SIERRA LEONE-POLITICS: Joy and Relief Follow Peace Accord

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Dec 2 1996 (IPS) - Sierra Leoneans reacted with joy and relief to a weekend accord that marked the end of the five-year civil war in the West African nation.

On Monday, declared a national holiday in celebration of Saturday’s peace pact between President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader Foday Sankoh, people continued gathering in homes and bars to toast to the end of the conflict.

The celebration had started immediately after Kabbah announced the agreement in an address to the nation at the National Stadium here on Saturday, soon after his return home from the signing ceremony in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

Following his address, people danced in the street and later flocked to the bars and nightclubs that abound in Freetown. On Sunday, prayer sessions were held in various churches in the capital and other major towns.

A key indication of confidence in the peace accord was the fact that scores of public transport vehicles could be seen on roads leading from Freetown to other parts of the country. Traffic had hitherto been minimal on national highways because of frequent rebel ambushes.

“I can now travel back and forth to Bo and Pujehun (towns in the east and southeast respectively) where I buy palm oil to sell in Freetown,” businesswoman Arijeneh Sheriff told IPS.

Civil servant James Massaquoi said he would now be able to see his relatives in the southern town of Baaima. “I have been cut off from them for over four years,” he said. “The peace pact is a big relief.”

The peace pact came too late to save some members of lab technician Mike Turay’s family but he was still thankful that it had been signed. “Although I lost my mother and father in the war, I am happy that the war is over,” he told IPS.

The war between the RUF and government troops backed by Guinean and Nigerian soldiers, South African mercenaries and Kamajors — a militia made up of traditional hunters — killed an estimated 10,000 people and forced another 1.7 million of the roughly 4.5 million Sierra Leoneans from their homes.

It also crippled economic activity in this small West African nation whose annual per capita gross national product declined from 200 U.S. dollars in 1991, the year the RUF launched its rebellion, to about 150 U.S. dollars in 1995.

Speaking at the signing ceremony in Abidjan, Tejan Kabbah said: “Today our enemy is no longer Foday Sankoh and the Revolutionary United Front, our enemy is poverty, disease and ignorance.”

He announced that all RUF prisoners of war and people suspected of collaborating with the rebels would be released from detention and that food, clothing and shelter would be given to all former members of the rebel force.

Ex-RUF members, he added, would be incorporated into the process of rebuilding Sierra Leone and resettling its displaced people.

According to RUF leader Sankoh, the war was now over and it was time for national reconstruction. He claimed Saturday that the RUF had taken up arms to end dictatorship and misrule so that genuine democracy and accountability could be established in the country.

The accord came eight months after Tejan Kabbah’s government replaced a military regime that had ruled Sierra Leone since 1992, when it overthrew an unpopular civilian government, during whose reign the RUF launched its rebellion.

“This was a people’s revolution to bring about positive change,” Sankoh, a former army corporal, alleged. But he threatened that “the people will take up arms again if the government fails the people.”

While details of the peace pact have not been made public, Sankoh said he had accepted the government’s offer to have some of his former combatants integrated into the national army while others would be helped to readjust to civilian life.

Even before Saturday’s signing, the RUF had begun quartering its combatants. State radio announced Friday that “over RUF 8,000 fighters have been withdrawn from the front and encamped at the Camp Libya base in Pujehun on the orders of Corporal Foday Sankoh.”

Sankoh had stated earlier last week during a visit to rebel- held areas to lobby support for the peace agreement that the move to encamp the fighters was “a clear indication of the RUF’s commitment to the peace process.”

But the move may also have been motivated by evidence that RUF fighters were tired of the war. Over the past weeks there had been a number of defections and more than 1,000 former rebels had surrendered to the government.

Mike Sesay, a military analyst here, had commented last week that it was “unusual that rebels will encamp themselves willingly”. “I believe that both the rebel side and the government forces are war-weary and want an end to the hostilities,” he had said.

Political scientist Isaac Bassie told IPS that the RUF had been weakened militarily by the defections and the fact that Kamajors had overrun one of its two main camps, Camp Zogoda, in mid- November. The only significant rebel base left had been Camp Libya, he noted, adding that the RUF was unable to “continue with the military option any longer.”