POLITICS-SIERRA LEONE: Bearing Cost of Neighbour’s War

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Jun 24 2002 (IPS) - The escalating conflict in Liberia is having tremendous impact on its immediate neighbour Sierra Leone which has already been playing host to thousands of refugees as well as fleeing combatants from that country.

“We have registered more than 50,000 refugees fleeing fighting in Liberia and the majority of them are women and children,” an official of the UN Refugee agency UNHCR told IPS over the weekend.

The official predicted that “several dozens” more are expected to continue crossing into Sierra Leone in the next few weeks, if the situation in Liberia continues to deteriorate.

According to UNHCR officials in Freetown, there is no particular pattern of Liberian refugee inflow. “They simply grab whatever belongings they could and trek through the forests sometimes going days without food and into eastern Sierra Leone,” one of them told IPS, adding “our officials have registered and temporarily sheltered many of them.”

Fighting between the Liberian government and rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) has been going on since 1999 but the situation deteriorated over the past few months.

Last week, the frontline commander for the army division at the northern county of Lofa close to the border with Sierra Leone Lt-Gen. Mohammed Tarawallie abandoned his area of control and fled into Sierra Leone thereby sending his troops into disarray.

The General, who is now being interrogated by police in Freetown, said he felt compelled to quit the frontline and hand over his weapon to the Sierra Leonean security.

“My men hardly receive food and munition rations,” he said, adding that while the LURD rebels appear to be well armed, government troops are short of logistics and do not get paid their monthly salaries.

Like Gen. Tarawallie, dozens more of Liberian government forces have crossed into Sierra Leone as fighting intensifies.

“They usually come with their weapons and we disarm them and send them to Freetown for further interrogation,” regional police commissioner in the eastern district of Kenema, Amadu Mannah, told IPS.

Kennema is the point where the straying Liberian soldiers are taken after they make it across the border.

However, this cross-border activity is already creating tension for civilians living along that region. The civil war in Sierra Leone, which broke out in Mar 1991, was a direct spillover from Liberia and it assumed the same pattern as now — the exodus of refugees and armed combatants into Sierra Leone.

Remarked Moiwa Sandy, a farmer from Kailahun district, close to the border with Liberia: “I think that the authorities should properly screen those coming in be they civilians or combatants. They should not take things for granted.”

Sandy, who was at the same border entry point eleven years ago when the first shots were fired from across the border, said not all those trooping in are genuine refugees. “The security forces should tighten border patrols and protect the civilian populations there,” he said.

A spokesperson for the UN Mission in Sierra Loene (UNAMSIL) Margaret Novicki said the mission is closely watching the situation and maintaining robust military presence along the border districts.

She acknowledged though that Sierra Leone’s fragile peace could only be consolidated if the situation in Liberia is not allowed to spillover. Novicki said that the UN Security Council is carefully considering the whole issue of security along the Mano river basin.

In January, Sierra Leone’s rebels who distinguished themselves in committing horrific atrocities against civilians such as mass murders and mutilations, concluded their demobilisation and joined the government in declaring peace. Elections were held in May but the situation still remains fluid.

There are unconfirmed reports of former Sierra Leonean combatants, who have given up their guns, crossing over to Liberia to fight as mercenaries. This too is worrying not only the government but also the UN peacekeeping mission.

The mission has about 17,000 troops in this small West African state, the largest anywhere in the world.

Now many Sierra Leoneans are calling on the government to refuse entry to more Liberians, but a police spokesperson said the authorities would respect international laws governing refugees, even though they will take no chances at all.

Meanwhile, calls by the regional body ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) for both sides to the Liberian conflict to observe cease-fire and end hostilities have been rejected by the government of President Charles Taylor, who insists on a military solution to the conflict.

But Taylor’s fight to holdback the rebel advance is having setbacks because of an existing UN arms embargo slammed on that country for its alleged support for Sierra Leone’s RUF rebels.

Religious leaders in the three Mano river states of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have joined the fray to help find a political settlement to the crisis in Liberia.