Africa Confidential
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www.africa-confidential.com 8 December 2000 Vol 41 No 24 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL ANGOLA 3 SIERRA LEONE Pretend normality Rebuffing calls to negotiate with Bringing back the British UNITA rebels, the ruling MPLA is Critically dependent on UN and British military support, President offering an amnesty to all those Kabbah’s government is facing growing civilian opposition who give up the gun. However confident the MPLA may be Desperation and nostalgia help explain why more than 5,000 Sierra Leoneans crowded in to the militarily, it is facing growing National Stadium in Freetown on 23 November to show their support for British soldiers in their pressure from within its own ranks country. Many of the crowd went further, to demand that the government of Sierra Leone be handed and civil activists about the back to Britain on a trusteeship basis for several years. Earlier in the month, on 11 November, many worsening social crisis. more Sierra Leoneans had joined British soldiers in Freetown to commemorate the millions of allied troops who had perished in the two world wars. Thousands of Sierra Leoneans fought in the Second ZAMBIA 5 World War and Freetown was an important staging post in the Falklands War. Yet the clamour for recolonisation must seem bizarre to the many self-respecting nationalists who pushed Britain out 40 A longer years ago. Above all, it shows Sierra Leone’s dire political and military predicament and the chronic presidency dependency of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s government on outsiders (AC Vol 41 No 14). Unquestionably, that government hangs on to power courtesy of some 750 British forces and about President Chiluba seems to want 13,000 peacekeepers in the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (Unamsil). Without the cordon to contest the presidency for a third term although the constitution limits sanitaire these forces provide around Freetown, Revolutionary United Front soldiers and their allies him to two. Elections are due by from Burkina Faso and Liberia would have overrun the capital. That is little comfort to the other November next year and with no three million Sierra Leoneans living outside the capital, a million of whom survive hand-to-mouth successor in sight and presidential in RUF-controlled areas. As diplomatically as he could, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on his campaigns banned, political 2-3 December visit to Sierra Leone urged the Kabbah government to take more responsibility for tensions are mounting. ending the crippling war with the RUF. SWAZILAND 6 Get a grip Annan believes it would be easier to persuade bigger countries to contribute troops to Unamsil if the High price of government had a better political grip and a more credible negotiating strategy. Since an unseemly kingship row between the Indian commander of Unamsil, General Vijay Jetley, and his Nigerian counterparts After reigning for 14 years, King resulted in the 3,000-strong Indian contingent pulling out, Annan has been doing his best to prevent Mswati II is beginning to make the total collapse of the force. The withdrawal of 1,800 Jordanian peacekeepers - ostensibly political errors. His eviction of two because no industrialised country would provide troops - has worsened the position. Filling the gap popular chiefs upset his core now are two battalions from Bangladesh and one more each from Ghana and Kenya. An supporters as well as business. experienced diplomatic soldier, Kenya’s Gen. Daniel Opande, has taken over from Jetley. Opposition militants quickly tried to capitalise on the confrontation. Even so, the UN is scrambling to find troops to maintain the peacekeeping force at its current level of 12,500, let alone boost it to the 20,500 level agreed by the UN Security Council this year. Even worse than the troop shortage is the deficit of equipment, coordination and intelligence which has MOZAMBIQUE 7 weakened Unamsil operations so much. That reached its nadir with the capture of 500 Unamsil peacekeepers by RUF forces in May. Matters have been made worse by the in-fighting around Carlos Cardoso Unamsil’s political leadership under Nigerian diplomat Oluyemi Adeniji, whose contract comes up The assassination of pioneering for renewal at the end of this year. Some at the UN Secretariat in New York blame Adeniji for Mozambican journalist Carlos Unamsil’s lack of progress but we hear that he has some strong defenders on the Secretary General’s Cardoso on 22 November shows 38th floor and is likely to be reappointed. the growing threat to African reporters and free speech. In almost every way, the UN’s Sierra Leone operations exemplify the problems identified in a damning critique of peacekeeping by the UN Under-Secretary General for Special Assignments, Lakhdar Brahimi of Algeria, as ‘too slow, too tied up in red tape, too weak or too fragmented to POINTERS 8 deal effectively with conflicts.’ But the debate about Brahimi’s recommendations, made at the end of November, to bolster the UN’s Peacekeeping Department with more money, better management France/Africa, and technology is only just beginning. It will take several months before any of his recommendations Ethiopia/Eritrea & filter through to Unamsil. Guinea Bissau Meanwhile, Britain is sharply expanding its military, political and economic presence in Sierra Leone. In an almost covert way, its military presence has grown sharply. In May, a British rapid reaction force was deployed within 48 hours of an emergency cabinet meeting in Downing Street, after it had seemed the RUF was marching on Freetown and the UN forces were in disarray. Although the public explanation was that the British troops were to evacuate expatriates, it became 8 December 2000 Africa Confidential Vol 41 No 24 on the ground are moving terribly slowly. N i g GUINEA e Since the crisis in May when RUF soldiers threatened Freetown r s (AC Vol 41 No 10) there has been virtual military and political ie c r a c es Kabala GUINEA paralysis. The capture of the RUF leader, Corporal Foday Sankoh, S ci t r GOV a a Northern e c r S and the sacking and arrest of RUF members of Kabbah’s power- G e Province tl it L sharing cabinet ended the tentative and controversial Lomé peace Kambia SIERRA LEONE settlement. Since then, Gen. Issa Sesay has emerged as leader of Bumbuna Mange Makeni UN GOV the RUF, although some militants insist he is no more than a l e Kawbana Port Loko GOV UN k o caretaker pending Sankoh’s release. If anything, the RUF has R Kono District UN Rogberi Junc. UN Lungi Magburaka s Yengema marginally improved its military position since May: it has UN t Rokel Bridge i FREETOWN Tongo Okra Masiaka s consolidated its defences in the diamond-rich areas of Kono and UN Mile 91 UN fields GOV UN o Hastings p Tongo Field. UN e Magbuntoso d Moyamba Eastern Kailahun Most importantly, the RUF has been involved in attacks on UN d Western UN Bo n Province o Guinea in collaboration with Liberian-based militias. President Area UN Daru Western m UN Province ia Kenema Lansana Conté says Liberian President Charles Taylor is a d UN ew a S n o coordinating the operation which has killed more than 350 Guineans i M Joru o a an Bonthe M UN M and exacerbated the regional effects of Sierra Leone’s war. Taylor Sherbro Island Pujehun denies this, claiming Conté’s forces are behind anti-government attacks in Liberia’s Lofa County. Whatever the truth, spreading ATLANTIC LIBERIA OCEAN the war in Guinea helps the RUF tremendously. It opens up new supply routes from the RUF bases in Eastern and Northern provinces, northwards into sporadically-policed eastern Guinea, to smuggle Protective horseshoe around Freetown by SLA / UN / UK forces out diamonds and bring in more arms. Strategically, it complicates Areas under RUF control the military picture for Freetown’s government forces and its efforts to pin down the rebels. GOV Towns protected by government forces 100 kilometres UN Towns with UN deployments This leaves Kabbah and his British and UN backers with a 50 miles dilemma. Neither of the two policy approaches tried has made much headway: the reconciliation approach (ceasefire, power- obvious that they had a much wider brief. Several changes of the sharing and immunity for the rebels) or else military might (defeat guard later, the British military effort is still growing. Another 100 of the RUF by Sierra Leone government forces, mercenaries or a troops and support staff from the 1st Mechanised Brigade were West African peacekeeping force, a UN operation with a peace- deployed last month to advise (that is, to help run) the Kabbah enforcement mandate or British troops backing any or all of the government’s defence headquarters in Freetown. above). So the current policy, emerging by default rather than And there’s more. This month, a cabinet committee under design, is an uneasy combination of the two: under-resourced Development Minister Clare Short is to report to Prime Minister peacekeeping operations and a half-hearted attempt at negotiations Tony Blair with proposals for a bigger British role in peacekeeping with the RUF. and in military and police training. This follows Short’s insistence that reform of a country’s army and police is an essential part of After the rains, the rebels promoting economic development. Sierra Leone has become the More military and political pressure is coming up. The end of the trial ground for the new policy. When asked what the objective rains will allow the RUF to strike out more against government was, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook casually replied: ‘To rebuild targets despite the ceasefire it signed last month.