Bissau intercepts arms bound for Senegal rebels

BISSAU, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Guinea-Bissau intercepted a cargo of machineguns, mortars, rocket launchers and explosives bound for rebels in southern Senegal on Friday, a senior military official in the West African country said.

The security forces arrested three men after stopping a fishing boat near the port capital Bissau carrying the arms, which were shown to journalists and also included grenades, anti-tank mines, dynamite, mortar shells and ammunition.

"We fired warning shots to stop the pirogue (wooden fishing boat) that was carrying them," Lieutenant-Colonel Lassana Massaly of Guinea-Bissau's army told a news conference.

One of the three men arrested, believed to be rebels from Senegal's southern Casamance region which borders Guinea-Bissau, said they were transporting the arms to the border town of Varela, the scene of heavy fighting earlier this year.

Rebels first took up arms in Casamance in 1982, accusing Senegal's government of neglecting the region, rich in cashew nuts, fisheries, rice and palm oil and largely cut off from the rest of the country by its position south of Gambia.

The violence has generally been low-level, but the area is heavily mined and peace moves have failed to rein in hardliners.

Guinea-Bissau's army launched weeks of artillery and infantry attacks to dislodge rebel fighters in March this year, eventually flushing them over the border back into Senegal in the heaviest fighting in the area for years.

The Senegalese army said last month skirmishes had broken out again with those fighters, followers of Salif Sadio, a hardline leader of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), who has refused to negotiate.

Gambian officials say some 6,500 people have fled over the border to escape the latest fighting and are sheltering in the villages of Bullock and Ndemban. Local residents say more refugees are arriving every day.

Some said they had been told to leave their homes by the rebels, while others said they were fleeing the Senegalese army.

"There are arbitrary arrests being carried out by the Senegalese forces. They accuse youths of taking part in the rebellion," said one refugee, asking not to be named.

"That's why youths are running to Gambia because they fear they will be killed."

Senegalese officials were not immediately able to comment on the latest developments. The government is tight-lipped about the situation in Casamance, one of Senegal's leading tourist attractions with its palm-fringed beaches and coconut groves.

A Swiss-American woman working for the Red Cross was killed and three of her colleagues injured when her vehicle apparently hit a land mine in Casamance last week.

(Additional reporting by Pap Saine in Banjul)