Introduction

 In terms of the military and power balance, Sierra Leone today bears an uncanny resemblance to the situation in May 1997. At that time the combined forces of elements within the Sierra Leonean army led by Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Koroma and Corporal Foday Sankoh's guerrilla Revolutionary United Front (RUF) drove out the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in the presence of the Nigeria led ECOMOG troops. Today, the same forces have managed to enter the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown, threatening to once more sweep aside President Kabbah's beleaguered Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) Government that was reinstated in February 1998 by the joint interventionist forces of ECOMOG, the ethnic Kamajor Militia and mercenaries.

It had been hoped that the restoration of the elected government in February  98 would draw the line under a barbaric civil war that has claimed close to 20.000 lives since 1991, and mark the beginning of reconciliation and reconstruction. On the one hand. the mindless orgy of violence perpetrated by the rebel forces in the hinterland put paid to this hope, at least for those outside Freetown. On the other hand, the rhetoric of reconciliation contained in President Kabbah's post-restoration speech was soon replaced by a triumphalist agenda. Although President Kabbah's government was faced with the daunting task of restoring collapsed infrastructure and seeking national unity, its first diplomatic move was to lobby the United Nations, with the active support of the UK government, to lift the arms embargo imposed on Sierra Leone under the Security Council Resolution 1132. Fresh arms poured into a country already awash in weapons and plagued by close to 4.000 child soldiers. Bolstered by ECOMOG troops, mercenaries and the Kamajor militia, and diplomatically buoyed by total international support, the SLPP government decided to prosecute the war to a victorious end. This gung-ho attitude on the side of the government was not helped by the barbaric acts perpetrated by the rebels. It became an 'all or nothing" campaign. Revenge killings and witch-hunting replaced dialogue and reconciliation.

In this context. the government obliged to the baying for the blood of members and sympathisers of the RUF and the deposed Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) regime by hurriedly mock-trying and executing dozens. Twenty four soldiers were executed by firing squad after being found guilty before a partisan court that did not allow for appeal. Death sentences were imposed on 26 civilians, including a 75 year-old woman. On 23 October 1998, the death sentence was passed on the RUF leader, Corporal Foday Sankoh. For fear of mob justice, no Sierra Leonean lawyer dared come forward to represent the

rebel leader both at his trial and appeal. So far, 43 people are on death row while 1,200 continued to be detained at the Pademba Road Prison until the latest battle for Freetown. In the inner cities and the countryside, irate SLPP activists led by the predominantly Mende ethnic Kamajor fighters continued to hound and mete out summary justice to alleged AFRC-RUF sympathisers. The voices of moderation and reason were subdued and silenced as these were interpreted as sympathies with the rebel cause. Worryingly, a disproportionate number of people being persecuted seem to come from a particular ethnic entity - the Nimbe. This has further polarised the already divided community, exacerbating the conflict beyond control. In all this, the media has emerged as a major casualty. Objective journalism has effectively been outlawed in the country and journalists who have dared publish uncensored material have been dragged to detention camps and kangaroo courts. In the end, it has become impossible to distinguish between the despicable violence of the AFRC-RUF alliance and the constitutional tyranny of the elected SLPP government.

The Current Situation

The Struggle for Resources and Power

Much of what is happening In Sierra Leone today can be put down to the absence of self-less leadership on all sides. In times of crisis a country requires selfless and decisive leaders. Although the rhetoric of reconciliation and moving forward has featured prominently in President Kabbah's and the rebel alliance speeches, their actions seemed to have been determined by countervailing power centres, to which President Kabbah. in particular had become beholden. An outsider to the Mende power base of the SLPP and a mild person by nature, he is effectively held hostage to the ambitions and whims of the hawks within the party. Thus, on the one hand, vengeance is being wreaked on one half of the country and war is still raging throughout the country. On the other hand the ruling SLPP, complacent in the knowledge that regime security is being provided by foreign forces. has all but abandoned any efforts at nation rebuilding. Instead, political infighting for control of resources and power within the SLPP hierarchy has dominated the agenda of the leading figures within the SLPP since March 1998. It is apparent that the pressures of managing an unstable State are taking their toll on President Kabbah. He has already sent out a letter to SLPP followers warning against the demands for resource windfalls after the February 1998 'victory'. The truth is that the coffers of Sierra Leone are empty and the country's natural resources have been mortgaged against regime security. In August 1998, President Kabbah expressed doubts about standing for a second term in office in the year 2001. This has already sparked a power struggle among the hawks inside the party. The struggle between the Deputy Defence Minister, Chief Hinga-Norman and interior Minister, Charles Margai, for the control of the Kamajors should be seen within this context.

Mercenaries and Weapons continue to dominate Sierra Leone

Such a move could provoke an inter-mercenary war for the control of Sierra Leone's resources. Besides the Sandline-EO group. other security companies are active in the country. These include British outfit Defence Systems Ltd., which provides security to UN and NGO humanitarian convoys and the American groups, ICI and MPRI. This constitutes a recipe for continued violence in the country. The government and the rebels should be taking practical steps towards the peaceful resolution of the conflict collecting and destroying excess weapons whilst tackling the underlying social and economic causes of weapons acquisition. This is the surest way of ensuring that light weapons do not diffuse into society to fuel criminality and violence. Instead, a weapons superhighway linking supplier and transit countries with Sierra Leone has now become fully operational, thanks to aggressive mining firms and mercenaries.

