AFRICANEWS

Sierra Leone

Donors abandon Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is still threatened with disintegration into a division of the country by warlords. Meanwhile the international community has abandoned the country's people for problems not of their own making.

The peace accord is the only thing the elected government can do," explained Sierra Leone's Ambassador to the US John Ernest Leigh soon after the July 7 signing of the Lome accords which ended the eight-year war between the government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). "The government has no ability to protect unarmed civilians," Leigh said. "It was thought better to end the human rights violations than to push for an ideal outcome, and put an end to this kind of savagery, in reliance on international pledges that the international community will see to it that the accord is enforced and implemented and supported."

Now, five months later, it has become clear that the international community is not living up to its obligations, abandoning the country to carry out the disarmament of and provision for more than30,000 fighters in the country. Even such obvious measures as debt relief have not been granted to the elected government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Disarmament has moved at a snail's pace, and the country's mines still remain in the hands of the RUF who get a slice of the money fetched for the gold and diamonds smuggled out of the country.

The Lome accord ended a war in which it is estimated that 100,000 people, out of Sierra Leone's 4 million, were killed or maimed and2 million were displaced either as refugees or within the country. At the moment half a million Sierra Leone refugees remain in Guinea. The infrastructure and productive economy of the country were levelled. During its January 1999 offensive to seize the capital Freetown, the RUF abducted 6,000 children, destroyed the city, and cut the limbs of 1,000 civilians. The RUF drive was brought to a halt by the Nigerian-backed forces of Ecomog. Led by Foday Sankoh, the RUFinvaded Sierra Leone from Liberia in 1991, backed by currentPresident of Liberia Charles Taylor, who himself had invaded Liberia from Cote d'Ivoire in 1989 to overthrow the regime of Samuel Doe. The Taylor-Sankoh alliance seized Sierra Leone's gold and diamond mines and brought down the regime ofJoseph Momoh in Liberia in 1992. Momoh was overthrown by Valentin Strasser, who relied on Israeli military advisors and South African mercenaries ofthe Executive Outcomes company. The deal was that Executive would hold the franchise for the country's rich diamond and gold mines. In January 1996, Strasser was overthrown by Julius Maada Bio, who called elections which brought Kabbah to power. In 1997, Kabbah terminated the contract with Executive Outcomes and that same year, junior army officers led by Major Johnny Koroma overthrew him. Koroma became the government front for rule by the RUF and it was only through Ecomog forces that Kabbah was restored to power in March 1998, but the war did not end. The RUF still retained control of the mines, with the loot being channelled through Liberia. The monies accrued paid for the arming of the RUF and Koroma's forces, Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).

After failing to capture Freetown, the RUF began pursuing options for peace, backed by the international community. However, this community never considered providing the funding to Ecomog to enable the Nigerian and other West African forces to finish off definitively the RUF and the AFRC, despite theirlong record of massive human rights abuses against the Sierra Leone people.As Leigh explained, the international community, especially the US preferred to leave Sierra Leone at the mercy of the RUF, and instead of supporting the duly elected government, put everything into Kosovo. He said:"In East Africa, the international community spends 11 cents a day on a refugee; for Kosovo it is $14. NATO spent $40 million a day to liberate the Albanians; while Ecomog was given $15 million a year. The disparity could not be more stark. Because of the failure of the western countries to support the government, it had to reach an accommodation with the rebels."

Pressure came on Kabbah to settle. British High Commissioner to the country Peter Penfold declared in April: "It is high time the people of Sierra Leone settle their differences." Penfold threatened that Britain could not continue to "pump cash" into the country in the form of projects and other aid packages while there is insecurity. "If you people cannot put your house in order, Britain cannot continue to pour millions of pounds into the country," he said.What was not said was the role of London's mercenary forces in Executive Outcomes and the Sandline International which had been contracted to protect the Kabbah government in exchange for mining franchises. British intelligence has also supported the RUF through such entities as Alert International, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and various private airlines and mercenary subsidiaries that have supplied the group with sophisticated military equipment.

Pressure was also placed on the Nigerian government to bring about a settlement in Sierra Leone. Requests from the Nigerian military to the US for increased funding in order to finish the RUF were denied. Newly elected President Olesegun Obasanjo, concerned about Nigeria's collapsed economy, made clear that Nigeria forces would withdrawal from Sierra Leone. The Obasanjo government estimates that it spent US$8 billion this decade from its participation in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The message could not have been clearer: The Kabbah government must settle with the RUF or the RUF and its allies will be permitted to reorganise and launch a new offensive. The Kabbah government accordingly started to negotiate with the RUF with the talks taking place in Togo, under the mediation of Togo'sPresident Gnassingbe Eyadema, a special representative from the UN Francis Okelloand US special envoy Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The accord, as signed on July 7, called for a cease-fire; the establishment of a United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) to oversee the disarmament of the RUF and other belligerents; the transformation of the RUF into a political party; and full amnesty for the RUF. The accord gave broad and sweeping powers to the RUF in a government of national unity. Sankoh's forces were to be given one senior cabinet post, along with three other cabinet positions, and four positions of deputy cabinet minister. Most importantly, the RUF was to be handed the key post of Board of Commission for Management of Strategic Resources, National Reconciliation, and Development. It is headed by Sankoh and it seems that Sankoh et al. would have a major and likely final say on the distribution of the country's vast mineral resources. The post tended to make official the RUF control of the Sierra Leone's gold and diamond mines.

