RUF gets new leader

Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) has chosen Issa Sesay, its top field commander, as its new leader, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) reported on Monday. Sesay replaces Foday Sankoh, who has been detained by the authorities since 17 May and is viewed by many as an obstacle to the peace process. “We don’t expect him to behave like Sankoh because he knows the consequences,” Information Minister Julius Spencer told IRIN on Tuesday. A letter from the RUF informing Sankoh of the leadership change was delivered in Freetown by Presidents Alpha Omar Konaré of Mali and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. UNAMSIL said that in their meeting on Monday, Sankoh handed the two presidents a reply “indicating his understanding and full agreement with that decision”. Obasanjo told reporters in Freetown that he and Konare would deliver Sankoh’s reply to the RUF high command in Liberia. Both presidents have asked Sesay to commit himself and his rebel army to support the peace process in Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL said. The change in leadership follows a recent meeting in Liberia of regional leaders who, the Associated Press reported, convinced the RUF to abandon Sankoh so as to salvage the peace accord it signed in July 1999 in Lome with the government. However, RUF spokesman Gibril Massakoi said in a BBC broadcast on Tuesday that Sesay would serve as interim leader until the peace process was back on track and Sankoh released. Sankoh is widely expected to appear before a tribunal to be set up to try suspected perpetrators of war crimes in Sierra Leone. Information Minister Spencer told IRIN that before the resumption of the peace process the government expected the RUF to show good faith by releasing all abductees, returning captured UNAMSIL weapons, vacate diamond-mining areas and return to the territory it occupied prior to the Lome accord.