DEVELOPMENT-RIGHTS: Landmines Wreak Havoc In Sierra Leone

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Dec 4 1999 (IPS) - One of the major problems facing post- conflict Sierra Leone is that of Landmines, although no specific attention was paid to it in the Lome Peace accord, signed between the warring sides in the Togolese capital in July, to end eight years of a brutal civil war.

Up until a week ago when 15 year old Jariatu Gbla became the latest victim of a landmine explosion, neither the government nor rebel forces had spoken about the menace and what to do about the problem, alongside the implementation of provisions of the peace accord.

There is presently overwhelming enthusiasm about the arrival and deployment of UN peace-keeping forces, but then the case of Gbla has triggered a new debate about this dangerous weapon of war.

Gbla is currently admitted at the Freetown Connaught hospital, surrounded by friends and relatives, while being attended to by a team of medical doctors from the Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF), or doctors without borders.

The blast, that shattered Gbla’s life, took place in her tiny village of Mathibo, about 152 kilometres north of the capital, Freetown. The village has changed hands several times between government troops and opposing rebel forces.

Narrating her ordeal to IPS from her hospital bed, Gbla, speaking in the local Temne dialect through an interpreter, says she was accompanying her mother and brother to the farm when suddenly she stepped on an object, followed by a loud explosion.

Her left leg was ripped off and she fell unconscious. “I saw blood oozing from my shattered leg and I was gripped by pain,” she says

There are believed to be hundreds of thousands of landmines planted in various parts of the country under the control of rebel forces. It took the Nigerian-led regional peace keeping force ECOMOG a huge task to remove the dozens of mines planted around Freetown, by junta forces during their nine-month reign, in 1997.

A local non-governmental organisation Save Heritage and Rehabilitate the Environment (SHARE), has taken the lead in campaigning against landmines and calling for their removal.

SHARE’S Executive Director Elvis Hallowell told IPS that his group is concerned about the apparent silence of the parties to the Sierra Leonean conflict, and the international community on the issue of landmines, even though the problem is becoming manifest from time to time.

“The landmines, planted in this country, are clearly an environmental abuse and we are concerned that unless efforts are made to defuse all the mines, there will continue to be large- scale urban migration, fear of insecurity and poor agricultural efforts,” Hallowell says.

The incident at Mathibo village and several others before it has forced residents of that area to flee. Farming activities have been disrupted, as farmers are abandoning their plot in fear of being blown up by landmines planted in the area.

Officials of the ECOMOG force have confirmed the use of landmines by rebel forces during the eight-year-long civil war, which has displaced more than 150,000 people. Infact, more than 10 ECOMOG soldiers were blown off between their Lungi International airport base and the northern town of Port Loko by landmines planted by rebel forces.

The landmines issue is likely to appear on the agenda of the UN troops, whose mandate is to disarm an estimated 45,000 ex- combatants from the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the pro-government militia groups.

Meanwhile, the deployment of the 6,000-strong UN peace-keeping forces has got off to a bad start with news of rebel forces launching attacks on Ghanian and Guinean ECOMOG positions in the north of the country.

“I think the situation is still fluid. With the arrival of UN troops, we are hoping that things might change a bit,” remarks a Western diplomat in the capital Freetown.