ECOMOG rejects allegations of summary executions

The West African intervention force, ECOMOG, has denied allegations in a UN report that it is summarly executing rebels, news reports said. In a radio broadcast on Saturday, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade said ECOMOG soldiers were “aware of the conventions that operate in war and none of us have been mandated to execute anyone”.

A report by the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) on the human rights situation cited eyewitness accounts alleging the summary execution of suspected rebels or their sympathisers by ECOMOG and Civil Defence Forces (CDF). The UN report said, however, an evaluation of the behaviour of ECOMOG and CDF had to take account of the “provocative environment created by the extreme barbarity of the rebel forces”.

Olukolade said ECOMOG had exercised restraint in carrying out its operations “even to some extent that they amounted to serious risks on the lives of ECOMOG soldiers”. “We have also dissuaded the public who feel cheated, harassed and had borne the burnt of rebel atrocities...having gone that far, we would not again turn around and start executing people,” he said.