POLITICS-SIERRA LEONE: U.N. Help Needed

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 1998 (IPS) - Sierra Leone’s elected government, back in power after a coup nine months ago, is calling for U.N.humanitarian assistance even as it dismisses the world body’s concerns over the use of force by Nigerian peacekeepers.

“There is a very serious humanitarian problem in and around Sierra Leone,” James Jonah, the country’s U.N. ambassador, said Tuesday. As a result, he added, U.N. humanitarian assistance – and possibly even the deployment of peacekeepers – could be necessary to ensure the restored government’s stability.

Most diplomats here agree that the United Nations, which did not intervene following the May 1997 coup in which elected President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah was deposed by Col. Johnny Paul Koroma, now is unlikely to send a force to Sierra Leone.

That leave only one alternative, said Jonah. Kabbah’s government will continue to rely on the Nigerian-dominated regional peacekeeping force, called ECOMOG, to keep its troops in the country while the crisis persists. (Koroma reportedly left the capital, Freetown, over the weekend, but the junta’s forces have said they will continue fighting in other parts of the country.)

U.N. diplomats, however, voiced concern over the Nigerians’ intensive shelling of Freetown over the past week, and over reports that the troops had carried out retribution killings of the juntas’ supporters. At least 118 people have been reported killed, with at least 700 civilians wounded during the fighting.

More than 4,500 Sierra Leoneans have fled to Guinea in recent days, citing reprisal attacks against civilians and lack of access to food and medicine in Freetown, according to U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard.

Several diplomats in the 15-nation Security Council deplored Nigeria’s heavy shelling of the capital, and wondered what role the troops would play now. “ECOMOG’s existing mandate did not allow for the use of force on this scale,” one envoy, speaking on condition of anonymity, said last week.

Jonah, however, blamed the Security Council’s inaction for leaving the regional peacekeepers no choice but to mount an offensive against Koroma’s ruling junta, which had been supported by the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and opposed by local Kamajor guerrillas.

“You cannot blame these countries who seek assistance” from regional soldiers and mercenaries, argued Jonah. “What can they do when the Security Council is reluctant, whatever the reason, to send peacekeeping missions (to Africa)?”

He blamed the veto-holding five permanent Council members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – for using the threat of vetoes to block deployment of peacekeepers in several tense African conflicts. Jonah challenged those countries to provide an alternative to ECOMOG’s controversial intervention, arguing, “If you don’t want ECOMOG to stay … then let the United Nations come in.”

Council sources doubt that there is any will in that body to authorise peacekeepers for Sierra Leone, particularly since Kabbah is likely to return to Freetown this month without U.N. assistance. Yet U.N. officials are equally concerned that the Nigerian-dominated force must allow access for humanitarian workers and quell any reprisal attacks before the situation can improve.

“U.N. agencies, non-governmental organisations and international organisations are ready to respond to meet the needs of all affected populations, but require prompt, safe and unrestricted access to do so,” said Under-Secretary-General Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator.

“Relief agencies working in Sierra Leone report that all stocks of food and medicines are now exhausted or have been looted,” Vieira de Mello warned.

ECOMOG’s enforcement of arms sanctions, imposed by the Security Council last year against the junta, has also been problematic, U.N. officials assert.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told IPS that a U.N. humanitarian team that had visited Sierra Leone recently found that arms traffic had barely been affected by the sanctions, but that ECOMOG had often blocked convoys of food or medicine.

Eckhard said that a U.N. team led by Francis Okello, the special envoy to Sierra Leone, would travel to the country on Wednesday to determine the populations’ humanitarian needs. U.N. and other humanitarian observers have reported that Freetown “is slowly returning to normal” with the restoration of phone service and the calming of fighting, Eckhard added.

The new status quo in the region, with Nigeria for now propping up Kabbah’s government, may yet lead to further conflict. Jonah warned that Sierra Leone would not tolerate outside interference, accusing unidentified Liberian forces of aiding Koroma’s junta.

“We know that Liberians were causing most of our difficulties,” Jonah said. “We never had any history of conflict before … We cannot have a neighbour that seeks to destabilise another country.”

The ambassador said Sierra Leone would investigate allegations of Liberian involvement and may bring the matter to the Security Council. Serveral media reports also alleged that Liberian fighters crossed into Sierra Leone in recent days in a bid to assist Koroma, and Liberian President Charles Taylor has opposed ECOMOG and its supporters in Sierra Leone in the past.