Sierra Leone RUF rebels sentenced

An international tribunal has jailed three former Sierra Leone rebel leaders for a total of nearly 120 years. All three were senior leaders in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and were convicted of overseeing atrocities during Sierra Leone's civil war.

Issa Sesay was sentenced to 52 years, Morris Kallon to 40 years and Augustine Gbao to 25 years. They were found guilty in February of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the 1991-2001 conflict. "The chamber concluded that the inherent gravity of the criminal acts for which Sesay, Kallon and Gbao have been convicted is exceptionally high," the judges said. Tactics favoured by the rebels included amputating hands and arms or carving the initials RUF into the bodies of their victims. It is the last case to be held in the capital, Freetown, at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.

The RUF trial began in mid-2004 and the court heard about the rebel commanders' role in the conflict. "The crimes were committed on a massive scale... Sierra Leoneans were raped, enslaved, hacked to death and brutalised," the AFP news agency quotes presiding judge Pierre Boutet as saying. "The impact of the crimes on the Sierra Leonean society has been enormous," he added. The RUF was notorious for using the so-called Small Boys Units - child soldiers forcibly recruited and issued with AK-47 assault rifles - who had a reputation for particular cruelty among the civilian population. "Children were deprived of normal education and some of them had the letters of the RUF branded on them as if they were the organisation's property," Mr Boutet said. By the time the conflict ended, tens of thousands of people had been killed while tens of thousands were left mutilated, their arms, legs, noses or ears cut off.

Thirteen people were originally indicted by the tribunal, but RUF rebel leader Foday Sankoh and his deputy commander Sam Bockarie died before coming to trial. When the RUF leaders were found guilty in February, the judges concluded they "significantly contributed" to a joint criminal enterprise with former Liberian President Charles Taylor to control the diamond fields of Sierra Leone to finance their warfare. Mr Taylor faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to his role in the conflict. His trial has been moved to The Hague for security reasons.

Earlier this week, his lawyers called for the dismissal of the charges saying the prosecution had not presented sufficient evidence of his link with the abuses.

Source: BBC

Shock testimony at Taylor trial

Charles Taylor celebrated his rise to power in Liberia with a ceremony involving a human sacrifice, burying a pregnant woman alive in sand, one of his former military commanders has testified.

The admission came during a trial at The Hague where the former president is accused of war crimes. During a day of grim testimony, Joseph "Zigzag" Marzah described the ceremony and acknowledged committing hundreds of other murders on Taylor's orders.
"We executed everybody - babies, women, old men. There were so many executions. I can't remember them all," Marzah told the court. Among the victims were Taylor's opponents and former allies who he thought had betrayed him, Marzah said. One was a guerrilla commander known as Superman, who Taylor ordered executed and his severed hand brought to him as proof of his death. The killers ceremonially ate Superman's heart, and afterwards were given $200 each which they were told came from Taylor for "cigarette money".

Taylor often leaned forward with a scowl on his face as he listened to Marzah's testimony for more than five hours. Asked under cross-examination if he had any "pangs of conscience", Marzah replied "yes", but said he had no difficulty carrying out his orders."I was a servant to my chief, Charles Taylor," he said. He was adamant that Taylor had specifically ordered him to chop off hands, and paid a monetary reward for the killing of babies. He recalled receiving an order from Taylor to cut open a woman close to giving birth because the unborn child "is an enemy". Under prompting from Courtenay Griffith, defence counsel, Marzah said: "It's not difficult to kill a baby. Sometimes you just knock them on the head, sometimes you throw them in a pit, sometimes you throw them in the river and they are dead. Then you give the report to Charles Taylor."

Prosecutors described Marzah as one of their key witnesses, testifying with inside knowledge of the former Liberian president's operations in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone. In both countries he is accused of responsibility for the widespread murder, rape and amputations committed by soldiers loyal to him.

The first former African head of state to face an international tribunal, Taylor, 59, has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is being tried by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. His trial began last year but was halted for six months after a chaotic first day on which he fired his legal team. The case resumed in January, when prosecutors began to call the first of dozens of witnesses expected to testify.

