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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------