Sierra Leone
UN to help implement Sierra Leone ceasefire

afrol.com, 14 November - An envoy of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday said he intended to enter discussions with Sierra Leonean officials and the rebel army Revolutionary United Front (RUF) about the implementation of the recent ceasefire agreement reached between the two parties.

Oluyemi Adeniji, Mr. Annan's Special Representative for Sierra Leone, spoke to reporters yesterday in Freetown upon his return from Abuja, Nigeria, where the 10-point ceasefire agreement was signed by the Government of Sierra Leone and the RUF at a meeting last Friday. 

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.

Prior to Friday's talks with the rebel group, a meeting on 8 November in Abuja between the Coordination Mechanism for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations had recommended that the meeting with the RUF focus exclusively on a ceasefire.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan

It further recommended that all other outstanding issues relating to restarting the political dialogue be postponed until after a thorough assessment of progress made in implementing the ceasefire agreement, according to officials from the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL). It further called for the need to build trust and confidence between the Government of Sierra Leone and the RUF.

The coordination committee had also emphasized the importance of deploying UN troops throughout Sierra Leone to monitor the ceasefire, and called on ECOWAS to press the RUF to return all the weapons and equipment seized from UNAMSIL.

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 on Saturday 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.

Sources: Based on UN sources

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