Describing the ceremony on the beach behind White Flower, Taylor's executive mansion in Monrovia, Marzah said a woman was placed standing up in a pit between two oil drums, then covered over with sand. Then a white sheep was killed on the spot. "It was a sacrifice," Marzah said. Taylor "was the first person to put sand in his hand and put it in the hole". Marzah said the event happened in 1995, although Taylor did not come to power until he won an election in 1997. At other times, Marzah repeatedly became frustrated and angry when questioned too closely about the timing of events, saying he had been with Taylor "from beginning to end," and had done too much to recall the dates of each event.

Marzah said Taylor encouraged his fighters to "play with human blood" to create fear among his enemies. He described militia checkpoints meant to terrify the population. After setting up roadblocks, "we used human intestines. We put heads on sticks for people to be afraid. "When the person is executed, the stomach is split and you use the intestine as a rope".

Source: Al Jazeera

First Sierra Leone war crimes verdicts

Three men have been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sierra Leone's decade-long war. These were the first verdicts of Sierra Leone's UN-backed war Special Court for Sierra Leone. Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu were senior members of an armed faction that toppled the government in 1997. They were found guilty of 11 of the 14 charges, but acquitted of alleged sexual slavery and other inhuman acts. The men will be sentenced on 16 July.

The judges read out their verdicts before a packed courtroom in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown. The three men face lengthy prison terms. During the conflict tens of thousands were killed as the rebel forces raped and mutilated defenceless innocent civilians.

The US-based Human Rights Watch hailed the verdict as "the first time that an international court has issued a verdict on child recruitment". The three had pleaded not guilty to the 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape and the use of child soldiers. They belonged to the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which formed an alliance with the notorious Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels.

As the rebel groups attempted to hold power they were allegedly backed by the former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, in return for Sierra Leone's diamonds. Following the end of the conflict five years ago, a UN-backed court was set up to try those people who bore the greatest responsibility for the atrocities committed. Trying all those who committed crimes would have been an impossible task says the BBC's West Africa correspondent, Will Ross. So many in Sierra Leone now live side-by-side with the very people they saw committing atrocities, he says.

The court has indicted 12 people, including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taylor_%28Liberia%29, although three of them have since died or are presumed to have died. Mr Taylor is currently in The Hague, where his war crimes trial is due to resume next week. His case was moved there to avoid unrest in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The head of the AFRC rebels was never apprehended but is presumed dead. The most notorious rebel leader, the RUF's Foday Sankoh, died in custody while awaiting trial.

Another high profile figure, former Interior Minister Sam Hinga Norman, died after surgery with his verdict pending. It may be slow and expensive but many view the court's work as an important step to help end impunity, our correspondent says.

Source: BBC

The Hague: Liberian Appears In Court

Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president and warlord, made his first appearance before a special United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal since being flown here from Africa last month. He did not speak during the 50-minute hearing, intended to pave the way for his trial on war crimes charges, but his lawyer complained that the deposed leader was locked in his cell for up to 16 hours a day, had limited access to telephones and was being served "Eurocentric" food.

Mr. Taylor faces 11 counts of charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the war in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2000 in which 50,000 people were killed and thousands more had limbs hacked off. Prosecutors had hoped to start the trial early next year, but Mr. Taylor's lawyer, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, said that was unlikely. "For a case of this size and magnitude, particularly given the geographical displacement of this court from Sierra Leone, I do think that the earliest this trial can properly start is around July of next year," Mr. Khan said.

Source: New York Times

Liberian Seized to Stand Trial on War Crimes

Charles G. Taylor, the warlord who became Liberia's president, was captured Wednesday after a dramatic 24 hours in which he disappeared from the villa in Nigeria where he had lived in exile and then was recognized at a remote outpost as he tried to leave the country.

He was brought here to face war crimes charges for his role in a brutal decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone, one of a series of conflagrations that he set off, killing at least 300,000 people. He is the first African head of state to face such charges in an international court. Mr. Taylor's arrival by helicopter under extraordinary security capped a saga that began nearly three years ago, when he fled his nation in the face of a rebel onslaught. He was captured Wednesday morning after a customs official recognized him as he tried to escape into Cameroon.

He arrived unshaven and dressed in a white tunic covered by a bullet-proof vest, tan pants and slip-on shoes. His appearance was in stark contrast to his dapper look in his last public appearance, in 2003, when he went into exile after a 14-year civil war that killed a quarter million of his countrymen, defiantly declaring, "God willing, I will be back." He did return to Liberia, briefly, on Wednesday, but only to be handed over to United Nations troops who promptly flew him here, where he was read the indictment from a United Nations-backed court dealing with war crimes in Sierra Leone — 11 counts of crimes against humanity — then jailed.

