POLITICS-SIERRA LEONE: Rebels Reject Deployment Of Peacekeepers

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Oct 28 1999 (IPS) - The main rebel faction in Sierra Leone has rejected the deployment of UN peacekeepers if the troop’s mandate is to disarm ex-combatants.

“If they say that force is part of their mandate, we would resist them,” says General Sam Bockarie, field commander of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

The deployment of the 6,000 UN peacekeeping troops, to oversee the disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation (DDR) of an estimated 45,000 ex-combatants in Sierra Leone, has been approved by the UN Security Council.

The mandate of the UN troops includes the use of force when necessary, for the successful implementation of the DDR, and UN Special Envoy to Sierra Leone Francis Okelo, has told journalists that the force will arrive within a month’s period.

“Once the DDR programme has commenced, there is no turning back,” Okelo warned, at last week’s symbolic launch of the programme in the capital Freetown.

But the leader of the other rebel group, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), has welcomed the UN troops. “We (AFRC) believe the deployment of UN troops here is a good idea because they are neutral and would surely have the capacity to carry out the DDR programme effectively,” former junta chairman Major Johnny Paul Koroma told IPS Tuesday.

He said his fighters were tired of living in the jungle and wanted to join their families. “We will fully co-operate with the UN troops,” he said.

The UN troops will take over the Nigerian-led regional peacekeeping force ECOMOG, which had been fighting on the side of the elected government of President Tejan Kabbah.

Earlier this week, the civilian government in Nigeria re-echoed its determination to resume what it called “phased withdrawal” its 9,000-strong force that dominates ECOMOG. It had withdrawn 2,000 troops recently and given their role in maintaining stability in the war-torn country.

Nigeria’s decision to withdraw its troops has left many Sierra Leoneans apprehensive.

Remarked Foday Gbla, a businessman in Freetown: “Why would the Nigerians go and leave us at the peril of murderous rebels? I don’t trust those UN troops, because they always evacuate and abandon the people they are supposed to protect.”

Another, 60-year-old retired civil servant, Ismail Kallon, said: “I would have thought that the international community commit funds for ECOMOG’s operations because we believe ECOMOG more.”

The Nigerians who reportedly spend an average of one million US Dollars a day, to maintain their troops in Sierra Leone, have complained of financial pressure and inability to continue shouldering ECOMOG’s burden.

And, the financial assistance from the international community to ECOMOG has been inadequate. Nigeria now says it will resume the withdrawal exercise this week, to the dismay of ordinary Sierra Leoneans, who consider the force as their saviours.

Perhaps, to maintain the presence of ECOMOG who better know the terrain, psychology of rebels and experience, the UN force, according to Okelo, will draw between 3,000 and 4,000 from the existing ECOMOG force.

But even as the ground is being prepared for the actual DDR to kick off, heavy fighting is reportedly raging between RUF and AFRC fighters in the northern regional capital of Makeni.

More than 100 combatants from both sides and scores of civilians are reported to have been killed. A wave of looting of civilian property has also been reported.

The renewed fighting between the former rebel allies, follows a bitter power-struggle among the leadership of the two rebel groups.

It is feared that this latest development will affect the fragile peace process and the DDR exercise.

Sierra Leone’s eight-year long civil war ended on July 7, following the signing of a peace deal between the government and rebel forces culminating in a power-sharing arrangement.