FROM REUTERS
When will our so called and self imposed leaders stop brutalizing
it's people??
from
Habib Diab Ghanim, Sr
Coalition Blocks Rebel
Advance on S. Leone Capital
Wednesday, May 10, 2000
By Christo Johnson
FREETOWN (Reuters) - A coalition of
loyalist forces blocked a rebel
advance on Sierra Leone's capital as U.N.
peace keepers helped by
British paratroops dug in to defend the
city, military sources said.
The motley mixture of traditional hunters
from the Kamajor militia
and soldiers of the new and old Sierra
Leone armies pushed the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels
back from Waterloo to
Newton, 23 miles from Freetown, by late on
Wednesday, the
sources added.
"We'll do what we have to do to defend
ourselves and the
government. We hope that it is not going
to come to a pitched
battle, but in effect we are preparing for
one," U.N. spokesman
Fred Eckhard said at the world body's
headquarters in New York.
The rebels have been holding hostage some
500 soldiers and
support staff from the 8,900-strong United
Nations Mission in
Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) since a dispute
over disarmament last
week threatened to derail the West African
country's 1999 peace
accord.
The rapid military build-up on Wednesday,
involving United
Nations, British and pro government
soldiers under separate
commands, came as thousands of civilians
streamed into Freetown
to escape the rebels.
U.N. spokesman Eckhard said the rebels
advancing on Freetown
seemed to be using armored personnel
carriers taken from U.N.
peace keepers.
There was uncertainty over the whereabouts
of the RUF's veteran
leader, Foday Sankoh, who disappeared
after rival fighters stormed
his home on Monday.
The civil war Sankoh launched in 1991 was
marked by atrocities
including the severing of limbs of
hundreds of civilians in cold
blood.
MANDATE TO FIGHT
The leader of a former junta, Johnny Paul
Koroma, whose
supporters once fought alongside the RUF,
has rallied to the
government of elected President Ahmad
Tejan Kabbah.
"Rest assured that we are going to defend
this nation and we
have been given the mandate by President
Kabbah to fight now
against the RUF," Koroma said in a radio
broadcast on Wednesday.
Koroma said men of the 15,000-strong pro
government Kamajor
militia, his former foes, were back in
control at Waterloo. His own
men are former soldiers of the Sierra
Leone Army, which is being
rebuilt following the peace deal.
The whereabouts of Sankoh were a mystery.
He was last seen on
Monday when his bodyguards opened fire on
a crowd of several
thousand peace protesters who tried to
enter his residence.
Sixteen people died in the shooting and
subsequent fighting.
The United States said it was too soon to
write the U.N.
peacekeeping mission off as a failure.
The British government rejected Sierra
Leonean appeals for its 687
paratroops in Sierra Leone, who are well
armed and equipped with
helicopters, to take on a combat role.
But on the ground, the troops were doing
more than just
evacuating British, European Union and
Commonwealth citizens, of
whom 290 have been flown to Senegal since
the weekend.
U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan told
reporters in New York that
British troops, who are in control of
Freetown's Lungi airport, had
also secured a heliport at Hastings, 12
miles from the city and less
than four miles from Waterloo. "The
British presence has been
helpful," he said.
Bernard Miyet of France, the head of U.N.
peacekeeping
worldwide, gave a similar assessment of
the British role. "I think
the British intervention has been
critical," he told a news
conference in Freetown at the end of an
assessment mission.
The United States, like Britain, has
refused to send troops to join
UNAMSIL but has offered logistical help in
the form of transport for
troops needed to bring UNAMSIL up to its
full strength of 11,100.
Russia and Canada have offered similar
help.
One report said Sankoh was holed up in an
RUF safe house with 50
heavily armed fighters on the western
outskirts of Freetown. Rival
fighters and U.N. peace keepers, anxious
to ensure nothing
happened to Sankoh, had been deployed
nearby, a diplomat said.
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