  The International Dimension to the War

To many observers the situation in Sierra Leone is a reflection of the post-Cold War reconfiguration of global and regional power balances. On the international plane France, through the intermediary of African States such as Libya, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast, seems to be challenging the Anglo-American drive-to assert authority on the continent of Africa. This game for turf between France on the one hand, and the Anglo-Saxon axis on the other, has been going on in the Great Lakes region, beginning with the genocide in Rwanda.. It is also evident now in Sierra Leone. During a recent field trip to Sierra Leone, CDD officials could observe a high-profile presence of American and British military advisers in the military restructuring programme of President Kabbah's administration. Characteristic of the new International alliances being forged post-Cold War, sources close to the Kabbah administration informed CDD that the administration was seriously considering the involvement of China In the military restructuring process. Guinea and Liberia have legitimate security concerns for different reasons in the outcome of the Sierra Leonean conflict. While opponents of Guinea's President, Lansana Conteh, carry out cross-border raids from inside RUF-controlled areas in Sierra Leone, President Charles Taylor of Liberia has not forgotten that Sierra Leone offered rear bases to_his opponents during the Liberian Civil War. At the sub-regional level, Nigeria's claims to regional hegemony can made or unmade by the outcome of the war. All these factors add an incendiary element to the civil war.          

Scenarios

In any attempt to forecast developments in Sierra-Leone, it is important to highlight three main factors. First, Sierra Leone is in the grips of guerrilla warfare, with the AFRC/RUF forces employing the classical hit-and-run tactic. A conventional reaction to such a war, either through ECOMOG or mercenary armies, is incapable of suppressing such an uprising. It can at best only contain it.Time is always on the side of the insurgents. The onus shall always be on the government troops to defeat guerrillas and any success by the government short of total victory is considered a victory to the guerrillas. The constant claims by the ECOMOG commanders since February 1998 that they were only carrying out mop-up operations against the rebels were crudely exposed by the recent guerrilla occupation of significant portions of Freetown including the State House, the seat of government. Driving them out of Freetown only to regroup in the hills and forest for new onslaughts is no substitute for victory. Secondly the local members and sympathisers of the AFRC-RUF are first and foremost Sierra Leoneans. They are a product of the long years of rent-seeking politics characterised by social and generational exclusion. Their methods may be unsavoury but they cannot easily be wished away or exterminated without grave consequences, as recent events demonstrate. Given the way the Kamajors and President Kabbah's government continue to mete out summary justice on persons linked to the RUF and AFRC without due and credible legal process the current AFRC-RUF violence could be interpreted as an act of self-preservation. Finally, ordinary Sierra Leoneans will be the ultimate victim of sabre-rattling politics that relegates constructive engagement to the background. These factors should inform any attempt to venture projection on the security conundrum facing the country. What could happen in Sierra Leone?

 An International Exit Strategy for Sierra Leone

It is obvious from the analysis above that force, revenge killings and politics of division are not viable alternatives to a genuine framework for national dialogue in the search for ", justice, reconciliation and reforging of national identity. An alternative to a genuine negotiated settlement will be economic disaster, dehumanisation of the youth and violence against women and the elderly. In strategic terms, out-of-area Sierra Leone is of little importance to the key foreign players in the conflict. The country has become only a convenient arena for flexing muscles and sizing up one another for future geopolitical battles. And this seems to be diverting attention from internal problems and a main cause of the intransigence that has so far characterised positions in the conflict Given the volatile political situation, the following should be seen to constitute key benchmarks for preventing the Sierra Leonean war from turning into an irreversible disaster.

1 The purpose of arms embargoes on countries in conflict is clearly to prevent more weapons entering the conflict zone and diffusing into society. They are also intended to enhance the prospects of peaceful resolution of conflicts. The lifting of the arms embargo on Sierra Leone by the UN immediately after the counter-coup against the AFRC-RUF junta was a mistake. As a matter of urgency, the Security Council should reinvoke Resolution 1132 that banned the transfer of weapons into Sierra Leone. ECOWAS states also have a responsibility to prevent illegal flow of weapons into Sierra Leone from their territories. This would further strengthen the drive in the region against arms proliferation through a moratorium.

2. While commanding the ECOWAS, OAU and UN for initiating a diplomatic process to resolve the conflict, it should be noted that Foday Sankoh, who is currently a prisoner on death row and who has not been in contact with his movement for years, cannot be said to be negotiating out of his own volition and with the mandate of the AFRC-RUF. The International community should open frank and unbiased negotiations with representatives appointed freely by the guerrilla forces, and without preconditions as long as cease-fire endures.

3. These negotiations should be witnessed and guaranteed by the UN and the OAU without prejudice towards any of the rival factions; they should reactivato the Abidjan Peace Accord and the Conakry Agreements as the basis of the negotiations while taking on board the new realities on the ground.

4. The key elements of any eventual agreement should include the following:

An immediate and unconditional cease-fire.

The immediate and unconditional release of the RUF leader Foday Sankoh to allow him to lead his movement in negotiations. His continued incarceration makes him a martyr in the eyes of his followers and constitutes an exacerbating influence on the conflict. The broadening of the base of President Kabbah's Government to incorporate representatives of the opposition, different ethnic groups and autonomous civil society organisations.

Disarming of all other sub-state armed formations, including the Kamajors.

The withdrawal of all foreign troops, including mercenary outfits, from Sierra Leone.

The creation of a new army based on the objective security needs of Sierra Leone.

The destruction of all collected weaponry in excess of the legitimate requirements of the new Sierra Leonean army.

An essential benchmark of democratic promotion and genuine reconciliation is the strengthening of civil society. The international community should encourage and financially support autonomous centres of influence in Sierra Leone not dad to the waning factions. Ultimately, these centres would constitute the building blocks for structural stability in Sierra Leone.

for more information contact amusah @ cdd.org.uk