Deaths in Sierra Leone cast shadow over UN peacekeeping in Africa
by Robert Holloway
UNITED NATIONS, May 3 (AFP) - The killing of seven United Nations soldiers
by guerrillas in Sierra Leone has cast doubt on UN peacekeeping operations
in Africa, diplomats said.
The soldiers, all Kenyans, belonged to the UN Mission in Sierra Leone
(UNAMSIL) and had a mandate to help implement last year’s July 7 peace
agreement that wrote an end to one of the most brutal civil wars in Africa.
They died on Tuesday when members of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
attacked a disarmament center in central Sierra Leone where some of the
country’s 45,000 ex-combatants had surrendered their weapons under UN
supervision.
Diplomats who heard the UN official in charge of peacekeeping, Bernard
Miyet, brief the Security Council on Wednesday said the RUF leader, Foday
Sankoh, was in a house in Freetown surrounded by UN troops.
But they said no direct action was planned against Sankoh, whose men were
holding at least 49 hostages, almost all of them UN peacekeepers.
The United Nations says the RUF used terror tactics during the nine-year
civil war, chopping off the hands and feet of civilians and forcing
thousands of children into its ranks.
Tuesday was the bloodiest day for UN peacekeepers since April 7, 1994, when
10 members of a Belgian battalion in Rwanda were butchered at the start of
the genocide there.
Sierra Leone’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim M’baba Kamara,
described the killings as “a challenge not only to the people of Sierra
Leone but also to this institution where we’re standing now.”
Speaking in Paris, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said “we know that the
international community and the western countries were not ready to go to
Rwanda. After Sierra Leone, I think there is going to be very little
encouragement for any of them to get involved in operations in Africa.”
The crisis came as seven members of the Security Council left for the
Democratic Republic of Congo, to assess conditions for deploying UN troops
to monitor a ceasefire there.
The council has already authorized a force of 5,500, but some diplomats
have suggested that four times that number may be needed to help bring an
end to hostilities in one of the largest countries in Africa.
The council delegation, led by the US ambassador to the United Nations,
Richard Holbrooke, was also due to visit some of the six other states
involved in the fighting in DRCongo.
Holbrooke used the US presidency of the council to proclaim January “the
month of Africa”, partly in response to accusations that the UN applied a
double standard when responding to threats to international peace and
security there.
On February 7, the council agreed to expand UNAMSIL from six to 12 infantry
battalions, plus support units, taking its total authorized strength to
11,100 -- currently the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world.
So far, UNAMSIL has put 8,700 troops in the field, most of them from
developing countries such as Guinea, India, Jordan, Kenya and Nigeria.
UN officials say the force lacks the kind of equipment and logistical
support which richer nations have said they will provide.
From the start, the RUF obstructed UNAMSIL, blocking units as they entered
Sierra Leone from Guinea and harassing those which pushed eastwards into
mineral-rich areas controlled by the former rebels.
UN officials said that by May 1, a total of 23,714 ex-combatants had
disarmed, but only 5,075 were members of the RUF.
Kamara asked reporters: “If you fail in Sierra Leone, with a small man like
Sankoh, what chances are of your success in the DRCongo or other regions?”
rh/fgf
sidi sanneh
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