THURSDAY, 5.30PM
The leaders of the military coup in Sierra Leone will be prepared to step down in favour of an elected civilian government in 18 months’ time, chief of defence staff Brigadier Sam Koroma said on Thursday.
”Our side said we are prepared to do this in 18 months’ time, but warned that Kabbah’s return will create an unstable peace and erode national unity,” said Koroma, referring to ousted President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who fled to Guinea after the coup. Koroma was speaking of talks on Wednesday evening between junta strongman Major Johnny Koroma and a Nigerian military delegation in Freetown to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis in the west African country.
Meanwhile, West African countries were using a double strategy on Thursday in their attempt to restore the Sierre Leone civilian goverment to power, diplomats in Nairobi said.
The twin strategy involves a military build-up accompanied by negotiations on the stepping down of the putschists following their coup on May 25. The Organisation of African Unity gave West African peacekeeping forces a mandate to use force to oust the junta at the close of its summit in Harare on Wednesday.
At the same time, hundreds of rebels of the Revolutionary United Front, which was fighting a war against Kabbah’s government at the time of the coup and which has since joined the coup, appear to have installed a terror regime in Freetown. As West African intervention forces continued to build up troops around the airport outside Freetown, eyewitnesses said RUF gangs manning roadblocks were indiscriminately robbing civilians and looting houses and businesses.
The RUF is reported to be bringing more fighters into the city from hideouts in the bush. However, the rebels, who are officially allied with the military putschists, are said to be refusing to take orders from army officers. Junta soldiers have largely pulled out of the city centre and have left the area to unpredictable RUF rebels, witnesses said.
RUF leader Foday Sankoh, who is under house arrest in the Nigerian capital Abuja, is reported to have been appointed vice premier by junta leader Koroma.