SIERRA LEONE-POLITICS: Disarmament Finds an Ally in Hunger

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Apr 16 1997 (IPS) - The surrender of 50 ex-rebels to the Sierra Leonean authorities this week in the Tonkolili, a district some 250 kms north of here, was one of the few bright lights in a disarmament process plagued by setbacks.

It was one of the largest mass surrenders since a November 1996 peace accord between the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the Sierra Leonean government under which the rebels agreed to disarm.

The group had spent more than three years in the dense forests of Tonkolili’s Kangari Hills. Its surrender was linked in part to a split in the rebel leadership and partly to hunger, according to one of the ex-insurgents, who gave his name as John Samura.

“As far as we are concerned the war is over,” Samura told journalists Wednesday in Magburaka, the administrative capital of Tonkolili. “We cannot see ourselves perishing in the bush with no defined leadership or any source of livelihood.”

Samura and his colleagues, many of them emaciated, received an unexpected welcome from the authorities when they turned themselves in. In addition to receiving food, medicines and clothing from relief agencies and the Ministry of Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Resettlement, they were lodged at a hotel in Magburaka.

“This is the first time the authorities are housing surrendered rebels in a hotel, giving the signal that the civilian government of President (Ahmed) Tejan Kabbah is entirely committed to the peace process,” commented Manso Turay, a military analyst here.

But Turay added that the government needed to do more to encourage other fighters to lay down their weapons. “The government should drop leaflets in rebel bases informing the combattants of an existing amnesty and plans to reintegrate them into civil society,” he said.

The rebels told journalists in Magburaka on Wednesday that even senior RUF commanders were now finding life in the forest tough. “We have been starving in the bush with no hope for a bright future,” one ex-combattant said. “Our leadership is in disarray and we are not sure who controls the movement. We only hope the government will send letters of amnesty to the thousands still in the bush.”

“Col. Isaac, Major Kallon, Lt. Pacho Pacho and Lt. Bullet Man (rebel commanders) are all facing hard times and are disillusioned at the RUF leadership for abandoning them,” he said. “These are the diehards and I believe if the government sends a clear message of amnesty and promises of jobs for them, these commandos will come out of the bush.”

This group’s surrender has come at a time when the November peace pact, signed in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, faces a severe crisis following the abduction last month of three members of the Committee for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP) — a body comprising RUF and state officials that was set up under the Abidjan accord to guide the peace process.

The three were RUF members. They included Philip Palmer, who last month announced that Sankoh had been stripped of the leadership of the RUF and that he, Palmer, was the new leader.

They were kidnapped by forces loyal to RUF leader Foday Sankoh while on a mission to explain the terms of the peace agreement to the fighters. Since then, all efforts to secure their release have failed, with their captors insisting that they would only free them if Sankoh asserted his control over the rebel group.

Speaking from the Nigerian capital, Abuja, where he has been staying for weeks now, Sankoh said no harm would be done to the hostages, but he stressed that they had betrayed the RUF by declaring that he was no longer leader and he added: “No Foday Sankoh, no peace.”

“These three guys are traitors,” he said. “They had been bribed by the Freetown government to sabotage my leadership and would surely be tried and punished by the People’s War Council (an RUF body).”

Sankoh has been dragging his feet on the demobilisation and encampment of the RUF fighters, only 300 of whom have surrendered since the Abidjan accord. However, it is not only his stance that has delayed the disarmament process: fighting between the ex- rebels and a pro-government militia, the Kamajors has reportedly caused some insurgents to hesitate to give up their arms.

“Just after the peace deal was signed, over 60 RUF fighters in the Tonkolili district attempted to leave the forests but they were attacked by Kamajors and more than 30 were killed by the Kamajors,” Thomas Sunny, a former rebel, told IPS. “This is why many of the combattants are unwilling to leave the bush. They fear for their security.”

Independent sources also confirmed to IPS that the hostilities between the militia and the rebels was a major stumbling block to demobilisation. As a result, the bulk of the rebels — no one knows for sure how many there are, but the number is thought to run into thousands — have remained in the bush, occasionally attacking vehicles to obtain food.

“We are really afraid to ply the highways especially to Bo (the country’s second largest town) because the rebels attack our vehicles and loot the goods,” complained Abu Bakarr Sillah, president of the Professional Drivers Association.