Proposed ceasefire to start Monday

The rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) has accepted a ceasefire starting on Monday but it is demanding the release of RUF leader Foday Sankoh within a week, news agencies said today (Friday). Reuters quoted RUF commander Sam Bockarie as saying rebels would start an unconditional seven-day ceasefire from 18:00 GMT on Monday but that it would only last a week if Sankoh is not set free by President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and the West African intervention force ECOMOG. “After that one week, if Sankoh is not released, we are going to resume our offensive,” Bockarie said. Cote d’Ivoire Foreign Minister Amara Essy said yesterday (Thursday) that Kabbah might be willing to free Sankoh “if the ceasefire is respected,” AFP reported. Essy and Togolese Foreign Minister Joseph Koffigoh had met Sankoh in the Guinean capital Conakry earlier in the week as part of diplomatic efforts to end the crisis. News agencies said Liberian President Charles Taylor played a role in brokering the ceasefire deal. UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said yesterday in New York that the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sierra Leone, Francis Okelo, had been “at the heart of negotiations” between the parties to bring an end to the fighting and that Okelo hoped to facilitate further negotiations for a “more stable and lasting peace.”