UN warns of "forceful response"

The UN will react strongly if any more weapons are seized from its peacekeepers in Sierra Leone, a UN news release quotes the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in that country as saying on Saturday in a meeting with the leader of the Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP). Special Representative Oluyemi Adeniji told Foday Sankoh that contraventions of the Lome Peace accord such as the seizure of weapons from the Guinean and Kenyan peacekeepers, mounting road blocks and blocking the free movement of UN troops in the discharge of their mandate, must stop immediately or would "invite forceful response". Sankoh and Adeniji agreed that the RUFP leader would immediately repeat his instructions to all RUFP members to return the weapons they seized from the peacekeeping forces, stop mounting road blocks and allow free movement of UN troops. Adeniji said he wanted to see evidence of "compliance with those instructions within 24 hours." Military sources at the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) told IRIN on Tuesday that two armoured personnel carriers taken from Guinean troops on 11 January as they crossed into Sierra Leone to join UNAMSIL were returned to the UN over the weekend but some 565 rifles remained with the rebels. Five or six rifles taken from Kenyan peacekeeping troops on 14 January and 1 February have also been returned, the source said.