IRIN Focus on renewed conflict

The UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) found itself without a peace to protect as pro-government forces - reacting to a rebel advance on Freetown - went on the offensive this month against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). UNAMSIL’s influence over the government is at an all-time low, analysts told IRIN. The peacekeepers have been pilloried by Sierra Leoneans for their failure to halt an RUF advance on Freetown earlier this month, and their inability to defend themselves against capture by the rebels. By contrast, the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and Civil Defence Forces (CDF, a pro-government militia), after a call-to-arms by ex-coup leader and former RUF ally Johnny Paul Koroma, rallied to the defence of Freetown. They are now pushing north and east, although reportedly hampered by shortages of supplies and ammunition. In their wake has followed a strengthened UNAMSIL in tentative backing of the rag-tag pro-government forces. UN officials here acknowledge the approach is, in part, an attempt to salvage UNAMSIL’s credibility. In unequivocal support for the elected government are the 1,000 British paratroopers and marines who have secured Freetown, earning the gratitude of most Sierra Leoneans. They move in and out of the Mama Yoko Hotel - UNAMSIL’s headquarters - striding through the lobby of the establishment with an air of purpose that many in Freetown find reassuring. Peace agreement on back burner “The agenda is now to a large extent out of the UN’s hands,” one humanitarian official said. “The shaky peace scenario we had based our assessments on is now a war situation - a peace agreement cannot be imposed on the government.” Aid agencies are active only in the Freetown area, the southern town of Bo and Kenema in the east. The humanitarian community does not have access to the rest of the country controlled by the RUF. The World Food Programme warned on Friday that the renewed hostilities will seriously disrupt relief distributions in a period traditionally known as the hunger season, and hurt an already low agricultural production. The fresh fighting has so far displaced an estimated 40,000 people. The peace and power-sharing agreement signed by the government and RUF in Lome, Togo, in July 1999 after eight years of war, is now on the back burner. It gave the RUF amnesty and granted RUF leader Foday Sankoh and his senior officials government posts in return for a commitment to disarmament under UN supervision. It was agreed just six months after the RUF sacked the eastern suburbs of Freetown and butchered civilians in a two-week reign of terror before being driven out by Nigerian troops. Sankoh’s capture But Sankoh is now in government custody after a chain of events that began when his bodyguards fired on a pro-peace demonstration on 8 May outside his house in which 20 people died. The protest was in condemnation of the advance of RUF forces on Freetown, and the rebels’ violations of the peace accord. Sankoh disappeared after the shooting, only to mysteriously reappear a week later outside his home. The government says it has evidence that Sankoh was planning a coup, and is reportedly preparing legal charges against him for crimes committed after the expiration of his amnesty. The Lome agreement - however battered - is the only existing framework for peace in Sierra Leone. A senior UN official told IRIN that at some stage “it has to be revisited” as the only alternative to war. “UNAMSIL is holding on quite desperately to the Lome accord,” a diplomatic source said. “The question is, what is the role of Lome when Sankoh is one of the signatories? Can Lome exist without the involvement of Sankoh?” The RUF has already warned there can be no peace without Sankoh’s release. Peace pre-conditions President Alhaji Tejan Kabbah, analysts say, is in an uncomfortable position. He now heads a shaky war coalition that includes the born-again Christian, Koroma, who is feted as the saviour of Freetown, and other hardline personalities. Judging from the radio call-in programmes here, the mood in the capital is for the destruction of the RUF rather than negotiations, and Kabbah is not viewed as a war leader. A statement from the President’s Office on Friday outlined for the first time the government’s pre-conditions for a resumption of the Lome process. They included the release of all detainees held by the RUF, a halt to all rebel attacks and withdrawal to positions held prior to Lome, and retreat from the diamond-rich Kono District. The statement was, however, unclear on the fate of Sankoh. “As far as I’m concerned the Lome peace agreement is dead, so why negotiate?” a Sierra Leonean political analyst told IRIN. “People think Sankoh is untouchable so we have to show them. My worry is that the government could be silly enough to start negotiations because of the (international) pressure.” Civilians bear the brunt Sierra Leone has been at war with itself since 1991. Over that period there has been five changes of government - with Kabbah twice having to rely on Nigerian-led intervention for his salvation: in 1997, most of the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) joined forces with the rebels they were supposed to fight. The humanitarian consequences have been enormous for a country that is one of the world’s poorest, and whose people have often been the preferred targets for all sides in the conflict. Nevertheless, in the current clamour for a military solution, the SLA is riding high in the public’s estimations. “The SLA is trying to redeem their name. They know nothing else but fighting, and these boys have done a good job so far,” the Sierra Leonean political analyst said. Pro-government forces are a mix of two battalions of retrained SLA, the CDF militia - who at first glance do not seem the most disciplined of fighters - the police, and some elements from Koroma’s former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) such as the Occra Hills Boys, notorious for their brutality against civilians during the RUF/AFRC occupation of Freetown in 1999. The concern is that if the war continues and supply shortages are felt by the troops, they will return to their old ways and target civilians. Already human rights groups report that re-recruitment of child soldiers is underway by both sides. In Masiaka, taken by pro-government forces last week, 25-30 percent of the SLA/CDF appeared to be made up of children, either carrying guns or foraging for food. And among the RUF dead seen in the town, some seemed to have been shot in the head at close range. RUF still a threat However, the RUF is far from a spent force. “The RUF is not being defeated, they are falling back as they always do in times of trouble,” one analyst said. “They are consolidating.” He added that with the current start of the raining season, a military offensive now would have even less chance of eliminating the RUF as a security threat. There is also the regional dimension: Liberian President Charles Taylor helped launch the RUF in 1991 when Sierra Leone was a rear base for ECOMOG forces that were preventing Taylor’s military victory in Liberia at the head of his own rebel army. Diamond deals reportedly further sealed the arrangement. Taylor has been negotiating with the RUF on the release of the UN peacekeepers but this has not allayed the suspicions surrounding him. “It’s clear that Taylor is right up to his neck in all of this,” a security source added. “He doesn’t want to see the RUF defeated and we could see NPFL (Taylor’s ex-rebel soldiers) crossing into Sierra Leone.” What the international community is pinning its hopes on is that military pressure will lead to a split within the RUF and a pro-peace faction could then be included in a re-launched political settlement, analysts and UN officials told IRIN. The less belligerent RUF formations are believed to be in the east under the command of ‘General’ Issa, who has reportedly played a role in the release of the detained UN peacekeepers. “The eastern group is tired (of war),” one diplomatic source said. She pointed out that the RUF in the eastern town of Daru did not interfere with the evacuation of former child soldiers by humanitarian workers. By contrast in Makeni in the north, some 40 ex-child combatants out of 180 being looked after in a children’s centre were re-recruited by their former commanders. In the meantime, UNAMSIL is boosting its presence. On Friday the UN Security Council authorised an increase to 13,000 peacekeepers from the previously mandated total of 11,000 troops. The United States is to provide US $20 million in logistical assistance. The Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) agreed last week to send 3,000 troops, although under what mandate is currently unclear. “There is a long way to go,” a UNAMSIL security source said. “The RUF can be pushed to the margins, but they can’t be defeated.” He stressed that only a political solution can halt the conflict, adding: “The SLA could push as far as Makeni, but then it is time to negotiate.”