RUF commanders to meet in Kailahun

The high command and field commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were due to start meeting on Monday in Kailahun, eastern Sierra Leone, to choose a new leader to replace Foday Sankoh, news organisations reported Gambian President Yayah Jammeh as saying following a meeting of West African leaders in Liberia.

“We told them what had gone wrong with the RUF - not in diplomatic language,” AP reported Jammeh as saying. “At the end of the discussion, the RUF high command agreed.”

Sankoh has been held in an undisclosed location by the Sierra Leonean authorities since mid-May, a week after his bodyguards shot and killed civilian demonstrators outside his Freetown home.

Jammeh was among several West African leaders who met last week in Monrovia with representatives of the Sierra Leonean government and the RUF to try to help the peace process in Sierra Leone, PANA reported Liberian Information Mininster Joe Mulbah as saying on Friday.

The heads of state included Malian President Alpha Konare, who is the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Togolese head and OAU chair Gnassingbe Eyadema and President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, the news agency said. Justice Minister Solomon Berewa led the Sierra Leonean government’s delegation at the meeting, it added.