AI calls on Commonwealth to ensure peace process

Amnesty International, is calling on the Commonwealth, as a signatory and moral guarantor of the Sierra Leone peace accord signed in Lome on 7 July, “to ensure that the peace process succeeds and that the parties to the agreement respect and protect human rights,” an AI statement said. Amnesty said it intended to urge Commonwealth heads of government, when they meet in Durban, South Africa, on 12-15 November, to contribute towards the disarmament and demobilisation of former child combatants and programmes to meet their social, psychological and material needs and reintegration into society. Another recommendation AI said it would deliver to the heads was: “Support the establishment of an effective international mechanism for investigating human rights abuses in order to establish accountability and bring perpetrators to justice”. It will also recommend that the Commonwealth “ensure that an effective international human rights presence remains for as long as necessary and that it receives strong political support and adequate resources from the international community”.