SIERRA LEONE-POLITICS: Rewards for Repentant Rebels

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Nov 19 1996 (IPS) - In a desperate bid to curb resurgent violence in Sierra Leone, the country’s civilian government is offering incentives to rebels who surrender.

“We encourage people behind rebel lines, including combattants, to come out of the bush and put down their weapons,” Information and Broadcasting Minister George Banda-Thomas said at the weekend.

He said President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s government was offering cash rewards and jobs in the army and police to rebels and their supporters who gave themselves up.

“There are five centres scattered in the north, south and east of the country where former combattants and rebel sympathisers could turn in their weapons,” said Banda-Thomas, whose statement was broadcast on state radio and television.

The government’s offer came in the wake of intensified attacks by the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in the north and southeast of the country. Most of the raids have been against farming settlements and vehicles on highways leading to the provinces.

The RUF, which started its insurgency in 1991, had declared a two-month cease-fire in March this year.

At talks in April in Abidjan with Tejan Kabba’s government, which replaced Sierra Leone’s former military regime following elections in March, the RUF agreed to extend the cease-fire.

About a month ago, however, the fragile cease-fire was breached and the brutal maimings, torture and killings, allegedly committed by the rebels and by renegade soldiers called ‘Sobels’, resumed.

This diminished the government’s hopes for a negotiated settlement of the conflict, denting Tejan Kabba’s campaign promise to bring the war “to an early end.”

The escalation of the fighting has also led the Sierra Leonean president to go on a nation-wide tour to familiarise himself with developments, meet victims’ families and boost the morale of government troops.

Kabbah’s new strategy of using incentives to encourage the insurgents to give themselves up appears to have won him the sympathy of many people here, including some of its opponents.

“I hope the rebels accept the general amnesty declared by the government and come out of the bush. I think the offer is quite encouraging,” said Michael Demby, an opposition politician based in the capital.

Some RUF combattants and sympathisers also seem to have been convinced by the government’s position and are trooping from the bush to claim the unspecified cash rewards and other benefits. But this may also be due to setbacks suffered recently by the RUF, such as the defection of top officials, including Dr. Abdulai Wi, a medic who treated rebel casualties.

“I think the president is genuinely committed to the peace process,” says political scientist Umar Korom of the university of Sierra Leone. “What I doubt is rebel leader Foday Sankoh’s commitment. He doesn’t seem to have total control of his men and so anarchy may ensue.”

So far government has agreed to Sankoh’s offer to visit his fighters in the bush in December and convince them to lay down their weapons, provided his security is guaranteed by UN, Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) troops.

Sankoh is currently in Abidjan.

Apart from stopping the bloodletting here, peace would allow desperately needed reconstruction and development initiatives to kick off. So far, donors have failed to provide the 211 million dollars the government has requested for quick action to restore a semblance of normalcy here.