ECOMOG, RUF troops want peace, UNOMSIL official says

ECOMOG and RUF troops stationed in rural areas are desperate for peace, the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL)'s military spokesman, Major Jim Gray, told IRIN in Freetown. "ECOMOG and the RUF are living in close proximity and tolerating each other," Gray said on Thursday. "They are tired of fighting one another and are waiting for positive news from Lome." Citing an example of the proximity, he said that ECOMOG and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) positions in Laia in the Occra Hills, roughly 50 km from Freetown, were about 1.6 km apart and that UNOMSIL was trying to establish boundaries between them. Gray said UNOMSIL was trying to negotiate the release of 240 people who had been abducted by the RUF and were being held in Laia. On their release, they would be screened by ECOMOG, then brought to Freetown, he said. UNOMSIL expands Gray also told IRIN that UNOMSIL now had a presence in Freetown, Lungi and Bo, capital of the Southern province. The military observers were deployed in Bo during the past week. He said UNOMSIL now had 29 military observers and was planning to expand to 70 by the end of July. At this stage, he said, a possible total of 150 military observers was being proposed. A key element of their mandate would be to assist the disarmament process in collaboration with ECOMOG if a peace agreement is signed in Lome. "The disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process is the crux of achieving lasting peace," he said. Former soldiers discharged In a related development, the government's reintegration officer for the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration told IRIN on Wednesday that the government would discharge 509 former soldiers on Thursday and Friday. The soldiers, who underwent a three-week 'pre-discharge orientation' at the Mammy Yoko hotel in central Freetown, had served under the military junta which ruled in alliance with the RUF after a coup in May 1997. They were placed in reorientation camps after ECOMOG ousted the junta and restored President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to power in February 1998. A first group of 254 ex-combatants were discharged on 24 June.