Disarmament extended by one week in Kono

Disarmament in the eastern district of Kono has been extended by one week effective 31 July and, despite the initial slow pace of the exercise, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) is optimistic that the new deadline will be met, mission spokeswoman Margaret Novicki told IRIN on Tuesday.

“Disarmament has picked up considerably,” she said. There has been an “enormous improvement” in the disarmament rate and ceasefire violations have ended because Kono chiefs and elders had joined UNAMSIL Deputy Force Commander Maj-Gen Martin Agwai on his daily visits to supervise the process, she said.

Unlike in the northwestern district of Kambia, the disarming of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the rival Civil Defence Forces (CDF) in diamond-rich Kono, which began on 2 July, has been dogged by mutual suspicion and some fighting. Up until 30 July, 752 RUF and 910 CDF fighters handed over their weapons whereas some 1,000 RUF and 2,500 CDF were to have done so, Novicki said.

Rejecting blame for the slow pace of disarmament in Kono, UNAMSIL said there had been a “wide gap in contacts” between the CDF combatants in Kono and the central leadership of the pro-government militia in Freetown, the capital.

“During the initial difficult period in the Kono disarmament operation, the CDF Kono combatants always insisted on receiving instructions from their own local leaders and chiefs,” UNAMSIL reported. “They had accused the CDF national coordinator, Chief Hinga Norman, of having long ceased to supply them with their requirements.”

UNAMSIL said that Norman, who is the country’s deputy defence minister, had been to Kono only once in May “under considerable pressure” from the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Oluyemi Adeniji.

Disarmament will now shift to the northeastern district of Koinadugu and the southeastern location of Moyamba. Disarmament there is not contingent on the process being declared complete in Kono, whose disarmament reception centres will continue to operate beyond the official closure of the process so as to accommodate stragglers, as has been done in Kambia.