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US presidential envoy Jesse Jackson said if the United States was unwilling to field soldiers in Sierra Leone, then the US Congress should authorise money to support allied troops ready to enforce peace in that country, news reports said.
“These troops must have a peace enforcement mandate, not a peacekeeping mandate,” Jackson told AP. Otherwise, he said, they would be targets for RUF rebels who have been detaining UN peacekeepers.
Jackson’s statement came on his return from a West African tour to try and find a solution to the present crisis in Sierra Leone. Jackson helped to broker the Lome peace accord which ended eight years of war between the government in Freetown and RUF until the rebels broke that deal by detaining the UN troops.
Jackson also told AP that if the rebels refused to disarm voluntarily they should be forced to do so. The United States and other allies have asked Nigeria to send additional troops to Sierra Leone. Nigeria has agreed to do so but says someone else must pay the bill.
The US Congress is holding back some US $226 million dollars it owes for UN peacekeeping activities, AP said.
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