President announces possible release of RUF leaders

Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah said on Thursday that detained Revolutionary United Front (RUF) members who had committed “serious crimes against humanity” would go before a special court the UN set up to try those responsible for serious human rights violations since November 1996, Sierra Leone Web reported.

Others could be freed, he said, explaining that RUF leaders had shown their willingness to cooperate with the peace process and “so we thought that in order to keep that momentum there will be some gesture of releasing those that may not have committed grave crimes”.

More than 100 RUF commanders and political leaders have been detained under emergency regulations following the breakdown in May 2000 of a peace process that began with the signing in mid-1998 of an agreement between the RUF and the government. Kabbah said they were now being screened, Sierra Leone Web reported.

Kabbah said Sierra Leone’s war was finally over but there were challenges ahead, one of the more difficult of which was reconciliation. Some ex-RUF, he said, were reluctant to go back to their communities for fear of rejection, while chiefs appointed by the RUF might leave their areas when traditional chiefs returned to their homes. This, he said, could lead to further displacement and instability.
Another major problem he highlighted was corruption. Unless it was brought under control, he said, the conditions that plunged the country into civil war in 1991 might recur.