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Sam Bockarie, the RUF’s main “field commander”, said on Friday that he was ready to disarm and fight through the ballot box in general elections next year.
“We will not use weapons any more,” the BBC quotes Bockarie, who is based in the eastern district of Kailahun, as saying.
The pledge to disarm was made in response to an appeal by RUF leader Foday Sankoh for all his supporters to put down their weapons. Sankoh made the call in the town of Buedu in RUF-controlled Kailahun at a meeting held, ECOMOG spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukalade told IRIN, in the presence of UNOMSIL and ECOMOG personnel.
AFRC leader Johnny Paul Koroma did not attend the meeting, Olukolade said.
Sankoh left Freetown for Buedu on Friday in a helicopter provided by UNOMSIL and returned on Sunday.
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