U.N. Signals Long-Term Plans for Sierra Leone

U.N. officials acknowledged Sunday that they expect to remain in this war-weary West African nation for the long term, raising hopes among residents here that the international body will not forsake their tattered country.

The U.N. officials said their priority will be securing the release of hundreds of their peacekeepers taken captive by rebels of the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF. The Washington Post reported that the rebels released 157 U.N. peacekeepers Sunday, sending most of them into neighboring Liberia, the U.S. State Department said, quoting its embassy there.

The U.N. also will try to get a shaky peace deal it helped broker back on track.

“The government [of Sierra Leone] has said that, as far as it is concerned, the [peace agreement] is not dead,” said David Wimhurst, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as UNAMSIL. “We will do everything we can to help the parties back to a place where they can agree the peace process can move forward.”

The news was met with cautious optimism in this seaside capital, where residents are eager for stability but said they would prefer if somehow the RUF could be written out of the deal.

“These guys have been violating the peace accord since Day One,” said Paul Kamara, chairman of the country’s National League for Human Rights and Democracy and editor of For Di People, a popular Freetown daily newspaper.

In recent weeks, RUF rebels led by Foday Sankoh, a former army corporal, have captured hundreds of UNAMSIL peacekeepers and propelled this tiny mineral-rich nation back to the brink of civil war. Many ordinary Sierra Leoneans said they were not surprised at the rebels’ lack of commitment to keeping peace and argued that the only way for their country to regain stability is for the rebels to be eliminated once and for all.

“Rebels are not people to rely on, I know that,” said Edward Conteh, 52, a former mechanic whose left hand was cut off by drug-crazed renegade soldiers. “All they know is the barrel of a gun.”

But Wimhurst said there have been reports of the emergence of a separate group of undetermined size within the rebel ranks whose members claim they no longer want to fight. They supposedly call themselves “RUF for Peace.” But it still is unclear as to whom they might pledge allegiance or what demands they might make for agreeing to abide by the current peace accord.

“Now we are in a situation where it’s almost back to Square One,” Wimhurst said. “How we get to Square Two is a matter for both parties to figure out. It is really a matter of waiting for the dust to settle.”

Residents in this dilapidated port town said they were not convinced that any members of the RUF--which raped, pillaged and mutilated thousands of civilians--could convert from sinners to saints.

“It is very hard for us to say these people are ready for peace,” said Muctarr Jalloh, who heads the city’s main camp for amputees and war wounded.

The 26-year-old Jalloh, a former university student of English and art whose right forearm and right ear were hacked off by rebels high on drugs, recalled how a wave of panic swept his camp when news came that the rebels had relaunched their offensive earlier this month. Many of the victims were simply overwhelmed with fear.

“I felt terrible because I am a one-legged man,” said Mohammed Bah, 19, a former mechanic whose left leg was cut off by the rebels during their January 1999 invasion of Freetown. “I wanted to leave the place, but I had no place to go.”

Conteh said, “We knew that Sankoh’s ambition was to eliminate us if he got a chance, because we are exhibits of his war.”

Sankoh, who signed the peace treaty with elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah last year, has not been seen since a shootout May 8 at his Freetown residence.

Rival fighters stormed the house after Sankoh’s bodyguards opened fire on thousands of peace protesters who were trying to force their way inside. Nineteen people were killed.

Kamara’s newspaper has since reported that the rebel leader, who is in his mid-60s, died of a heart attack while escaping from his home--and that could spell doom for his movement.

“Sankoh is like the head of a snake,” Kamara said. “You cut the head off and the entire body crumples and falls apart.”

But U.N. military officials said over the weekend that they were still banking on Sankoh to help secure the release of their personnel.

“He’s the one who’s still calling the shots,” UNAMSIL force commander Gen. Vijay Kumar Jetley said. “He’s the one to deal with.”

Sankoh also is the one blamed for throwing Sierra Leone back into turmoil.

Jalloh said that, before the current crisis erupted, many of the amputees were beginning to come to terms with their injuries.

“There was a sense of optimism throughout the country that, yes, finally things were taking shape,” said Patrick Vial, head of delegation at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Freetown.

Residents in rural areas were being assisted by several international aid groups. This month, the U.N. World Food Program was to start phasing out its distribution of food to camps in the capital hosting internally displaced people. They were to be given two months of seed rations and encouraged to return home in time for the coming planting season.

But since the new crisis began, program officials say, about 35,000 newly displaced people have settled in Freetown--bringing the number of internal refugees to about 80,000.

“A lot of them are traumatized,” said Aya Shneerson, a spokeswoman in Freetown for the food program. “They have pretty much had enough running from one place to another. They can’t deal with any more conflict.”

The crisis has forced the U.N. agency to halt its operations in high-risk areas in the north, where it is estimated that about 65,000 civilians need food aid.