Desmond de Silva, the prosecutor who will try the case, said Mr. Taylor's arrival "sends out the clear message that no matter how rich, powerful or feared people may be, the law is above them." The trial is sure to resonate on a continent where dictators have ruled with ruthless impunity. From Idi Amin, the soldier whose murderous rule in Uganda gave way to comfortable exile in Saudi Arabia, to Haile Mengistu Mariam, whose 14-year Communist rule in Ethiopia brought political purges that killed more than a million people but who is now living quietly in Zimbabwe, African leaders who brutalize their citizens have faced few consequences. "The current perpetrators of serious human rights crimes should be put on notice that international courts take the crimes they commit very, very seriously," said Corinne Dufka of Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Taylor's arrival here was a dramatic turn in the already complicated saga of the effort to bring him to justice after he ignited a series of civil wars in the 1990's that engulfed much of West Africa. In the early 1980's, Mr. Taylor was a senior government procurement officer in Liberia. Charged in 1983 with embezzling nearly $1 million, he fled. He was arrested in Massachusetts in 1984, then escaped from jail in 1985. He resurfaced in Liberia in 1989 as a Libyan-trained warlord, leading a rebel force. He was elected president in 1997, in a vote overshadowed by fears of what might happen if he lost.

A warrant for his arrest was issued in March 2003. But as part of an agreement to remove him from power and halt a bloodbath in Liberia, Nigeria offered him asylum and refused to hand him over to the court in Sierra Leone, where he was accused of fomenting a civil war. Though under intense pressure by the United States to arrest him, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria had insisted he would hand over Mr. Taylor only to an elected Liberian government. Earlier this month, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia's new president, herself facing pressure from the United States, made the request, and Mr. Obasanjo agreed. But Nigeria insisted that it was Liberia's responsibility to go and arrest him, with Mr. Obasanjo's spokeswoman declaring that Mr. Taylor was "not a prisoner," which seemed almost to taunt Mr. Taylor into trying to escape from his lightly guarded compound in Calabar.

Late Monday night the Nigerian government said he had vanished. He was found more than 600 miles north, in an ash-colored Land Rover with a large quantity of dollars, in the company of a woman and a driver, Haz Iwendi, a spokesman for the National Police, said by telephone. A customs official spotted Mr. Taylor, whose vehicle had diplomatic license plates, early Wednesday morning in the border town of Ngala, Mr. Iwendi said.

The escape was an acute embarrassment for Mr. Obasanjo, who arrived Tuesday in Washington for a visit to the White House to discuss security in the volatile Niger Delta, where attacks by militants on oil facilities and kidnappings have slashed output. Nigeria is the United States' fifth-largest supplier of oil. Outraged American lawmakers called on President Bush to cancel his meeting with Mr. Obasanjo, with whom Mr. Bush has had a warm relationship, based in part on their shared Christian faith and bolstered by Mr. Obasanjo's role as a regional problem solver. But internal problems have eroded the Nigerian's status. Militants in the Niger Delta, sectarian violence that killed more than 100 people last month and a political crisis stemming from plans to try to extend his rule to a third term have roiled Nigeria.

Mr. Bush met with him on Wednesday, and at a joint news conference, hailed the arrest of Mr. Taylor. "The fact that Charles Taylor will be brought to justice in a court of law will help Liberia," Mr. Bush said, "and is a signal, Mr. President, of your deep desire for there to be peace in your neighborhood."

Mr. Taylor was flown on a Nigerian government jet from Borno State, in northeastern Nigeria, where he was captured, to Monrovia, Liberia's capital. There he was handed over to Liberian officials, who promptly turned him over to United Nations peacekeepers, who arrested him. After a brief medical checkup, he boarded a helicopter for Sierra Leone. The reaction to Mr. Taylor's arrival here was muted and fearful.

J. B. Jenkins-Johnson, a human rights lawyer in Freetown, worried that Mr. Taylor's arrival would cause unrest in a country still reeling from the long civil war. "Let them not bring that man here," Mr. Jenkins-Johnson said. "This man will bring us nothing but problems." Indeed, many Sierra Leoneans wonder if the court's work will do much to help them improve their lives. "The Taylor case doesn't have a lot of resonance," said Olu Gordon, a political analyst and journalist in Freetown. "It is abstract, while the problems they face are concrete: what to feed their children, how to pay for school, and so on."

