SIERRA LEONE-POLITICS: New Obstacles to Peace Arise

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Jan 31 1997 (IPS) - Reported cease-fire violations and rebel objections to a plan to deploy international monitors threaten the shaky transition to peace in Sierra Leone, two months after the belligerents there agreed to halt a five-year war.

The rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) has rejected a UN proposal to station 720 troops in the West African nation to monitor the cease-fire, which was signed in November last in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

“The size of the country and the number of combattants to be demobilised do not require such a massive deployment of troops,” RUF leader Corp. Foday Sankoh, who is based in Abidjan, told IPS in a telephone interview on Friday.

“The RUF wishes to suggest that a smaller number of between 50 and 60 men will effectively carry out the mission for the reasons outlined,” he said.

Sankoh also argued that sending UN troops “violates Articles 9 and 11 of the Abidjan Peace Accord, which calls for a Neutral Monitoring Group (NMG) to work alongside the Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) in monitoring the cease-fire, not a peacekeeping force.”

In another telephone conversation on Friday, RUF spokesman Gibril Massaquoi told IPS that the highest number of monitors the rebels could accept was 100.

“We have seen the negative consequences of the deployment of such large (contingents of) troops in other countries, so we don’t want a replay of this drama,” Massaquoi said. The NMG, he added, “must comprise forces from the Organisation of African Unity, ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) and the Commonwealth.”

The RUF’s stance is a blow to efforts by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to make the Sierra Leonean crisis a priority for the United Nations.

Many Sierra Leoneans see the rebel’s objections as bad news for a peace process that has been marred by numerous cease-fire violations.

This month, there have been several clashes between the rebels and local militias called ‘Kamajors’ that fought alongside the government troops during the civil war, in which at least 10,000 people died, and up to 1.5 million, a third of the population, were displaced.

Reports of attacks — some of them accompanied by burning and looting — on more than 22 villages and towns in the north and southeast of the country have been confirmed by the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP), made up of representatives of both the government and rebels.

“I think the RUF is simply playing delaying tactics,” Mohammed Kamara, a senior member of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s government, told IPS. “What does the number of UN troops matter if the rebels are committed to the peace process?”

“All the RUF should do now is co-operate with whatever personnel is deployed so as to ensure the peace process survives,” said Kamara.

Karim Jibateh, a businessman from the diamond-rich eastern district of Kono, suspects that the RUF is having second thoughts about the cease-fire agreement. “History is replete with rebel movements signing peace deals and reneging,” he told IPS. “After all, what do the rebels have to lose if they backtrack on the peace deal?”

His suspicions are shared by Mariama Jah (40) from Pujehu, a district in the south and one of the communities where many people lost their lives or property during the 1991-1996 war. “My feeling is that the rebels are trying to buy time so as to consolidate their position before the disarmament and demobilisation of ex-combattants …”

One of the things that cast doubts on the RUF’s commitment to the peace process is the fact that it has still not sent anyone to represent it on the JMG, whose job it is to monitor the implementation of the cease-fire accord.

But RUF leader Sankoh alleged Friday that it was the government that had shown a “lack of committment to the peace deal”. He said the Tejan Kabbah administration had cut off communication links with the RUF, adding: “I think this is not good for the peace deal.”