Leigh called the accord a "great shame to the western nations." The UN and various human rights organisations criticised the accord because it granted amnesty to the RUF. But Leigh notes that "if the government had had the power, it could have insisted that any amnesty be through truth and reconciliation." But without amnesty the war could not have been ended. Sankoh himself had been apprehended in 1998 and was in jail on charges of treason up to the point of the negotiations for the accords. If the international community forced the Kabbah government to negotiate, its actions since the accord show no commitment to peace. With the exception of Britain, which has sent some money to the Kabbah government, all promised aid from the donors has been channelled through aid agencies.In the months since the accord, the government has upheld its part of the bargain-RUF appointees are now in charge of the ministries of trade and industry; energy and power; tourism and culture; and land, central planning, and housing. Sankoh is the chairman of the Resources Committee. But the disarmament process has been stymied. In part this is due to the fact that Koroma's AFRC was not a party to the accord and these forces continue to maraude the Sierra Leone countryside. Meanwhile, the RUF continues to control those pockets of territory which hold the country's mining operations, including Kenema and Kono districts and the mining area of Tongo. So until the disarmament process is complete, Sierra Leone continues to be threatened with disintegration into a division of the country by warlords. In the RUF, there are two commanders who do not appear to be under political control: Samuel Bockarie Maskita, who has threatened to break away and form his own insurgency, and Dennis Strongman Mingo.

Furthermore, the condition of returning rebels is poor. Many of the RUF conscripts were children, who were then heavily drugged, and unleashed against the population. They are traumatised, demoralised, and in some cases on the verge of starvation. Many will be ineligible to join the newly reorganised armed forces because they are illiterate. Without programs in place to bring these youth into rehabilitation and training for full service in a reorganised armed forces or productive jobs, they remain easy targets for recruitment back into insurgencies, where killing, raping, and stealing are the order of the day. Therefore, as Leigh noted, the Sierra Leone government is in immediate need of money for the rehabilitation and reconstruction program required for a permanent peace. This is in the tune of US$50-100 million just for a start. But the problem is thatthis money is not forthcoming.

Instead, the slow pace of disarmament and the continuing insecurity are used as an excuse to withhold financial assistance . UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Carol McAskie visited Sierra Leone in mid-November and declared that her message to donors was that Sierra Leone is still "insecure" with aid agencies unable to gain access to sections of the country. That is, the red light still holds for funds into the country. The World Bank will supply no funding in Sierra Leone until the situation is secure. During her visit to Sierra Leone at the end of October, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright promised US$55 million in aid to Sierra Leone, of which US$4 million is for logistics to ensure disarmament; US$4 million is for the education of ex-combatants; US$55 million is for aid; and US$1 million is to help Sierra Leone curtail the illegal flow of diamonds and other minerals out of the country. However, none of the money has been seen yet.

Albright further said that the US would cancel US$65 million of its debt, but only if the Sierra Leone government signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Throughout the war and the period following the signing of the accord, the Sierra Leone government has paid its debt service on time. As one government official put it: "An IMF agreement means that the IMF will come in and run the government."

Mining of the country's mineral wealth is proceeding, but the profit does not accrue to either the government or the people. According to media reports, Liberians have taken control of the rebel-held mining town of Kono, and illegal cross border trade is now rampant. The government is unable to take control back of the town unless the insurgents holding it are first disarmed. It is estimated that Sierra Leone is annually losing US$300 to US$450 million from the illegal flow of minerals out of the country into the hands of the international Mafia that has its grip on the government in neighbouring Liberia.

Even before the war, Sierra Leone was the world's poorest country, and today stands at the bottom of the so-called Human Development Index of the UN Development Program. All productive activity in the country has ground to a halt. Starvation is rampant in those areas controlled by the rebels. Per capita income is a meaningless $160 per year and the country's debt in 1997 was $1.4 billion, having doubled since 1985. In 1997, Sierra Leone paid 21.2 percent of all its official export earnings to debt service. According to the UNDP, life expectancy in the country is 37.2 years, from 42 years in 1990. Infant mortality is 182 deaths per 1000 live births and mortality for children under five years of age is 316 out of every 1000 children. Maternal mortality is 1800 out of every 100,000 women. Over 70 percent of the people are not expected to live to the age of 60 years and adult literacy is 34.3 percent. It is hard to imagine what austerity conditions the IMF can place on such a country, but until such time as the government makes its pact with the IMF, there will be no debt relief and no substantial funding from the industrialised countries.

�The consequence has been to turn the country over tointernational criminal gangs. Last monthnewspapers reported the arrest of three Ukrainians in Freetown with arms and ammunition for a possible invasion of the capital by the RUF. A week before, the Spanish law enforcement officials had impounded a vessel containing arms bound for Sierra Leone. "The impounded vessel was linked to a Mafia ring in the Soviet Union," said the The Progress newspaper of Sierra Leone.This little news item is but one piece in the mountain of evidence that at root, the war in Sierra Leone is not a civil war, but an invasion of Sierra Leone by international criminal forces with the RUF and the AFRC serving as an invading mercenary force.

The local strongman for this Mafia seems to be President Taylor of Liberia whose 1989 invasion of Liberia launched the destabilisation of the entire region. To the horror of most Liberians, the US did not act to protect the Liberian government or its people, despite the long-standing historical ties between the two countries. Instead Taylor was touted as one of the "new breed" of leaders during the 1994 Pan-African Congress held in Uganda.

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