The loudest calls for Mr. Taylor's arrest came not from his victims but from the United States, which has backed the international court here financially and diplomatically. Ms. Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian leader, had been hesitant to act on Mr. Taylor, saying that the peace in Liberia was still fragile and that any action could stir up his allies, several of whom hold seats in Liberia's new legislature. Several of his commanders remain in Liberia, and news of Mr. Taylor's arrest caused immediate fears of a coup attempt. But removing him from the scene could also help stabilize the region, said Mike McGovern, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, by demoralizing Mr. Taylor's supporters. "The arrest closes an ugly chapter in Liberian history and gives people the confidence to look to the future," Mr. McGovern said in an interview in Monrovia. "A lot of people are still sitting on the fence. Once they have a clear idea of where Taylor is and what's likely to happen to him, they're likely to really turn their backs on that period and move forward."

In Liberia, human rights advocates exulted in the news. "This is a great day," said Jerome J. Verdier Sr., head of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "It's a fundamental triumph for the rule of law both in Liberia and the sub-region."

Source: New York Times

Nigeria Will End Asylum for Warlord

Nigeria said Saturday that it would end the asylum of the deposed Liberian dictator Charles G. Taylor and turn him over to the Liberian government for trial. Mr. Taylor, a warlord-turned-president, spawned a bloody cycle of civil wars that killed 300,000 people across West Africa in the 1990's. He was indicted by the United Nations-backed Special Court here in Sierra Leone in 2003 for war crimes and crimes against humanity during this country's decade-long insurgency.

But the court has been unable to arrest Mr. Taylor, who left Liberia as rebels narrowed in on him in 2003. Instead, he went into exile in Nigeria, where authorities agreed in an internationally brokered deal to grant him safe haven in order to end 14 years of civil war in Liberia. "God willing, I will be back," the flamboyant Mr. Taylor said as he bid farewell to his country.

Since agreeing to accept Mr. Taylor, the Nigerian government has rebuffed many attempts to put him on trial before the international court, saying it was awaiting a request from an elected Liberian government. Liberia's new president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, raised the issue this month with President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, describing it as an important part of bringing stability to Liberia. "Liberia's peace is fragile," she said this month after announcing her extradition request. "There are many loyalists in our country to Mr. Taylor."

In Sierra Leone, where a cell has sat empty awaiting Mr. Taylor's arrival, there was fear and awe of the man who let loose so much misery in a nation smaller than South Carolina and home to five million people. "We are very afraid of Charles Taylor coming here," said Jerry Nyuma Bongay, a 25-year-old student in Freetown. "But we want him to face justice. He hurt us too much."

Desmond De Silva, the chief prosecutor for the Sierra Leone court, hailed the announcement. "This is a remarkable day for justice," he said. "This is very important because it is all part of the fight against impunity." In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Obasanjo said Liberia was free to take Mr. Taylor into custody. Although he is not under indictment in Liberia, United Nations peacekeepers there have been authorized by the Security Council to transfer him to Sierra Leone.

The statement gave no date or details for the transfer, but Mr. Obasanjo said he had never been against surrendering Mr. Taylor to a democratically elected government in Liberia. Ms. Johnson Sirleaf was sworn in as Liberia's president in January, becoming Africa's first woman to be elected head of state. Mr. Taylor was forbidden from leaving Nigeria during his exile, but he continued to meddle in his former country's affairs from his government guest house in Calabar, on Nigeria's southern coast, using some of the millions of dollars he is accused of stealing from Liberia's coffers.

Security around Mr. Taylor's villa has been lax, said Corinne Dufka, a researcher for Human Rights Watch based in Dakar, Senegal, prompting fears that Mr. Taylor may try to escape. "We are calling on Nigeria to tighten security around Taylor," Ms. Dufka said. "I think there will be a great sense of relief when Charles Taylor is actually in the custody of the special court."

The court, set up in 2000, had issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Taylor on 17 counts in 2003 but Nigeria ignored it. Mr. Obasanjo had said that he would honor a request by Liberia's government to relinquish Mr. Taylor, but until this year Liberia had only transitional leaders. With the backing of Libya and other regional powers, Mr. Taylor unleashed his horrific brand of warfare across the region for the better part of two decades, dragooning young boys into combat, first with violence, then with drugs, money and sex.

