guns
Chris McGreal in Freetown
Just days before the demobilisation of Sierra Leone’s rebel armies is scheduled to begin under a peace deal to end the civil war, there is little sign that the guns are about to be surrendered. Neither is it certain when the leader of the main rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Foday Sankoh, will make his way to the capital in a gesture seen as crucial to making the peace deal work.
The precariousness of the peace deal between the government and the rebels was highlighted this month with the seizure of foreign hostages.
The Minister of Information, Julius Spencer, has dismissed the hostage crisis as a “minor hiccup” in the peace process. “What happened was a blessing in disguise,” he said, “because everybody has been able to express their commitment to making the agreement hold.”
Certainly the RUF was swift to condemn the kidnappings and “order” that the hostages be released. That gave the rebels an aura of responsibility and commitment to peace.
But the kidnappings also posed a threat to the RUF’s own hegemony, and exposed divisions between the rebel groups. The hostage-takers protested that they have been sidelined by the agreement, which makes no specific provisions for their Armed Forces Revolutionary Council while the RUF is allocated four Cabinet seats.
One United Nations official said that the hostage crisis drew attention to the fissures in the rebel ranks. “I think there are a number of problems, none of them insurmountable, but they could become serious.”
“Besides this,” he added, “the accords set unrealistic timetables. We’re spending far too much time getting demobilisation and disarmament into place. You have all those guys out there with guns getting restless, wondering if they’re getting left out, getting hungry. While they’re out there you can’t get food out to the areas where people are starving because there are too many armed men still around.”
Demobilisation of about 45 000 armed men is scheduled to begin by Wednesday at the latest. But while the first reception centres are ready, they have yet to see a single soldier.
The most immediate drag on disarmament is the failure of the UN and the West African intervention force, Ecomog, to agree on who does what. Although Ecomog is technically a peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone, during the war it led the government’s fight against the RUF. Consequently, the rebels refuse to hand their guns in to the Nigerian-led force, arguing that it would be tantamount to surrender when they didn’t lose the war.
When demobilisation does begin in earnest, it will bring with it a new problems. Thousands of civilians abducted by the rebels will need help to get home and rebuild their lives. And there are the million or more refugees waiting to return to Sierra Leone.
The peace accord has been a bitter pill for the government. President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah initially recoiled at having to do a deal with an organisation which specialised in hacking the limbs off defenceless people, but the government’s hand was forced by the military reality and foreign pressure. There is also evident war- weariness not just among the civilian population, but many of the combatants.
There are fears that the rebel group is holding on to its guns in the hope that it can win the 2001 presidential election by terrorising voters with the threat of a return to war.
But the chair of the RUF’s war council, SYB Rogers, insists the rebels are committed to peace. “The war is over. There will be no more fighting as far as we are concerned. We are going to transform our movement to a political party and we will win the elections,” he said. “But there are problems. If you take a gun from someone who has used it for nine years you have to give them an incentive. If you don’t give them something to do they will find something to do that they know, and they know how to use guns.”