IRIN Focus on security threats

Mohammed Jalloh, a taxi driver in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, remembers 18 January as the day President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah brought back peace to the country. That day Kabbah declared in the local Krio language before a jubilant crowd at Lungi garrison, north of Freetown: "War don don", meaning the decade-long conflict that had devastated Sierra Leone had officially ended. Some 3,000 weapons collected from ex-combatants were set on fire to the sound of patriotic music. Six months later, Sierra Leone still enjoys relative peace. Jalloh says he is able to work on the streets of Freetown throughout the night without fear. However, government officials and diplomats say the security situation is fragile and vulnerable to external and internal threats. The biggest external threat is the prospect that the intensifying conflict in Liberia between government forces and the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) might spill over into Sierra Leone. The rebels have been fighting since 1998 to oust President Charles Taylor. As a result of the deep historical, social and geographical ties between Sierra Leone and its two neighbours, Guinea and Liberia, conflict in one country affects the others. "Peace in one of the Mano River Union countries without peace in the others is no peace at all," the UN Force Commander in Sierra Leone, Lt-Gen Daniel Opande, told IRIN. (The Mano River Union is a body aimed at fostering integration between the three countries.) The Liberian conflict has intensified since the start of this year. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told the Security Council on 19 June: "The conflict in Liberia is increasingly affecting the stability of the areas along the border in Sierra Leone. There is real risk that Liberia and Sierra Leone could be trapped in a vicious cycle with civil war swinging back and forth between the two countries." Liberian soldiers, he said, had started raiding Sierra Leonean villages for food. Local media reported in Freetown on 25 June that combatants from both the Liberian army and LURD had attacked Buedu in Sierra Leone’s eastern border district of Kailahun eight times this year, although it was not immediately possible to verify the reports. Effects of intensifying conflict in Liberia on Sierra Leone The conflict in Liberia has caused tens of thousands of people to flee. Since the beginning of the year, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has resettled at least 15,000 Liberians in Sierra Leone. Some 39,000 Sierra Leoneans who had been living in camps in Liberia and 15,000 who had lived outside the camps returned home as fighting intensified. Sierra Leone government officials told IRIN on 27 June they were bracing for up to 125,000 returnees and refugees from Liberia. Worse still, they said, their rate of return was unpredictable, making planning harder. Following an attack on 20 June on camps in the Liberian locality of Sinje, 15 km from the border, over 4,500 refugees and returnees fled to Sierra Leone within four days. Most crossed at Gendema, an unmanned border crossing point where a bridge over the Mano River links the two countries. "Among those fleeing are Liberian combatants. We fear they could be armed or may link up with our former rebels to cause insecurity," a Sierra Leonean official said. "We also fear that some members of the ex-rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) could cross to Liberia to fight alongside Taylor or that the LURD could recruit from displaced Sierra Leoneans.” Diplomats in Freetown told IRIN some RUF might already be fighting alongside Taylor’s elite Anti-Terrorist Unit. Sierra Leonean government officials said they were unaware of any such fighters, adding that they had also not received reports of LURD recruiting among returnees. Mamadouh Mannana, the regional police commander in the eastern town of Kenema, said that within the last three months at least 10 Liberian soldiers had surrendered each week to the Sierra Leone police. UN forces had also recorded 50 Liberian deserters. "The issue is where and how to keep them as far away as possible from the border," Mannana said. Trouble has spilled across the border before. In 1991, Taylor - then a warlord - armed the RUF to fight Sierra Leone's government after de facto President Joseph Momoh allowed a West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, to launch attacks from Freetown against Taylor’s fighters in Liberia. The RUF went on to wage one of the most brutal campaigns against civilians ever. Kabbah, who was elected president in 1996, toppled in a coup in 1997, but reinstated in 1998, was unable to end the terror. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the UN brokered a peace agreement in 1999, but the RUF reneged on it, taking 500 UN peacekeepers hostage on 5 May 2000, and capturing 13 armoured personnel carriers to use in an advance on Freetown. Diplomats in Freetown believe the RUF was spurred to fight mainly by large amounts of money made from Sierra Leone’s abundant diamonds. The rebels took control of several diamond-mining areas and made at least US $100 million a year in "blood diamonds". Part of the take lined the pockets of the rebel leaders, while some went to regional warlords, the diplomats said. Physicians for Human Rights estimates that between 215,000 and 257,000 women suffered various types of sexual abuse, including gang-rape, and mutilations. About 7,000 children were recruited as fighters and more than 4,000 people had their limbs amputated, other NGOs say. Nearly half of Sierra Leone’s five million people were uprooted, fleeing to Liberia, Guinea and other neighbouring countries. The conflict had assumed a regional dimension. "[RUF leader Foday] Sankoh is in jail on various charges including murder, but Taylor’s links with the RUF still exist," said a Western diplomat in Freetown. "If the situation in Liberia got worse, some RUF could try to help out, thereby sucking Sierra Leone directly into this war." The UN, ECOWAS and various West African leaders have been trying to get Liberia's belligerents to talk peace, but have had little success so far. Annan’s special envoy to Sierra Leone, Oluyemi Adeniji, said the UN was urging regional leaders to be "proactive" on the Liberian question. "Apart from peace in Liberia, we are trying to ensure the Liberian war does not spill over in Sierra Leone," Adeniji said. "Peace is not just the absence of war. Countries that have just emerged from war like Sierra Leone have a very high propensity to slide back to war again.” ECOWAS, chaired by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, and Morocco recently launched separate initiatives to try and bring peace to Liberia, but they aroused little optimism especially after Taylor accused Guinea of supporting LURD. Since May, UN forces have beefed up their presence along the Sierra Leone - Liberia border and have