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The
heads of all five United Nations peacekeeping missions in west
Africa began talks yesterday in Senegal on efforts to stop
lawlessness in one country spreading to others, UN officials
said.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, chief of the UN Office for West Africa
(Unowa), late Thursday said the meeting on Goree island off Dakar
would assess developments and their impact throughout the
region.
In following up similar talks in Sierra Leone last November, the
mission heads would discuss policy coordination and harmonizing
their activities across west Africa, Unowa earlier announced.
"We shall also be looking at the regional side, particularly the
region around the borders of Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Guinea," Ould Abdallah said, proposing joint UN patrols as one
option on the frontiers.
Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, which lie next to each other
along the Atlantic Coast and all have borders with Guinea and its
dense forests, are each at different stages in emerging from civil
wars.
Hosted by Unowa, the meeting brought together Albert Tevoedjre (UN
mission in Ivory Coast - Minuci), Jacques Klein (UN mission in
Liberia -Unmil), Daudi Ngelautwa Mwakawago (UN mission in Sierra
Leone - Unamsil), and David Stephen (UN peace-building support
office in Guinea Bissau -Unogbis).
West African borders are notoriously porous and have for decades
frequently been crossed not only by refugees from conflict but also
by fighters, arms and ammunition and exported chaos.
"There is a kind of lawless zone, where there are refugees,
displaced people, rebels, and people wanted by national legal
systems," Ould-Abdallah said.
Liberian former president Charles Taylor, who was last August
forced into exile as a rebel war drew to an end, has been indicted
by a UN war crimes court for Sierra Leone on charges of arming and
training rebels in that country in exchange for "blood
diamonds".
Other issues on the table in Dakar included the potential
consequences of the "drawdown of the UN mission in Sierra Leone",
"the regional impact of the Ivory Coast crisis" and the
"cross-border humanitarian impact of crises, especially in Guinea,"
Unowa said in a statement Tuesday.
Guinea-Bissau lies to the south of Senegal's Casamance province,
where armed separatists remain active, and itself went through a
bloodless coup in September last year.
Ould Abdallah said a UN decision in principle to send troops to
Ivory Coast, where French and west African soldiers are currently
engaged in peacekeeping duties, was up for discussion.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has proposed that a peacekeeping
force of 6 240 men be sent to Ivory Coast, and the UN Security
Council is due to vote on the issue on February 27.
UN troops "in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast could undertake
joint patrols, show their presence" as a way of tackling border
issues, Ould Abdallah said. – Sapa-AFP.