In Sierra Leone, he is accused of training and arming Sierra Leone's rebels in a bloody conflict left tens of thousands of people dead.

Source: New York Times

Rebels face Sierra Leone tribunal

A UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone has begun hearing the first cases against members of the rebel Revolutionary United Front. The RUF is blamed for killings, rapes and abductions during a decade of civil war that ended in 2002. But the first three defendants - who include the RUF's final military leader Issa Sesay - are refusing to acknowledge the court's legitimacy.

About 50,000 people were killed, and many more maimed and raped in the war. The RUF's internal security chief, Augustine Gbao, and a key battlefield commander, Morris Kallon, are on trial alongside Issa Hassan Sesay. The RUF's campaign of violence included hacking off the limbs of civilians as a trademark act of terror. The BBC's Lansana Fofana in Freetown says that Mr Sesay occasionally lowered his head as the 18 war crimes charges, including sexual slavery, murder, looting and terrorising civilians, were read out.

Chief Prosecutor David Crane said that atrocities were committed in virtually all parts of Sierra Leone. "This is the day I have been waiting for," said one amputee. "I am now satisfied that someone is being held accountable for what the rebels did to me." But correspondents say the tribunal's importance has been diminished by the deaths of RUF leader Foday Sankoh his deputy Sam Bockarie - best known under his nom de guerre Mosquito.

The tribunal has not yet been able to arrest the man accused of being the RUF's paymaster, former Liberian President Charles Taylor. Despite being indicted on 17 charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity, Mr Taylor is living a life of luxury in exile in Nigeria. Unlike the war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the court is based where the alleged crimes occurred and draws on both national and international law.

Source: BBC

Liberian Ruler Can Be Tried, Court Rules

Charles G. Taylor, the former Liberian president accused of crimes against humanity in connection with a rebel insurrection in neighboring Sierra Leone, can be prosecuted by an international war crimes tribunal, a United Nations-backed court in Sierra Leone ruled Monday.

Mr. Taylor's lawyers had argued that a court in one country had no right to try the head of state of another country. But the four judges on the appeals panel of the Special Court for Sierra Leone rejected that argument, ruling that as an international tribunal, the special court does have that authority. The ruling clears the last legal hurdle for the prosecution, but another more daunting one remains. Nigeria, which has sheltered Mr. Taylor since he stepped down as president of Liberia in August 2003, has so far rebuffed demands to turn him over to the court in Sierra Leone. The Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has said only that he would return his guest to his home country if the Liberian courts seek to prosecute him.

Liberia, which emerged from 14 years of crushing civil war with Mr. Taylor's departure, has issued no such request. Mr. Taylor's lawyer in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, declined to comment on the special court's ruling. "I haven't read the report, so how can I comment on it?" said the lawyer, Terrence Terry.

The special court was created jointly by the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone to punish the ringleaders of that country's decade-long war. Mr. Taylor is the most prominent among 11 people indicted so far. He faces 17 counts of murder, rape and other crimes against humanity in connection with the support he reportedly gave the rebels in Sierra Leone. "With this decision, Charles Taylor has no more legal cards to play," said Richard Dicker, director of international justice for Human Rights Watch, based in New York. "The time has come for Nigeria to hand Taylor over to the special court." The special court will begin its first trial on Thursday. Among the defendants is Sam Hinga Norman, a former government minister in Sierra Leone accused of raising a terrifying pro-government militia, the Kamajors.

Source: New York Times

Interpol Puts Liberian Ex-Chief On World's Most-Wanted List

Interpol called Thursday for the arrest of the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, for his suspected role in atrocities committed during Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war. Interpol put Mr. Taylor on its most wanted list by posting a "red notice" on its Web site, alerting police forces around the world to an arrest warrant issued by Sierra Leone in June.

