Leaders pledge to reinvigorate peace process

Presidents Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone and Alpha Oumar Konare of Mali - the current chairman of ECOWAS - have decided to visit Sierra Leonean provinces in the next few weeks to revitalise disarmament and demobilisation operations and give new impetus to the peace process. Their decision was recorded in an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) communique issued on Monday at the end of the second meeting of the Joint Implementation Committee (JIC) of the Lome Peace Agreement, signed in July by the government and the former rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), now a political party. RUF Party (RUFP) leader Foday Sankoh, ex-Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) head Johnny Paul Koroma and ECOWAS Executive Secretary Lansana Kouyate will accompany the two presidents, the communique said. Chaired by Konare, the meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria and Togo. Senior UN, OAU, Commonwealth, ECOMOG, US, UK and Libyan representatives were at the meeting as were members of the RUFP along with Koroma, who represented the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace, which he heads. The JIC concluded that “substantial progress” had been made in implementation of the Lome Peace Agreement although “much still remained to be done,” according to the communique. The JIC condemned the numerous ceasefire violations and the “unleashing of terror on peaceful civilians” in Sierra Leone although it said there had been a “relative reduction” in cases of kidnapping, hostage-taking and rape since its last meeting, on 7 August. The Committee called on the representatives of the armed groups, as well as the ECOWAS Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), to ensure the dismantling of all illegal road blocks suspected to have been set up by ex-combatants. Activities that impede the free delivery of humanitarian assistance should immediately cease and children should be demobilised right away to prevent their conscription into armed groups, the JIC said.