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UN President Bill Clinton said the United States military would transport ammunition, supplies and UN peacekeeping forces to Sierra Leone so that they could check rebel attacks that threaten to shred the 1999 Lome Peace Accord.
“I have instructed our military to provide needed assistance,” he said. “A U.S. military transport aircraft is now in Jordan to move ammunition and supplies that are needed immediately for the Jordanian elements in Sierra Leone.”
He said the US would also support West African nations who had made commitments to send additional troops to Sierra Leone. Nigeria, which already has three battalions serving with UN troops in Sierra Leone, has indicated its readiness to send reinforcements if someone else pays the costs. Following the resumption of hostilities, the US has been pressuring Nigeria, which recently withdrew thousands of peacekeepers from Sierra Leone, to redeploy them.
“A US military team in now in Nigeria to determine what assistance might be needed from the international community to outfit and transport these forces as quickly as possible,” Clinton said.
Despite a Sierra Leone government counter-offensive against the rebels, Freetown says the peace agreement can be implemented. Underscoring this, Clinton said his Special Envoy for Democracy in Africa, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, would “return to the region to work with leaders there” for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
The crisis erupted last week after Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels detained hundreds of UN troops.
Jackson visited Freetown in November 1998 and urged the Sierra Leone government and RUF to hold talks to end a conflict that started in 1991. Then, he helped broker a ceasefire in May 1999 which led to the Lome accord in July that year.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions