Sierra Leone government says it will watch rebels carefully

Clarence Roy-Macaulay

Saturday, Nov. 11, 2000 | 4:54 a.m.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - A day after reaching a cease-fire with the rebel Revolutionary United Front, Sierra Leone's government said Saturday it was pleased with the deal signed, but that it would pressure the rebels to keep their word.

Sierra Leone's government and leaders of the brutal rebel movement agreed Friday to a 30-day cease-fire, and for U.N. peacekeepers to deploy in rebel territory, including lucrative diamond mines.

But less than an hour after signing the deal, Col. Jonathan Kposowa, the leader of the Revolutionary United Front, characterized it as a "stepping stone," and said he could give "no guarantees it means the end of the war."

Later Saturday, the Sierra Leone government indicated it was far from sure about rebel compliance.

The Sierra Leone government "wishes to assure the public that as a result of past experience, it has no intention of relaxing its stance," on monitoring that compliance, said a statement read on state radio.

Sierra Leone's minister of information, Julius Spencer, later added that: "The government of Sierra Leone is very pleased with the cease-fire agreement and we are going to press for its full implementation."

The deal was reached in negotiations in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, and was the first high-level talks between the two sides since the RUF rebels reignited Sierra Leone's civil war in May, breaking a year-old peace deal. It was the third peace agreement abandoned by the rebels since the war began in 1991.

There was no immediate word Saturday if the cease-fire, which started a minute before midnight, had taken hold.

The civil war has forced more than one-quarter of Sierra Leone's 4.2 million people from their homes and thousands of civilians have had their hands and arms hacked off in a horrific rebel terror campaign.

Fighting has picked up in recent weeks with the end of Sierra Leone's rainy season, though U.N. officials say the country is largely calm. Sierra Leone's infrastructure has been devastated by the years of war, with almost no telephone lines in the interior and few well-paved roads.

Kposowa refused to say whether the rebels would give up control of the diamond mines used to finance their war chest. Under Friday's deal, U.N. troops are to deploy in diamond fields and other rebel areas, but only after the U.N. force is satisfied that the cease-fire is being observed.

In London, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said that "real proof" of the rebels' peace commitment hinged on whether they give up control of the diamond fields. Britain has some 600 troops retraining Sierra Leone's shattered army.

A 13,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force, the world's largest current U.N. deployment, is pretty much all that stands between Freetown, the Sierra Leonean capital, and the rebels who continue to control much of the country's interior - including the diamond-rich east. Sierra Leone's army is not seen as capable of holding off an RUF offensive on its own.

Under the deal, the two sides agreed to end hostilities and the rebels promised to cooperate with a U.N.-supervised disarmament program. Negotiators are due to review the deal together in 30 days.

The signatories also pledged to allow the free flow of refugees and goods "with a view to restoring the authority of the government throughout the entire territory of Sierra Leone."

One apparent development was the absence of rebel demands for the freedom of the RUF's charismatic founding leader, Foday Sankoh. He has been in custody since June and could face trial for war crimes in a proposed international court to be established in Sierra Leone.

"The release of Foday Sankoh is a very, very important (priority) of the RUF, but for now let us forget about that," Kposowa said.

The eruption of fighting in May wrecked a 1999 peace agreement that had granted the rebels government posts and amnesty for war crimes in return for laying down their arms.

Kposowa said the rebel and government officials who signed the 1999 peace deal "didn't take it seriously ... and they didn't implement what they said." Since then, the RUF has undergone frequent power struggles within its senior ranks.

"Therefore what I'm saying is that we are going to use (the latest cease-fire deal) as a stepping stone," Kposowa added without elaborating.

The U.N. mission has been riven with organizational problems and infighting. Two major contributors, India and Jordan, have announced they will pull out. U.N. spokesman Patrick Coker said Friday that the troop pullout had begun.

He declined to give full details of the withdrawal, but said Nigerians and Ghanaians would be taking over from the departing soldiers in some areas.