Joke of the day- the UN troops were not captured they just got lost in
the bush- Ha ha
_________________________________________________________________
source http://www.sierra-leone.org/slnews.html
18 May: Another 15 U.N. hostages were released to the
Liberian Mediation
Delegation Thursday, Liberian President Charles Taylor was
quoted as saying. He
said the 15 had already crossed into the Liberian border
town of Foya to await
evacuation to Monrovia. "President Taylor did not mention
the nationalities of the
new batch of release hostages, but he said a Kenyan general
who was also set
free had decided to remain with the rebels until his
colleagues are released," said
BBC Monrovia correspondent Jonathan Paye-Layleh. Taylor
added he expected
the RUF to free 30-40 wounded peace keepers still held in
Sierra Leone. "We are
hoping that by today's end everything will have been
arranged for the evacuation of
these wounded personnel," he said. In Freetown, UNAMSIL
spokesman David
Wimhurst said 13 freed peace keepers had arrived in
Freetown on Thursday, 67
fewer than expected. "I can't tell you why we got that
misinformation. We were
told by Monrovia that there were going to be 80 people. It
turns out that's not the
case," Wimhurst said. Some 330 U.N. personnel still remain
in RUF hands. "We
don't know how many are left, if any, in Foya," Wimhurst
told reporters. "The
pace of release was never set out in concrete." Meanwhile,
Wimhurst said 44
more freed U.N. peace keepers were returned from Monrovia
to Freetown on
Wednesday night -- 40 Zambians and four Kenyans. He
declined to comment on
whether the arrest Wednesday of RUF leader Foday Sankoh
could complicate
negotiations for the remaining U.N. peacekeeping troops and
military observers.
"Our position on the detainees remains the same as it has
been: their release
has to remain unconditional. Unconditional and immediate,"
he said.
The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to vote
Thursday on a British
proposal to increase the authorized size of the UNAMSIL
force in Sierra Leone
from 11,100 to 13,000. Britain's U.N. ambassador, Sir
Jeremy Greenstock,
requested the immediate vote because new troops arriving
from India, Bangladesh
and Jordan will put the force over its limit by the
weekend. In his report to the
Security Council due next week, U.N. secretary-general Kofi
Annan is expected
to propose 16,500 troops for Sierra Leone. Meanwhile,
ECOWAS nation defense
ministers and chiefs of staff meeting in Abuja said
Thursday they were ready to
send 3,000 more troops to Sierra Leone. ECOWAS Information
Director Dr.
Adrienne Diop said seven countries had pledged to
contribute troops and
equipment. "The mission of ECOMOG in Sierra Leone will be
that of peace
enforcement," she said, in a reference to the more limited
mandate of UNAMSIL.
Nigerian Chief of Army Staff Major General Victor Malu, who
formerly served as
ECOMOG force commander, said that the force should be under
Nigerian
leadership. "We are of the view that if we take command of
the force its activities
will be more result oriented, because we understand the
terrain better, and we will
have more troops on the ground," he said.
RUF leader Foday Sankoh received medical
treatment Thursday
for a leg injury caused by a stray bullet
during his arrest
Wednesday in Freetown, UNAMSIL spokesman David
Wimhurst said. Sankoh "received medical
attention yesterday
for an injury to his leg, and he is recovering
from that," he told
reporters. Wimhurst added that the RUF leader
"remained in the
hands of the Sierra Leone government."
Britain mounted a show of force in the skies over Freetown
Wednesday night in a
warning to RUF rebel forces not to launch further attacks.
According to the BBC,
a British Harrier jet passed low over the capital while
several military helicopters
flew overhead. In London, British Defense Secretary
Geoffrey Hoon said rebel
troops who attacked British paratroopers on Tuesday had
been "well armed and
well organized."
RUF leader Foday Sankoh's Special Assistant, Gibril
Massakoi, rejected a
suggestion Thursday that Liberian President Charles Taylor
was
working in the interest of the rebel group. "The thing is
plain: His
role is to see the peace process in Sierra Leone is being
speeded up and that all parties to the agreement adhere to
that
particular signatory," Massakoi said. "I think that is what
he’s
trying to do, not that he’s siding us or he’s trying to
seek our
interest. That is not the issue at all." Massakoi escaped
from
Freetown following the RUF attack on demonstrators outside
Sankoh's home on May 8, and reached Makeni on Wednesday
night. On May 5,
Massakoi denied the RUF was holding U.N. personnel,
suggesting instead they
had lost their way in the bush -- a position he maintained
on Thursday.
"Immediately the searching goes on, if we see any one of
them in the bushes, we
have to release them to President Taylor," he said. "I
think he is the immediate
country by us. We have to release them to him. I think
President Olusegun
Obasanjo has already told us that if we have any one of
them, if we are fortunate
to find them, let us make sure that we deposit them to
Liberia so that the
situation will calm down and we try to see our best with
them, get back to the
table and resolve the whole episode." Massakoi dismissed a
suggestion that the
RUF had lost credibility as a result of the current crisis,
and he attacked British
Prime Minister Tony Blair for describing the rebel group as
brutal. "That is what
he will say because they are all supporters of President
Kabbah," he said. "That
is what he will say. You have to ask him whether the
British troops he sent in
Sierra Leone, whether they are part of the U.N.
peacekeeping forces. They are all
part of the criminals or the politicians you have in
Freetown there. They are all
part of them. So they will only say something in favour of
them. They do not even
know what is happening on the ground."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has requested that the
Federation Council,
Russia's upper house of Parliament, approve a measure to
send four military
helicopters and a contingent of about 105 Russian troops to
Sierra Leone. "The
Russian military contingent will act as part of the U.N.
peace keepers in the area
determined by the U.N. Security Council to conduct an
operation for maintaining
peace in Sierra Leone," Putin wrote in a letter to House
spokesman Yegor
Stroyev. Its mission would be to ensure security for U.N.
personnel with "air
escorts for land convoys, reconnaissance flights, air
operations and patrol and
rescue flights," according to the Itar-Tass news agency.
Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was designated by
ECOWAS last week to
negotiate for the release of U.N. personnel held by the
RUF,
made what he called a "quick trip" to Bamako Thursday for
consultations with Malian officials. Mali's President,
Alpha
Oumar Konare, is the current chairman of ECOWAS. Lewis
Brown, who heads the Liberian negotiating team, traveled
with
Taylor to Bamako. "Consultations continue around the clock.
Things are developing very fast," said Taylor's spokesman,
Reginald Goodridge.
Rev. Jesse Jackson arrived in Nigeria Thursday, where he
met in the city of Benin
with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Jackson, who is
U.S. President Bill
Clinton's Special Envoy for the Promotion of Democracy in
Africa, is seeking
ways to help bring about the release of U.N. personnel held
by the RUF in
northern and eastern Sierra Leone. "My role is to touch
base with the regional
leaders about what are the next steps beyond stopping the
fighting, beyond
capturing Sankoh, to protect the integrity of the democracy
of Sierra Leone,"
Jackson told the BBC before leaving the United States.
"There was a very tense
moment with the jubilation of (Sankoh) being captured, but
Sierra Leone is not
freed, it is not free until the RUF drop their guns and
disengage, until the
gunrunners who have been carrying out the country stop
doing so. It requires a
long-term commitment to stability and security to the
democracy of Sierra Leone
and a commitment to its development."
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