Chris McGreal in Jui
The pretence of peace dissolved in Sierra Leone this week as Foday Sankoh’s rebels fought their way to within 40km of Freetown and advanced along the main road into the capital.
The assault sent United Nations peacekeepers fleeing again, with thousands of refugees. But the government’s newly rearmed forces claimed to be holding their own.
Amid a growing sense of crisis, the UN pledged that Freetown will not be abandoned to the brutalities of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). It declined to discuss its strategy.
”We have laid our plans and the necessary steps are being taken militarily to protect the capital. Plans have been made to ensure that Freetown remains exactly what it is called – a free town,” said UN representative David Wimhurst.
The UN’s promise to resist the RUF raises fresh concerns over the fate of 498 peacekeepers held by the rebels. UN officials now believe the men have been dispersed beyond the areas where they were captured, making a rescue attempt all but impossible.
British officials in Freetown again called on the several hundred British, Commonwealth, European Union and other citizens who qualify for evacuation and remain here to leave immediately, after the numbers seeking to be airlifted out dropped to a trickle.
The British army said it is moving UN equipment to help defend towns on the road into Freetown, and is flying reconnaissance flights beyond the city.
It was also helping to dig in UN forces around the capital to provide, as one officer put it, some ”backbone” to the widely derided peacekeepers.
But the immediate responsibility for stopping the rebels from advancing on Freetown falls to the Sierra Leone army and young Kamajor militiamen, many still in their teens and wearing charms to ward off bullets.
As government troops and militia poured into the war zone, thousands of refugees flooded out of the town of Waterloo, 29km from the capital and the next target for the rebels.
They know only too well what happens when the RUF seizes control, after the rebels briefly occupied Waterloo at the beginning of last year. Besides the systematic decapitations and shootings of anyone connected to the government, ordinary people lived in fear of arbitrary amputations of arms and legs by machete, and gang rapes.
At the UN checkpoint at Jui, edgy Jordanian soldiers fingered their guns. A few metres away Special Johnson, a 31-year- old market trader, said he was in Waterloo when the RUF occupied it last time around.
”As soon as we heard the shooting last night we knew it was time to leave. These rebels can just appear from nowhere. It’s like magic. One minute they are not there and then they are everywhere,” he said. ”I was lucky to survive last time. It was a miracle because here I am, a man, and the rebels want men to fight or they kill them. I will not be so lucky again, so it was better to leave quickly.”
The terror generated by the prospect of an RUF takeover drives the refugees on in the unrelenting heat, without much water or food. They trudge on, hauling mattresses and as many carrier bags as their hands can grip. The lucky few have bicycles. The children are too tired to cry anymore, but they still walk. And there is no help.
As the UN reminds anyone who wavers from the approved terminology, the people fleeing Waterloo are not refugees. They are ”internally displaced people”, and so not the responsibility of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In any case, his staff have fled the country.
But the refugees pose their own security problem. Thousands of RUF fighters infiltrated Freetown dressed as civilians before seizing control of a large part of the city in January last year. The Kamajor militia is ever willing to deal with suspected RUF infiltrators.
The size of the rebel force bearing down on Waterloo is uncertain. Hundreds have walked out of demobilisation camps and, in some places, seized the weapons taken off them as part of the peace agreement’s disarmament programme. The RUF also has several useful new additions to its armoury, including fighting vehicles and weapons taken from UN forces who were either captured or ran away.
The Sierra Leone Army (SLA) has also rearmed itself with weapons seized from UN soldiers. The UN has not protested, knowing that the guns will probably be more effectively used.
”The SLA has rearmed itself in the past couple of days and we urged it to behave responsibly,” said Wimhurst.
The RUF has also struck at a number of towns in the south, including Lunsar and Magbaraka. In almost every case UN forces have either retreated or limited themselves to protecting their bases. A group of Kenyan soldiers described how they fought off a rebel attack and retreated to Mile 91. They said they were repeatedly ambushed by RUF fighters who blocked the road with logs. Only one of the Kenyan soldiers was injured.
Nigeria and other West African states met on Tuesday to call on the UN to strengthen its mandate in Sierra Leone from peacekeeping to peace enforcement, to allow it to go on the attack. The UN special representative in Freetown, Oluyemi Adeniji, said the regional leaders also pledged to defend the capital.
”They made it clear to the RUF that any military takeover of government would be unacceptable, and that any attempt to take over Freetown would be resisted, if necessary by force. They are prepared to do everything in their power to prevent a takeover,” he said.
Regional leaders said that if the UN is unwilling to go along, West African states would revive the Nigerian-led force which drove the RUF from Freetown last year.
That is the option many in the capital would prefer. They do not trust UN troops to fight, particularly after a major blunder on Saturday night when a group of Jordanian soldiers claimed to have come under attack in Hastings and ran back to Freetown demanding to be taken out of the country immediately.
The UN promptly announced that the rebels were just a few miles from the capital, but it turned out the Jordanians were not under attack and the UN had to apologise for the scare.