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afrol.com, 11 November - The Sierra Leonean Government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) reached a new peace agreement during their talks yesterday in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. The Government calls it a "major breakthrough". Information Minister Dr. Julius Spencer said that he believed the rebels were finally serious about peace. This is underlined by the fact that the RUF is divided and weakened after its change of leadership and international isolation. A major question therefore however remains - does the RUF leaderships in reality speak for its own fighters in the bush? The key issues of the agreement between the Sierra Leonean Government and the RUF terrorists are a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, the immediate return of weapons which RUF has captured from the Government army and UN peacekeepers and the release of government troops held hostage by the RUF. According to a government statement, the RUF also will have to allow the UN peacekeepers in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to enter into its occupied territories, constituting half the area of Sierra Leone. As such, UNAMSIL troops will be able to monitor the ceasefire in all the country, on both sides of the front.
Colonel Jonathan Kposowa, the head of the RUF delegation to the Abuja talks, called the ceasefire agreement a "stepping stone," but said he could "give no guarantees it meant the end of the war," according to Sierra Leone Web. He told reporters the RUF demanded the release of their leader, Foday Sankoh, as part of the agreement. "Let's see whether there will be success. So long as there is confidence, then we have to do something after the 30 days." According to the BBC correspondent Barnaby Phillips in Nigeria, there are more grounds for hope this time than on earlier occasions, when peace agreements have broken together after a short while. He says that both the Sierra Leonean and regional governments feel the RUF is now somewhat isolated, because it is not getting the support it has enjoyed in the past from Liberia, and that its leadership is somewhat divided. Last time a peace was agreed on, was in Lomé (Togo) in July last year, which was supposed to end a civil war that had begun in 1991. The agreement, however, collapsed in May this year when the RUF broke the ceasefire after the UNAMSIL insisted on taking control of the diamond-producing areas in the east of the country occupied by the terrorists, in line with the Lomé Agreement. Asked whether the RUF was prepared to let the UNAMSIL control the diamond mining areas this time, RUF spokesman Kposowa today refused to answer. Whether RUF actually will give up control over the diamond fields is generally seen as the key to the success or failure of the agreement. The Sierra Leonean government and RUF began their talks on Friday morning and reached an agreement the same evening. The talks were facilitated by the UN and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Members of the ECOWAS mediating committee included Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Togo. Nigeria, an ally of Sierra Leonean President Sankoh and a major contributor to the peacekeeping forces, took the lead in the mediating process. The Sierra Leone government delegation was led by Justice Minister and Attorney-General Solomon Berewa while the seven-member RUF delegation was headed by Col. Jonathan Kposowa, also filling the office of the RUF's Chief of Administration. The UN was represented by Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Sierra Leone, Oluyemi Adeniji.
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