Human rights group reveal further atrocities

Even as their leaders held internal discussions on proposed peace talks, Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels committed "scores of atrocities" against civilians, according to a press release sent out on Monday by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The international human rights organisation based its charge on the testimonies of survivors who described decapitations, amputations of hands, mouths and ears and scores of abductions of women and children by the RUF in the regions of Port Loko and Masiaka, some 50 km northeast of Freetown. HRW said it had testimonies from residents of the villages of Madigba, Masimra, Ropart, Mangarma, Msumana and Magbany. One man, for example, described an attack on Madigba on 11 May in which 12 people, including seven of his own children, were hacked to death. Peter Takirambudde, Executive Director for Africa at Human Rights Watch, said HRW was compiling a full report on the atrocities. The organisation said that while the abuses were the most serious since the rebel invasion of Freetown in January, they were consistent with a longstanding pattern of human rights violations against civilians by rebels as well as government forces and their surrogates. All the witnesses interviewed described widespread looting of property and burning of houses by the RUF during the attacks on villages, the HRW statement said. It added that people whose villages had been occupied by rebels also described a pattern of forced labour and intimidation. "Human rights has to be at the top of the agenda when the parties begin their peace talks," Takirambudde said in the press statement. He urged the international community to put pressure on rebel and government negotiators to stop the crimes against humanity.