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Weekly ANB0918_05.txt #7
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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)
Weekly anb0918.txt - End of #5/7