Interpol's notice does little to change Mr. Taylor's status: he has been living in Nigeria since resigning his presidency in August as part of an American-brokered accord to end fighting in Liberia. But the Interpol action does raise the international profile of the Sierra Leone warrant, which Nigeria has so far ignored. "It reminds the world that Charles Taylor remains a fugitive from justice," said Allison Cooper, a spokeswoman for the United Nations court in Sierra Leone, speaking by telephone from Freetown. "It also demonstrates that there's no such thing as amnesty for war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The court, set up in 2000, has argued that because Nigeria is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, the African Convention on Human Rights and the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court, it is obligated to turn Mr. Taylor over for prosecution as a war criminal or try him itself. But Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who granted Mr. Taylor asylum in hopes of neutralizing his influence in the region, has rejected Sierra Leone's extradition request. Mr. Obasanjo has said he might consider a similar request by Liberia, if that country seeks to prosecute its former president. Nigeria's asylum agreement with Mr. Taylor does not shield him from Liberian law.

Mr. Taylor, born to an American father and a Liberian mother, graduated from Bentley College in Massachusetts and worked in the Liberian civil service in the 1980's before he was accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars. He fled and returned in December 1989 to mount a rebellion from neighboring Ivory Coast. From the beginning, his forces were accused of appalling violence. He became Liberia's president in July 1997, though the fighting in the country continued.

Mr. Taylor is charged with training and arming Sierra Leone rebels, many of them children, for that country's long and bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the fighting, and thousands more were left maimed by the Liberian-trained rebels who punished civilians by hacking off limbs. Sierra Leone's war ended in 2001, and its court indicted Mr. Taylor in June. The court applied to become an Interpol member this April, and that process was completed last month, allowing the police organization to post its notice.

As with all Interpol red notices, a photograph of Mr. Taylor appeared on the organization's Web site, with the added warning: "Person May Be Dangerous."

Source: New York Times

What the U.S. Owes Liberia

This is an article by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

When Liberians got their first chance to vote in multiparty elections, old women walked from their villages in the scorching heat to stand in long lines at the polling places. My party's symbol at the time was the rooster, and I remember the crowds lining the road to cluck and flap their elbows as a sign of support. Anyone who saw their enthusiasm, like me, could have no doubt that Liberians yearn for democracy.

That was 1985. Sadly, the military stuffed ballot boxes and burned ballots, and Samuel Doe, a sergeant who had seized power in a 1980 coup, declared himself the winner. Liberians' hopes were dashed by American recognition of the results. It is hard to imagine that Chester Crocker, the Reagan administration's assistant secretary of state for African affairs, was not being deeply ironic when he praised Doe at the time for claiming only 51 percent of the vote. It was, he said, "unheard of in the rest of Africa, where incumbent rulers normally claim victories of 95 to 100 percent."

I have been pondering that betrayal recently as I attend peace talks for my troubled country here in Accra. Founded by emancipated American slaves in 1847 as a beacon of democracy for Africa, Liberia has degenerated into a violent free-for-all. As the battle rages for our capital, Monrovia, politics has been reduced to an extended street fight among gun-toting boys. Had the United States respected the will of Liberia's voters in 1985, we would not be in the desperate straits we are today. The failure to challenge Doe's electoral fraud discredited the democratic process and paved the way for an increasingly brutal competition for power.

But we can still dare to hope. President Charles Taylor, who displays an almost psychopathic will to power and has been indicted by a United Nations-backed tribunal for war crimes in Sierra Leone, says he will step down from office today. West African states have sent peacekeepers and the United States is considering a military role. The peace talks include not just the government and the two rebel factions, but also 18 political parties and five civil society organizations.

After six frustrating weeks in Accra, I can say that the peace talks are flawed and unstructured. The process is under the direction of a mediation team from the Economic Community of West African States, and meetings take place haphazardly in ad hoc groups, with only the occasional plenary. Yet I remain optimistic that an agreement will emerge on a future transitional government. I have to, because the talks are our only way out.

Unfortunately, the United States has steadily downgraded its diplomatic presence at the Accra discussions and is now represented by a relatively junior official. This is a mistake. As the Bush administration should already have learned in Iraq, military intervention is often the easy part. The political process that follows -- call it ''nation building'' if you will -- can be much tougher.

The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, recently appointed Jacques Klein as his special representative for Liberia. Because he is a former United States Foreign Service officer and a retired major general in the United States Air Force, he is seen among the Liberian parties as a virtual American envoy. Senior State Department officials are also paying increasingly frequent visits. But that is not good enough. The Bush administration should immediately dispatch a full-scale mediation team to Accra to see the process through.

