POLITICS-SIERRA LEONE: UN Hostages ‘To Be Freed Soon’

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Aug 8 1999 (IPS) - Rebels holding a group of UN military observers in Sierra Leone have promised to set them free soon, according to Sierra Leone’s information minister Julius Spencer.

Spencer told journalists in the capital Freetown this week that the rebels “have agreed to release” the hostages.

The hostages, who include five British soldiers, several Nigerians, a Ghanian, a Malaysian, a Russian and a Kyrgzy national, were kidnapped on Aug 4 when the team drove to Okra Hills, about 70 kilometres north of Freetown, to collect some 200 children abducted by the rebels in January.

“However when we arrived, the rebels lured us into a meeting room, read a statement which outlined their grievances before holding hostage all but two in our team,” recalls Jacquiline Chenard, spokesperson of the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone, who was among the abductees.

Chenard told IPS on Friday that the abductors are mainly breakaway soldiers of the former Sierra Leone Army (SLA), who teamed up with the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) to overthrow the civilian government of President Ahmed Tejan Ahmed Kabbah in 1997.

She said that empty trucks were driven to the rebel base to transport the children, but that now the focus has changed. “We’re now engaged in frantic efforts to get all members of our team released,” she said.

SLA troops, believed to number about 10,000, were the prime movers of the Jan 6 rebel invasion of the capital Freetown, which cost 3,000 lives and millions of dollars worth of property.

In a statement, prepared by the rebel soldiers, they told the abductees that they have been neglected by the authorities since the signing of Sierra Leone’s peace deal in Lome, Togo, on Jul 7, ending eight years of civil war.

“We want food and medicines as a matter of urgency and also our (SLA) position should be clarified regarding the peace pact,” the statement read.

Even though the Lome Accord grants all former combatants a blanket amnesty, it did not offer SLA leaders positions in government, as did RUF rebels.

The RUF, according to the accord, takes four ministerial and four deputy ministerial posts, as well as head of all the country’s strategic resources and minerals — a post carved for its leader Foday Sankoh.

Ironically, it was the SLA renegades who overthrew the Kabbah government in May 1997 and invited RUF rebels to help form the then Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).

The AFRC itself, which was headed by Major Johnny Paul Koroma, was overthrown by a Nigerian-led West African peace-keeping force ECOMOG in February 1998. Both the AFRC and their RUF allies fled into the bush and continued the armed struggle against the government of Kabbah.

A local journalist, Christo Johnson, who was among the abductees but released on Friday, said there seemed to be a split within the rebel Movement.

“The SLA rebels are demanding that their leader Johnny Paul Koroma be released by RUF’s battlefield commander, Gen Sam Bockarie, whom they claim is holding the former AFRC junta boss prisoner,” Johnson told IPS Friday.

“If our man (Koroma) is not immediately released, we will attack RUF positions and disrupt the peace process,” Johnson went on quoting the SLA rebels as saying.

But Foday ruled out any split in the rebel Movement. “This is an isolated incident and does not suggest any split,” he told journalists on Saturday.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has expressed concern about the detention of the military advisers.

“He also calls on the Government of Sierra Leone and RUF leader Foday Sankoh, as well as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its military group ECOMOG to do their utmost to seek the earliest release of all detained personnel and to ensure the safety and security of all international staff assisting the Sierra Leonean people to implement the Lome Peace agreement,” according to a statement issued on Aug 5 from UN Headquarters in New York.

The abduction also has caused fears among aid workers in Sierra Leone. “We hope the situation will improve to enable us respond to the immediate needs of vulnerable civilians in the provinces,” said Joanna Van Gerpen, UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) representative in Sierra Leone.