morocco's commercial 
capital, King Mohammed VI, who succeeded his father four years ago, has 
ordered an acceleration of moves to liberalise family law. Previous 
attempts to introduce a new law were suspended after a massive 
demonstration in Casablanca organised by Islamists in March 2000. But the 
king has now ordered a commission examining changes to report by the end of 
this month. Moroccan officials say this could open the way to the most 
liberal code on women's rights in the Arab world, apart from Tunisia. 
First, however, a trial of strength beckons between the Moroccan crown and 
secularists on the one hand, and Islamists of varying stripes on the other. 
The commission's proposals are expected to include outlawing polygamy, 
banning marriage to minors, and reform of divorce laws that massively 
favour men, according to Mohamed el-Yazghi, Morocco's minister of water, 
environment and land management. Morocco suffers from a high incidence of 
divorce and, concomitantly, prostitution and families headed by lone 
mothers, which many believe lies behind the social alienation demonstrated 
by those who carried out the bombings. The king himself, 40 last month, is 
known to be firmly in the liberal camp -- as seen by the coverage of his 
wedding, unprecedented by Moroccan standards, and the publicity given to 
the birth of his first child shortly before the bombings in May. 
Authorities have already moved against hardliners associated with Wahabi 
teachings. Thousands of unofficial mosques have been closed and up to half 
of the country's preachers have been fired, says Mr Yazghi.   (Financial 
Times, UK, 11 September 2003)

* Morocco. Local elections  -  12 September: The people of Morocco are 
voting in local elections, billed as a test of just how much the political 
landscape has changed since the May suicide bombings in Casablanca shook 
the country to its foundations. The election campaigns have promised a new 
openness and accountability in political life to counter the alienation 
that bred the bombers. But the party with the strongest appeal to voters in 
return for honesty, the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD), 
has all but withdrawn from the election in recognition of the intense 
sensitivity now surrounding the issue of political Islam in the wake of the 
bombings. Although it condemned the attacks outright and insisted that it 
had no radical Islamist agenda, the PJD has been a principle victim of the 
climate of fear and suspicion engendered by the bombings. The party has 
retrenched, reducing its participation to about 20% of the more than 23,000 
constituencies being contested, and virtually all of those in the areas of 
its biggest support base, the seething shanty towns on the margins of 
Morocco's main cities. 14 September: The Moroccan Interior Minister, 
Mustapha Sahel, announces the results of the country's communal elections, 
which show the political landscape virtually unchanged. The two leading 
traditional parties, the conservative Istiqlal and the socialist USFP, 
between them won more than 30% of the over 23,000 seats contested on town 
and local district councils. But the mainstream Islamist party, the PJD, 
won less than 3% of the vote -- the result mainly of its decision to stand 
in only a fifth of the constituencies. For the authorities the key thing 
was that the election should build on the progress made in last year's 
parliamentary elections which were widely seen as unusually free and fair. 
That mostly appears to have been the case. The authorities also wanted a 
respectable voter turnout. That too seems to have been achieved, officially 
at least, with a figure of 54%. The elections also saw the voting age 
lowered for the first time from 20 to 18 -- another sign from the 
authorities that they are serious about trying to foster a greater sense of 
democratic inclusion.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 14 September 2003)

* Maroc. Elections communales  -  12 septembre. 14,6 millions de Marocains 
sont appelés aux élections communales, premier scrutin national organisé 
dans le royaume depuis les attentats du 16 mai à Casablanca. Le scrutin 
désignera les 23.689 conseillers communaux qui dirigeront les communes 
urbaines et rurales du pays pendant six ans. Leurs pouvoirs ont été 
sensiblement élargis lors de la promulgation, le 3 octobre 2002, d'un 
nouvelle charte communale. 26 groupes politiques participent à ces 
élections, dont le parti islamiste Justice et développement (PJD), première 
force politique d'opposition. Mais ce parti, qui avait triplé son score aux 
législatives de 2002, a opté pour un profil bas. Il ne sera présent que 
dans 15% environ des circonscriptions et ne présentera de candidats que 
pour 20% des sièges. Selon son secrétaire général adjoint, "il s'agit d'une 
décision politique à cause des craintes énormes que l'étiquette islamiste 
suscite ici et à l'étranger". - Les Marocains semblent s'être peu mobilisés 
pour ce scrutin. Des analystes prévoient un taux de participation encore 
plus bas que celui des législatives, déjà faible avec 52%. -- 14 septembre. 
Finalement, le taux de participation est resté honorable: 54% sur 
l'ensemble du pays, mais seulement 35% dans les grandes villes. Le parti de 
l'Istiqlal et l'Union socialiste des forces du progrès, tous deux membres 
de la coalition goyvernementale, ont confirmé leur rôle de premiers partis 
du royaume. Le PJD n'a remporté que 593 sièges sur les 23.689 à pourvoir et 
ne s'est classé qu'en onzième position parmi les 26 partis en présence. 
Certains observateurs soulignent la faiblessse de ce score, d'autres 
affirment que la progression du PJD reste réelle, dans la mesure où il 
n'était présent que dans 15% des circonscriptions et qu'il s'est peu 
présenté dans les grandes villes, qui constituent son plus grand réservoir 
de voix.   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 15 septembre 2003)

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