JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Monday 10.00am.
OFFICERS of the West African intervention force Ecomog are preventing it from wiping out the forces of Sierra Leonean rebel Johnny Paul Koroma because of links to the diamond trade, soldiers alleged on Monday.
Nigerian Ecomog soldiers on medical leave in Lagos said that some of their officers in Sierra Leone were being paid with diamonds to hold off Ecomog from capturing the last 20% of the country still controlled by Koroma’s forces.
Ecomog earlier this year restored to power ousted civilian President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah but it has since struggled to clear the country of the forces loyal to the rebel junta which seized power briefly last year.
The soldiers, all speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the rebels appeared recently to have been strengthened by new supplies of weapons being supplied, they said, by Liberian President Charles Taylor.
Nigerian sources have long suspected Taylor, the former warlord who won elections in Liberia after seven years of civil war, of backing the Sierra Leonean rebels.
Nigerian officials declined to comment Monday on the soldiers’ allegations. — AFP