POLITICS-SIERRA LEONE: Ceasefire Agreement Signed To End Conflict

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, May 19 1999 (IPS) - Sierra Leone’s belligerents have signed a ceasefire agreement to end the country’s eight-year civil war.

President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and leader of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Corporal Foday Sankoh, signed the agreement in the Togolese capital of Lome on Tuesday.

The agreement, brokered by Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema, was witnessed by US Civil Rights leader Rev Jesse Jackson, who is President Bill Clinton’s Special Envoy to Africa.

The agreement comes into effect on May 24 and the United Nations has given indication that it will send in 1,000 ceasefire monitors, as requested by the Sierra Leonean government.

President Kabbah said, after the signing of the deal that, “substantive talks between the government and rebels will commence immediately after the ceasefire comes into effect.”

However, RUF leader Wednesday called for the formation of a transitional government, before fresh elections are held in four years, “to draft a new constitution and prepare for future elections.”

The news of the ceasefire was greeted with mixed feelings in Sierra Leone. “This ceasefire deal is dangerous for our compatriots behind rebel lines and the so-called transitional government is a recipe for disaster,” said Mathew Kawa, a political analyst in Freetown.

Kawa cited the “attrocities” being committed by rebels, against civilians behind the rebel lines, and reported by escapees and rights monitors.

Michael Bockarie, a farmer who escaped from the northern regional capital Makeni, which is controlled by rebel forces, alleged that “rebels have been dealing ruthlessly with civilians in their territories, burning homes and dispossessing their hostages of all their belongings.”

“That is why I fled,” he said.

Similar accord was signed between the government of President Kabbah and rebel forces in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, in 1996. Barely three weeks, after the agreement was signed, the rebels renewed hostilities, committing abuses against civilians, burning homes and taking hostages.

Tamba Kamanda, a high school teacher in Freetown, strongly believes that the rebels would also violate Tuesday’s ceasefire agreement.

“How could the RUF rebels be trusted ? These murderers have never honoured any peace deal in all of the eight years of fighting and I believe they are merely playing for time before they regroup and violently overthrow the government,” he said.

Donors, including Sierra Leone’s former colonial master Britain, have called for a peaceful solution to the conflict.

British High Commissioner Peter Penfold recently warned that his country cannot continue pumping in funds in Sierra Leone, where a murderous war is laying waste to the West African state.

Nigeria’s in-coming civilian government has also called for a diplomatic settlement of the crisis. Nigeria is leading the West African peace-keeping force ECOMOG, which is backing President Kabbah.

Sankoh said RUF will transform itself into a political party to contest elections in four years.

During the talks, the rebels demanded the unconditional release of their leader, Sankoh, who was on death row in Freetown, after being convicted of treason. Sankoh was given a temporary respite to travel to Togo for talks with his rebel commanders.

Sankoh, who has been in detention for about two years, was sentenced to death last year, after a Freetown High court found him guilty of treason.

The civil war in Sierra Leone, which erupted in 1991, has claimed more than 30,000 lives and displaced a quarter of the country’s 4.5 million population, according to aid agencies operating in the west African country.