WAR AND PEACE
Congo
Presidents Mathieu Kerekou of Benin, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Ange-Felix Patasse of the Central African Republic, Idriss Deby of Chad, Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Alpha Oumar Konari of Mali, Abdou Diouf of Senegal and Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, plus Cameroon's Foreign Minister Fernand Oyono, met in Libreville Gabon on September 14, to try to resolve the bloody conflict tearing apart the state of Congo-Brazaville.
Peace talks called by President Bongo and international mediator Mohamed Sahnoun on June 16, attended by Presidents Deby, Patasse and Konare and representatives of the warring sides, resulted in an initial ceasefire on June 18. This was however not respected.
On July 13, a second ceasefire was agreed but the truce lasted just three weeks.
Clashes between militiamen loyal to rival leaders continued to escalate, according to AFP correspondent on October 7. Supporters of Congolese President Pascal Lissouba and the forces of former head of state Denis Sassou Nguesso have left at least 4000 people dead, since June 5, according to official figures and no sign of negotiated solution is in sight.
|
Sierra Leone
Troops of Sierra Leone's military Junta and Nigerian soldiers exchanged heavy artillery fire in Freetown on September 22, causing slight casualties on both sides, military sources said.
Residents of Lungi district near the international airport, 15 Kilometers from the city center said the small arms fire was followed by shelling, alarming local people for about 45 minutes before the fighting died down.
Nigerian troops deployed in Freetown after Major Johnny Koromas ousted an elected civilian government in May blamed Monday's fighting on rebels allied with Junta.
|
Burundi
On September 26, about 60 delegates representing a cross section of Burundi politics opened a three day UN sponsored meeting in Paris to seek a common ground that could end years of conflict in the country.
Present in the overcrowded room in a Paris Conference Center were representatives of the government of President Pierre Buyoya, the armed forces and all the various Burundian factions and political groups as well as numerous religious and social organizations.
|
Algeria
In an attack, blamed on Muslim militants on September 23, Algerian residents said that around 200 civilians had been killed in Baraki suburbs of Algiers.
State-run Algerian television said the assailants had cut the throats of their victims and then burnt their bodies.
Algeria's worst massacre of civilians was in Sidi Rais in August, where it was reported that about 300 people died.
According to Algerian newspapers of October 4, suspected muslim rebels killed at least 88 civilians, many of them women and children in massacres in Algeria over the past three days.
The Algerian Liberte newspaper said about 30 Muslim rebels killed 38 people, including 15 children and two women overnight Thursday-Friday in Melaha village in Blida Province, 50 Km South of Algiers.
|
Uganda
The US embassy in Uganda, on 28th September urged the Ugandan government to negotiate with the Lord's Resistance Army, LRA, rebels to end the bloody civil war which has gripped the northern Uganda.
The report titled, "The Anguish of Northern Uganda", prepared by US consultant Robert Gersony for the US embassy and the US Agency for International Aid, USAid, recommended that peace talks with the LRA rebels were the only way to bring the decade-long insurgency to an end.
The report, which documents the causes of the conflict by both the LRA in northern Uganda and by the West Nile Bank Front, WNBF, in northwest Uganda marks the first time a foreign government has endorsed peace talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA.
|
Rwanda
Mr Protais Mussoni, prefect of Southeastern Kibungo prefecture, was on October 6, quoted saying that Tanzania has expelled 181 Rwandese refugees who had been living there for decades.
He added that the refugees, most of them Tutsi, who fled Rwanda in 1959, or the early 1960s had not been given any warning and often had to leave without families or possesions.
|
Senegal
Soldiers killed 22 separatist rebels and destroyed two of their bases in Senegal's troubled Southern province of Casamance at the weekend, officials said on October 6.
Two soldiers were killed in the sweep and a policeman was killed later by suspected rebels in an attack, they added.
|
 | CONTENTS | AFRICANEWS HOMEPAGE |
USAGE/ACKNOWLED
Contents can be freely reproduced with acknowledgements. The by-line should read: author/AFRICANEWS.
Send a copy of the reproduced article to AFRICANEWS.
AFRICANEWS - Koinonia Media Centre, P.O. Box 8034, Nairobi, Kenya
tel/fax: 254.2.560385 - e-mail: afrinews@freeworld.it
AFRICANEWS on line is by Enrico Marcandalli
|