| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.]
ABIDJAN, 15 November 1999 (IRIN) - For UN Deputy Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Carolyn McAskie, few issues are as crucial to Sierra Leone's peace process now as disarmament.
"Disarmament is the biggest thing," McAskie, who is also the UN deputy emergency relief coordinator ad interim, said after a visit to Sierra Leone at the head of a mission representing donor nations and agencies. "Humanitarian agencies are still unable to go to large tracts of the north."
The situation is not stable in Makeni in the north and in Kailahun in the east, she told IRIN. "Rebel commanders are still roaming freely with their arms and the population does not feel secure."
For four days, McAskie and her mission had talks with
various actors in Sierra Leone, including the government,
leaders of the former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council
(ex-AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF),
international non-governmental organisations (NGOs),
local civil society and UN officials.
"Our impression is that it is a very critical moment
in the peace process," she said. "Things
have been going very slowly up to now. They are beginning
to move but they will have to move faster if Sierra
Leoneans are to have confidence in the Peace Accord."
Since the RUF rebels and Sierra Leone's government signed the peace agreement on 7 July in Lome, Togo, that confidence has been put to the test on a number of occasions. While McAskie spoke to IRIN on Friday from Guinea, the second leg of her two-nation visit, a group of UN observers were being held by former RUF rebels in eastern Sierra Leone.
A humanitarian source told IRIN from Freetown on Monday
that the observers and some US journalists were detained
by ex-rebels and taken to the headquarters of RUF field
commander Sam Bockarie in Buedu, north of Kailahun,
before being released hours later.
Other incidents include the abduction in August by members
of the former Sierra Leone Army (ex-SLA) of about 40
people, mostly UNOMSIL civilian and military observers
and ECOMOG soldiers.
The abductors charged that their group had been excluded from the Lome Peace Agreement. They demanded their incorporation into the new Sierra Leone army and the recognition of promotions made while Koroma's AFRC junta was in power - May 1997 to February 1998.
Then, in mid-October, a group of about 15 clerics and aid workers went missing for days in the Makeni area, some 140 km northeast of Freetown, as a result of insecurity there. First reports had it that they had been kidnapped but they later denied that.
A few days later, fighting broke out between the ex-SLA and the RUF in Makeni and in Lunsar, some 60 km further to the west.
How committed the various actors are to the Lome Accord is hard to tell.
"The general sense is that Johnny Paul Koroma is sincere and that, as chairman of the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (a new organ set up under the Lome Agreement), he is buying into the peace accord," McAskie told IRIN. "Sankoh is saying the right things and what we are looking for from him is action to back up his word."
"The proof of the pudding will be when the (field) commanders lay down their arms," added McAskie, whose mission left Conakry on Saturday after talks with Guinean officials and visits to one of the camps where over 300,000 Sierra Leoneans forced by the eight-year war to flee their country have sought refuge.
"The next step will be to inform the donor community of the need to ensure that the disarmament process is fully funded," Mc Askie said. "If we do get a large influx of ex-combatants handing in their arms we have to be sure there is money available".
Up to early November, donors had pledged only about 42 percent of the estimated US $45 million needed for the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme, under which some 45,000 ex-combatants are to receive food and demobilisation grants while being prepared for their reinsertion into society.
In the first five days of the programme, officially launched on 4 November, only 600 ex-combatants handed in their weapons.
McAskie said "the donors are very seized of the need to assist the World Food Programme to have food available" for the ex-combatants. If this is not done, she said, "we run the risk of destabilisation."
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1974
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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