By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Jun 18 1998 (IPS)

President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s invitation to Sierra Leoneans to write to him directly with suggestions on how to form a national army has opened the door for a heated debate in this West African nation.

In a recent nationwide broadcast, President Kabbah said that his idea of a new national army would be one that is “small, highly trained and professional, and ever determined to fight for the country and defend the constitution”.

The Sierra Leonean leader held talks this week with the command structure of the West African intervention force, ECOMOG, on what a new army should look like. The ECOMOG delegation from Liberia was led by Field Commander Major General Timothy Shelpidi, who told IPS he was also on a routine visit to see his troops on the ground and to assess their performance.

The Nigerian-led ECOMOG was instrumental in returning Kabbah, who was ousted in May 1997 by junior military officers, to power. He fled to neighbouring Guinea and only returned to the country this year in March.

There have been suggestions that the hunter militia groups, the Kamajors and the Kapras, who fought on the side of ECOMOG in ousting the military junta of Major Johnny Paul Koroma in February, should be recruited and re-trained for the new national army.

And it also has been suggested that the Special Security Division paramilitary force, which supports the civilian government, also should be part of the new military.

But Sierra Leoneans are adamant that some 6000 members of the military junta who have surrendered to ECOMOG should not be incorporated. “How could anyone think of re-absorbing these murderers?”, asked Mohammed Sandi, a Freetown-based businessman.

“These same soldiers distressed us a lot, killed hundreds, burnt homes and looted property. So, it is ridiculous, infact, very insulting, to attempt redrafting them into the national army,” he added.

Murray Lamin, whose house was burnt down and three family members killed by junta soldiers, is equally opposed to the idea. “The ideas of coups and violence are still fresh in the minds of these surrendered soldiers, so it would be dangerous re-absorbing them into the new national army,” Lamin told IPS.

But General Shelpidi believes that many of the former junta soldiers were misled by their superiors into committing atrocities against the people.

ECOMOG’s Task Force Commander in Sierra Leone, Brigadier General Maxwell Khobe, has noted that in building a new army, the West African nation has to first concentrate on the top echelon, rather than the rank and file.

“Once the command structure is overhauled, the re-trained Sierra Leone army would be professional and defend the country and its constitution,” General Khobe told IPS.

Khobe however, expressed misgivings about training civilian vigilantes and militias, because “soldiers are already trained and experienced, and battle-tested, and so it takes just a bit more to shape the army up”.

Before the outbreak of the civil war in 1991 between the government and rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the country’s army was 4000-strong. By February 1998, it had risen to 14,000.

The Sierra Leonean army disbanded itself when it joined forces with the RUF to overthrow Kabbah’s government in May 1997. The two formed the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which was headed by Koroma. ECOMOG has been providing security in the country since Kabbah’s government returned to power.

Remnants of the deposed AFRC are now marauding the countryside committing atrocities against rural residents. The rebels have raped women and young girls, looted property, destroyed homes and amputated the limbs of thousands of people in brutal attacks.

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