NIGER PRESENTS REPORT TO COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Press Release
RD/887

NIGER PRESENTS REPORT TO COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

GENEVA, 18 August (UN Information Service) -- The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this morning considered a report from the Government of Niger on its efforts to implement the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Introducing the report, Housseini Abdou-Saleye, Niger's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said that the scarcity of resources and the rapid growth of the population did not allow the Government to carry out sustained development in the country. The weakness of the country's legislation also did not permit the full implementation of the provisions of the Convention.

Ion Diaconu, the Committee expert serving as country Rapporteur on the report, said Niger's affirmation that there was no racial discrimination in the country could not be justified. No country was immune against racial or ethnic discrimination, he added.

Also participating in the discussion were Committee experts Luis Velencia Rodriguez, Deci Zou, Peter Nobel, Régis de Gouttes, Shanti Sadiq Ali, Rüdiger Wolfrum, and Mahmoud Aboul-Nasr.

As one of 150 States parties to the International Convention, Niger must periodically report to the Committee on measures taken to eliminate bias. The Committee will issue formal, written recommendations on the report presented by Niger towards the end of its three-week session, which concludes on 21 August.

Also this morning, the Committee discussed a draft decision on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which it is expected to adopt this afternoon.

Report of Niger

The fourteenth periodic report of Niger (document CERD/C/299/Add.18) reviews the general legal framework for the prohibition of racial

discrimination. It says that the Constitution ensures equality before the law to all persons, without distinction as to sex or social, racial, ethnic or religious origin. On ethnic and demographic characteristics, the report says that Niger is situated in Central West Africa with an estimated population of 9 million inhabitants, of whom 50.4 per cent are female. The report affirms that 80 per cent of the population is illiterate. Only 24 per cent of the children of school age are enrolled in school and girls account for under 23 per cent of those enrolled children. The rate is even lower at the secondary level and negligible at the higher level. The report notes that racial discrimination does not exist in the Niger; any specific propaganda of regionalist, racial or ethnic character or any manifestation of racial or ethnic discrimination is punishable by law.

Presentation of Niger's Report

HOUSSEINI ABDOU-SALEYE, the Permanent Representative of Niger to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said that the report was prepared in a period of extreme difficulty. The authors of the report were not able to collect the necessary information and data to make it complete.

Mr. Abdou-Saleye said that the scarcity of resources and the rapid growth of the population of Niger did not allow the Government to carry out sustained development in the country. In addition, because of the arid and desert character of the land, agriculture and other development areas were not advanced. For a number of years, because of the successive droughts, there had been a mass population movement from the countryside to the towns.

With the advent of democracy in Africa, Niger had organized a national conference from 29 July to 3 November 1991, Mr. Abdou-Saleye noted. That conference disbanded existing institutions while maintaining the President of the Republic and the Supreme Court. The conference established a Higher Council, which served as a parliament -- part of a transitional regime for a period of 15 months.

The cohabitation which followed the early legislative elections of 12 January 1995 did not function successfully, he said. The impasse caused by its inoperability resulted in the coup d'etat of 27 January 1996, when a new period of transition began. During that period, a new Constitution was drafted and adopted by referendum.

In conclusion, Mr. Abdou-Saleye said that the population growth of Niger was the highest in the world with an average of seven children per mother. In addition, half of Niger's multi-ethnic population was composed of children under 15 years of age.

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Discussion of Niger's Report

ION DIACONU, the Committee expert serving as country Rapporteur on the report of Niger, said the report did not mention the implementation of the provisions of the Convention with regards to the events that took place during the period of armed conflict involving the Government and the Tuaregs in the north of the country. Although the situation remained fragile with respect to the agreements reached between the Government and the Tuaregs, Niger was one of rare countries in Africa where an accord between an ethnic group and a Government was being respected. Such an arrangement should serve as an example to solving similar problems.

Mr. Diaconu said that according to certain non-governmental sources, a similar conflict had been brewing in recent years between another ethnic group, the Tubu -- who demanded autonomy similar to that granted to the Tuaregs -- and the authorities in Niamey. More information on this issue should be provided by the delegation. Some reports also noted that the small ethnic groups complained of discrimination because of the economic and political dominance of the major groups, the Hausa and Gurma, he said.

Referring to a case of detention which had resulted in death, Mr. Diaconu recalled that a report of Amnesty International showed evidence that a representative of the Tubu, Hassane Ali, had been arrested in 1996 and had succumbed while in prison. The Committee would like to obtain more details about this incident.

Another phenomenon which was not reflected in the report was that of the situation of refugees, Mr. Diaconu said, adding that refugees from Niger were found in neighbouring countries and viceversa. Those refugees were often subjected to racial discrimination. However, positive development had taken place during the past few years, with the intervention of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to help with the return of thousands of Tuaregs to Niger. The delegation was requested to provide information on the status of the refugees in Niger, particularly the 10,000 Malian nomadic refugees, and the protection they enjoyed as such, he said.

Mr. Diaconu said that the affirmation in the report that there was no racial discrimination in Niger was not justified. The Committee always upheld that such affirmations were not acceptable because the International Convention was intended to protect all persons against all forms of acts of discrimination based on race or ethnic origin in the economic, social and cultural aspects of life. No country was immune to such acts.

The principal problem posed to a country, from the point of view of implementing the Convention, was to ensure peace among the various ethnic groups and to construct peaceful relationships in order to prevent ethnic conflicts, Mr. Diaconu said.

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Other Committee experts also raised questions on such issues as the low level of education, with 80 per cent of the population illiterate; the law punishing propagation of racial discrimination; the situation of armed conflict between the Tubu and the central Government; the death in prison of Hassane Ali, leader of Tubu ethnic group; civilian execution in the conflict region in the east of the country; and forced labour.

HOUSSEINI ABDOU-SALEYE (Niger), responding to the questions raised by Committee members, thanked the experts, particularly the Rapporteur, for his in-depth analysis of the situation in his country. He said that ethnic groups of Niger were not confined to their own regions but could move in all parts of the country's territory. The north coexisted with the south and people travelled freely in each other's regions.

Mr. Abdou-Saleye said that the rebellion of the Tuaregs was not of racial nature but concerned a demand for autonomy, which had now been achieved with the agreement between the leadership of that group and the Government. Successive Governments maintained the terms of the agreement, and it was developing harmoniously. When the Tuaregs were demobilized, the ex-rebels were integrated into the armed forces, in civil service and other development projects. With regard to the Tubu conflict, the delegate said that a protocol was signed with the fighting group representing them to restore peace in the region. However, another group from the same ethnic group, which did not associate itself with the peace agreement, continued its resistance. The Government was still trying to find a peaceful arrangement to overcome the problem in the region. It did not believe solving the conflict by force, he said. Mr. Abdou-Saleye said that there were four human rights organizations engaged in dissemination of information on human rights protection and promotion in the country. They also served as important tools in the negotiations between the rebelling ethnic groups and the central power. Niger's legal dispositions to give effect to the International Convention had weaknesses and did not make the full implementation of its provisions possible, the delegate said. However, many measures had been taken without being put in a legal context, he added. In a brief intervention, Mahmoud Aboul-Nasr, Committee Chairperson, speaking in his personal capacity, said that the continuation of interference in the domestic affairs of African States by former colonialists and the "new powers", by helping one or another group, had made the situation worse. He suggested that the working group of the programme of the Third Decade on Racial Discrimination should include case studies on the effects of colonialism on the many problems in Africa today, he said.

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