conducted regular ground and aerial patrols using Mi24 attack helicopters. The ill-equipped Armed Forces of Sierra Leone have also deployed some soldiers along the borders. But Sierra Leone lacks the capacity to police its frontiers effectively. It demobilised the majority of its army in 1998 and is trying to build a new force with 15,500 men, 15 percent of them ex-rebels. The new army is being trained with the support of the UN and the Britain. The British government is also supporting a new police force and seconded one of its officers, Keith Biddle, in 1999 to work as police inspector general. Local officials say the police force's prewar strength of 9,317 men was depleted to about 6,000. Some 900 were killed, a number suffered amputations and several stations were bombed out. A police census is planned for 24 to 29 July. "The war seriously sapped Sierra Leone’s ability to defend itself," a Western diplomat said. "If war broke out today, its armed forces would not have the capacity to defend the country. The police force is equally weakened and lacks the capacity to enforce law and order.” Including former combatants in the regular army was a strategy to control their activities, provide employment for some of them, and promote national reconciliation. But the thousands of ex-combatants who were not recruited into the army remain a major internal threat. Ex-combatants seen as an internal security threat Out of 69,463 ex-combatants from civil defence groups (a former pro-government militia), the army and RUF who were demobilised between September 1998 and January 2002, some 38,097 had not yet been reintegrated and many were "getting restless," officials told IRIN. In various parts of the country, the ex-combatants have demonstrated against what they perceive as ill treatment. "The Le 60,000 (about $30) monthly allowance they get is not enough," said Sullay Sesay, information and sensitisation manager of the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration. "And even that at times is delayed. We lack resources to handle all their cases appropriately and some of them are grumbling." Up to mid-June, only 7,453 ex-combatants, including 153 children, had been reintegrated. Another 20,443 ex-combatants, including 566 children, were undergoing reintegration. "Those who completed the programmes have set up small businesses or got employed, but the worry is the majority who are still pending," Sesay said. The large number of unemployed ex-combatants has the Sierra Leone government worried. The former fighters could either regroup, perpetrate localised crimes, or find their way into the conflict in Liberia, officials said. Another sticking point is the brutality with which ordinary people associate the RUF. Resentment against the ex-rebels still runs high. "How can RUF expect sympathy when we see child amputees walking around without hands? Will those children ever forgive?" Mariam Zarra, a hotel waitress, asked. NGOs say there are at least 1,000 amputees. Disputes between locals, returnees and ex-combatants are on police records. For example, in the eastern district of Tongo Fields, ex-RUF combatants settled last year in the abandoned camp of a local company, taking up nearly 370 housing units. Last month, local youths demanded that the former rebels declare public support for their political party or be thrown out of the houses. "Tension built up. The ex-combatants said they had not been reintegrated so they have no money and nowhere to go," Gen Ayi Bonte, the area forces commander in the southeastern town of Kenema, said. "But other leaders say they must vacate the houses because they are RUF." The recent influx of returnees from Liberia to Tongo Fields worsened matters. Most returnees found that their houses had been destroyed in the war. In consultation with local chiefs, the returnees decided the ex-combatants should vacate the houses for them. Bonte said a meeting had been scheduled for the first week of July to try and iron out the tension. Throughout the country, a total of 72,490 ex-combatants were initially demobilised, including 6,845 children. However, about 3,000 were reintegrated into the army in May 2000 due to security fears, Sesay said. The ex-combatants included 37,377 from the civil defence forces, 24,352 RUF fighters and 5,953 soldiers of the Sierra Leone Army (now called the Armed Forces of Sierra Leone). Donors are funding some stopgap projects for ex-combatants pending reintegration, but only 2,000 former fighters have benefited. In potentially volatile regions such as Kailahun, Kenema, Kono (in the east) and Tonkolili (north), where relatively large concentrations of ex-combatants live, joblessness could spark trouble, officials said. The consolation at the moment, the officials added, was the presence of the 17,500 well-equipped UN forces deployed in potential hotspots, but the United Nations has said it will start downsizing its forces at the end of this year. UN downsizing vis-à-vis Sierra Leone’s security "The world cannot maintain the UN forces here forever. Sooner than later we have to go," Margaret Novicki, UN spokesperson in Freetown, said. The downsizing of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL, is likely to begin in December, she added. UNAMSIL is a multi-million dollar operation. "Frankly, there are other priorities as well competing for the same funding," said a humanitarian worker. The UN Security Council extended the mandate of UNAMSIL by six months on 28 March 2002. The force, the largest UN military mission in the world, literally runs Sierra Leone’s security. During elections in May it deployed 11,000 troops in 200 high-risk areas throughout the country. International civilian police were also provided to help the local police develop operational plans for the elections. UNAMSIL polices cities and villages, conducts border patrols, and provides logistical support to government forces. Officials fear that its withdrawal would create "a serious security vacuum". However, diplomats say the longer the force stays the more dependent Sierra Leone’s own security becomes. "It is like baby-sitting," said an African diplomat. "The sooner you let the baby take the first step the better." At a meeting on 27 June in Kenema between UN and government officials, district officials repeatedly pleaded that pulling out the force "would return war to Sierra Leone". UN officials tried to allay their fears. "I have some ideas on how the downsizing will occur, but it is not yet finalised. It will be a phased withdrawal to avoid creating a security vacuum and will depend on the situation in the country," Opande said. The Security Council is expected to discuss in September detailed proposals for downsizing the troops. However, Annan told the council in his 19 June report on Sierra Leone: "A crucial element in planning the anticipated adjustments is the strengthening of the capacities, accountability and loyalties of both the police and army of Sierra Leone, in order to avoid a vacuum."