POLITICS-SIERRA LEONE: Rebels Demand Their Leader

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Aug 20 1998 (IPS) - A bloody showdown looms in Sierra Leone, where the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) has given the government one week to release its leader or face an all-out campaign of terror.

“We want the international community to help facilitate the release of our leader Foday Sankoh, to join us in the bush so that durable peace will be established,” said RUF spokesman Lieutenant Eldred Collins, over a European radio station monitored in the Sierra Leonean capital this week.

Collins, who did not disclose the hideout of the rebels, is thought to have spoken by satellite phone from the RUF stronghold of Kailahun, about 320 kilometres east of here.

Failure to release Sankoh will result in a military campaign, dubbed ‘Operation Spare No Soul’, he said. “At the end of the week-long grace period, we will launch an all-out war on the Nigerian invaders, their Guinean, British and American mercenary counterparts who have occupied our country”.

Sankoh is being held at an undisclosed detention centre by the government, awaiting trial. He was extradited from Nigeria in late July, after spending over a year in jail for illegally entering that country with ammunition.

In his maiden television interview after his extradition, Sankoh ordered his fighters to observe a unilateral cease-fire, and he asked the West African Peacekeeping Force (ECOMOG) and the government to airlift him to his troops in the bush.

“If I am airlifted to where my fighters are, I am sure they will listen to me and stop the killings, burning and amputations,” Sankoh said.

His Jul. 25 order to the rebel forces to stop fighting however, was never heeded. The rebels have intensified their campaign of terror, on a large scale, since then.

In its latest report, the London-based human rights group ‘Amnesty International’ said more than 200 people were killed recently during an attack on one village alone, Yifin, in Koinadugu district in the Northen Province.

“Many hundreds of men, women and children of all ages have suffered mutilations and crude amputations of their arms, legs, lips or ears, lacerations and gunshot wounds,” it said.

The RUF, which launched its insurgency from neighbouring Liberia in March 1991, teamed up with renegade elements from the military to overthrow the elected government of Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in May 1997.

The rebel/military alliance, which became known as the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), was then ousted by ECOMOG in February this year, after a nine-month rule.

Retreating junta troops have since mounted attacks on civilians in the country-side, causing untold destruction to towns and villages.

In July, the government announced a unilateral cease-fire and called on rebel fighters to surrender to ECOMOG in exchange for amnesty. The rebels took advantage of this situation and sprung surprise attacks in the troubled northern region, killing more than 200 and torching more than 100 houses.

“We will never fly Corporal Sankoh to the so-called rebel territory, because it would never yield anything positive,” said an aide to President Kabbah. He said the RUF rebels simply want their leader freed so that they can re-group and make advances.

“They did the same thing in 1996, when we took three defected rebel leaders to their bases to talk to the troops. They were abducted and murdered. Such a move would be counter-productive,” he said.

The RUF’s call for a unilateral cease-fire comes in the wake of a string of battle successes by government troops, and the army’s ally, the Kamajor militia.

ECOMOG says it is taking the RUF threat seriously. “We are taking no chances at all,” an ECOMOG commander said. “If the rebels come out of the bush and surrender, we will grant them amnesty”.