UNOMSIL observers increased

In a bid to further underpin the peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the UN Security Council has authorised the provisional expansion of its Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) to 210 military observers.

The motion, adopted on Friday, triples the previously authorised number of UNOMSIL military observers in the country. The Council also agreed to strengthen UNOMSIL's political, civil affairs, information, human rights and child protection elements.

The Security Council also called for "urgent and substantial" humanitarian help for Sierra Leone, especially parts of the country that relief agencies have not been able to reach. The Council said generous long-term aid was also needed for reconstruction, and for Sierra Leone's economic and social recovery.

In its expanded role, UNOMSIL will monitor the cease fire and handle the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of ex combatants into society.

Amnesty for war criminals criticised in Council

Fighters who brutalised Sierra Leoneans during the eight-year war, hacking limbs and perpetrating other atrocities should be tried rather than granted amnesty, which forms part of the Lome peace agreement, the Dutch representative at the United Nations told the Security Council on Friday.

"There is no peace without justice," Arnold Peter Van Walsum of the Netherlands said in an open debate before the Council's 15 members.

The RUF has been blamed for the widespread killing, rape and amputation of civilians. Van Walsum said international tribunals had been set up to remedy the culture of impunity and "Council owed it to the people of Sierra Leone to allow them recourse to the same remedies now open to victims of similar crimes elsewhere".

Argentina's Fernando Enrique Petrella also said:"Granting a wide ranging general amnesty raised very important question marks."

In a reservation attached to his signature of the accord, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Sierra Leone noted that crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of international humanitarian law could not be covered by the accord's general amnesty.

The war, which began in 1991, claimed at least 20,000 lives, AFP reported, and forced at least half of the country's 4.5 million people to flee their homes.

Ex-SLA now accept Lome peace

An ex-Sierra Leonean army (ex-SLA) officer whose group seized hostages early in August, charging that it had been left out of the Lome peace accord, now says the former soldiers are satisfied their interests were included in the agreement, Reuters reported.

"We former soldiers are now convinced that former soldiers are definitely involved in the Lome (Togo) Peace accord," Bazzi Kamara, a former officer, told reporters in Liberia.

He was speaking after talks with former Sierra Leonean military junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma and Liberian President Charles Taylor, Reuters said.

The ex-SLA seized 37 Western hostages on 4 August thinking their ally, the Revolutionary United Front, had seized Koroma, their leader, and sidelined them in the peace deal. The last hostages was released on 10 August.