IRIN Focus on new threat to peace process

Just 10 months after Sierra Leone’s government and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels signed an agreement to end an eight-year war, the peace process in the West African nation now faces what observers see as one of its gravest threats. As the some 2,000 remaining members of ECOMOG, a West African peacekeeping force, prepared to withdraw from the country, the rebels launched a series of attacks on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) peacekeepers who had gradually replaced ECOMOG. killing some, abducting others. On Wednesday, the United Nations reported in New York that the RUF was holding about 49 UNAMSIL members in the northern areas of Magburaka and Makeni as well as Kailahun in the east. It said at least four UNAMSIL peacekeepers had been killed and another three wounded, while many others were unaccounted for. Negotiations continued on Wednesday for the release of the peacekeepers. The UN mission in Freetown said that the RUF had attacked UNAMSIL positions in Magburaka and Makeni on Tuesday, compelling the Kenyan peacekeepers there to return their fire. However, the rebels blamed the peacekeepers. “They opened fire at our men between Makeni and Magburaka and shot dead two,” an RUF official told IRIN on Wednesday. She said UNAMSIL’s accusations were “lies”, because “it is they who tried to disarm our men by force”. Sierra Leonian government spokesman Septimus Kaikai told IRIN the turn of events, particularly from Sunday, was “puzzling” and a “threat” to the ongoing peace process. “It is a puzzle that we are trying to unravel,” he said. The government has complied fully with the Lome Peace Accord, signed on 2 July 1999, he added. “We have bent backwards” to see that it works. Among other things, the government granted full amnesty to the rebels, and included eight of them in the cabinet, four as ministers and the rest as deputy ministers, Kaikai explained. Former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) leader Johnny Paul Koroma was made head of the Commission for the Consolidation for Peace, he said. RUF leader Foday Sankoh was made chair of a commission that oversees the country’s natural resources. “We have provided them with accommodation, transportation, security, and included them in every decision-making process, plus recognition of their leadership at state functions,” Kaikai said. “It is puzzling to us that they should behave in this way ... We have done all these.” The recent developments are of great concern to the government, Kaikai stated, adding that the government has been working very hard to preach forgiveness and reconciliation. “Everybody seems to be poised to move forward and the international community is supporting us greatly in this effort,” he noted. In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, the government said it would not tolerate anyone jeopardising the safety and security of citizens and their property. According to Kaikai, the government has put together “all appropriate measures to ensure that safety and security is upheld”. “The government will do all within its ability to see the sustainability of peace and that there is adequate security, and it is trusting the international community to help it in ensuring this,” he said. However, he said, there were reports of “unruliness” in Makeni on Wednesday morning. He added: “I cannot confirm the extent of this unruliness”. Observers say this is arguably the biggest threat to peace in Sierra Leone since the Lome agreement was signed. “It is all rather depressing as the peace process seems to be falling apart,” one humanitarian source told IRIN. An OCHA official in Sierra Leone said the attacks were “not a normal occurrence” and the situation was “very tense”. “Such an event has not happened in a long time,” he said. “It could be a backlash from the rebels against the disarmament in Makeni.” The attacks and abductions could be isolated incidents, the rebels’ ways of trying to get people’s attention or an indication of the start of war, he told IRIN. “It is hard to predict,” he added. Most people in Sierra Leone want anything but a resumption of the war, observers said. “People are war weary,” one NGO official in Freetown told IRIN. “Families, especially from the eastern part of the country are still living in camps and others with their relatives are just longing to go back to their homes.” “Even the rebels themselves are tired and want to disarm, but their leader does not,” she said. “With the elections expected next year around February or March, who knows, he [Sankoh] might be fretting that he might not be elected hence he wants to terrorise people and possibly stall the peace process.”