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