Security situation

Kaikai also told IRIN that since the rebels had been ousted from the capital Freetown after an invasion in January, the West African peace monitoring force, ECOMOG, and other pro-government units had managed to cut off rebel units from each other. Links between groups in the north and the diamond mining east, as well as those between rebels in the east and the biggest RUF base on the Liberia border had been severed. An ECOMOG source told IRIN that pro-government forces had also made "tremendous progress" on the battlefield. ECOMOG Force Commander Major General Felix Mujakperuo has visited forward positions and found that rebel resistance in Sierra Leone was becoming "more and more feeble". Against this background and the possibility of RUF dialogue with the government, Kaikai told IRIN: "The government was not going to engage in any dialogue from a position of weakness." Kaikai said as soon as the pro-government forces cleared the highway from Freetown to Kenema in the east, and once the western part of the country was under control, the government would approach donors about rebuilding the devastated capital.