RUFP agrees to lift blockades

A special meeting on Sierra Leone, convened in Bamako by Malian President Alpha Konare, concluded on Thursday with an agreement that the Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP) would remove all obstacles to the deployment of UN peacekeepers, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL, said. UNAMSIL said the free movement of its forces was “fundamental to accelerating the implementation of various aspects of the peace agreement, such as the DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration) programme, the extension of state administration all over the country, and access to humanitarian operators”. The former rebels also agreed to return immediately large quantities of weapons seized from Guinean and Kenyan UN troops and remove all roadblocks throughout the country. Revolutionary United Front (RUF) troops recently stopped UNAMSIL peacekeepers from entering the diamond mining area of Koidu in eastern Sierra Leone. A meeting is due to be held on 20 March to verify the implementation of the measures agreed at the two-day Bamako summit, attended by representatives of the parties to the 1991-1999 war in Sierra Leone, the United Nations, Organisation of African Unity and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Mike Lamine, Sierra Leone’s minister of trade and industry, attended on behalf of RUFP leader Foday Sankoh, while the United Nations was represented by Special Representative Oluyemi Adeniji. At the end of the summit, presidents Kabbah, Charles Taylor of Liberia and Lansana Conte of Guinea pledged to ensure that their countries would not be used as bases to destabilise one another. In 1999, Guinea and Liberia each accused the other of supporting their respective dissidents. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are members of the Mano River Union, set up to improve trade between the three nations.