Britain vows continued support

Britain, which landed paratroopers in Freetown on Monday to evacuate its nationals from the tension-filled city, has also vowed to continue its support for the government of Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.

“I want to make it clear to the people of Sierra Leone that Britain will not abandon its commitment to Sierra Leone,” Robin Cook, the British foreign secretary, told members of parliament in London. “We must not allow a few thousand rebels to prevent the end to violence and the peace in which to get on with their lives, for which the three million people of Sierra Leone desperately hunger.”

Cook’s announcement came as the first 65 British evacuees arrived in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, some 1,120 km northwest of Freetown.

The 1st Battalion of Britain’s Parachute Regiment secured Freetown’s Lungi International Airport on Monday for the evacuation.

A British Embassy official in Senegal told IRIN on Tuesday that British nationals and persons with right of residence in the United Kingdom would be flown to Britain. However, those with consular protection but who had no right of residence in Britain would be helped “to go where they want to go”.

Britain is also sending an Amphibious Task Group, expected to arrive in Sierra Leone around 15 May. The force is to be joined by the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious which, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office said, “has been diverted from a NATO exercise”.

Separately, the Foreign Office added, an Amphibious Ready Group is being sent from Gibraltar to help with the evacuation. This group comprises a helicopter carrier, an anti-submarine frigate equipped with state-of-the-art computer-assisted sonar systems and communications equipment, two landing ships and a resupply ship.

At UN headquarters in New York Fred Eckhard, the spokesman for the Secretary-General, said the arrival of British troops in Sierra Leone could provide “a stabilizing element” to the crisis.

Before this crisis, the British government had provided a senior police officer to help rebuild the Sierra Leone police and instructors to help train its new army. Britain has provided millions of dollars to its former colony to help support the peace process, which was shattered last week after the RUF began detaining hundreds of UN troops, seizing their weapons, armoured cars and communications equipment.