If the administration does not get the politics right, any military intervention will be doomed to failure. Up to now, Washington's policy has been largely reactive. Liberia has fundamental problems to tackle if it is ever to live up to its founders' dreams of freedom and political participation. First, we need to restore hope and confidence to people subjected to despair, particularly to the thousands of young boys and girls who have been press-ganged into combat. Then we need to rebuild our institutions to ensure accountability and transparency; restructure the economic system so that it is no longer dominated by a small elite; conduct a national dialogue; and then hold elections that bring to an end our tragic tradition of rule by strongmen.

We need Washington's help to construct a credible transitional government that is interested in more than its own greed. After the betrayal of 1985, the United States owes us that much.

Source: New York Times

Sierra Leone rebel leader dies

Foday Sankoh, the leader of a 10-year terror campaign in Sierra Leone, has died while waiting to be tried for war crimes. The spokesperson for the United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone told BBC News Online that he had died at 2240 GMT on Tuesday. Sources say he died from complications resulting from a stroke he suffered last year.

Sankoh founded the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) which became notorious for mass rape and hacking off the hands, feet, ears and noses of thousands of civilians during a 10-year civil war, which ended last year. He was detained in 2000 and is believed to have died in Choithrams hospital in western Freetown where he has been since April after suffering a partial stroke.

According to a statement from the Special Court for Sierra Leone's chief prosecutor, David Crane, Sankoh's death from natural causes granted him "a peaceful end that he denied to so many others".

The court last week rejected a request to drop murder charges against him on health grounds. In June court registrar Robin Vincent said the tribunal had hoped to send him abroad for medical treatment. However, the court had then reported that it could not find a country that was willing to accept the rebel leader even for short-term treatment. At one court hearing last year, he said he was "surprised that I am being tried because I am the leader of the world". Earlier this month doctors treating Sankoh said he was in a "catatonic state" - incapable of walking, talking or even of feeding himself and he could not recognise his immediate surroundings.

Sankoh, like President Charles Taylor of neighbouring Liberia, trained in the guerrilla camps of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He was captured after his fighters shot more than a dozen protesters outside his Freetown home in 2000. The war in Sierra Leone was formally declared over in 2002 following military intervention by the UK and the UN.

Source: BBC

War Crimes Indictment of Liberian President Is Disclosed

President Charles Taylor of Liberia, widely viewed as a wellspring of the violence that has ravaged West Africa, has been indicted on war crimes charges by a special court in Sierra Leone that accused him of ''bearing the greatest responsibility'' for a decade's worth of murders, mutilations and rapes in the neighboring country. He is the second serving national leader to be indicted on war crimes charges in the last decade. The first was Slobodan Milosevic, who was indicted by the tribunal in The Hague while he was president.

The indictment by the court, run jointly by the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government, was originally issued on March 7. It was made public today shortly after Mr. Taylor, bowing to pressure from the leaders of Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, announced that he would step down by the end of the year. Diplomatic officials and news reports from the region described a surreal diplomatic drama in which Mr.

Taylor was transformed from statesman to fugitive in a matter of minutes. The announcement came at the opening of a peace conference convened in Accra, Ghana, and designed to end Liberia's current civil war. Just after being applauded for his retirement announcement, Mr. Taylor left the peace conference abruptly and caught a plane home rather than risk arrest by his Ghanaian hosts. In the brief time that elapsed between the announcement of the indictment and Mr. Taylor's departure, various Ghanaian officials and West African diplomats said they did not know whether they would attempt an arrest, since Mr. Taylor's status as a head of state grants him automatic immunity from such actions, under various international treaties.

The train of events left deep frustration in at least two quarters, diplomatic officials said today. One senior United States official said today that Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and John Kufuor of Ghana felt sandbagged by the release of the indictment on the heels of their successful effort to get Mr. Taylor to resign. But both the Ghanaian government's delays and indecision about arresting Mr. Taylor, and his subsequent return home, left both the war crimes prosecutor's office and some Republican members of the international affairs committee of the United States House of Representatives confused or angry.
In a telephone interview, Luc Copè, the chief of prosecution for the court in Sierra Leone, said: ''We don't have any power of arrest. We depend on a state to execute our orders.'' He added, ''We can serve the warrant of arrest on Liberia. But that would be asking him to arrest himself.''

The indictment itself provided, in stilted legal language, a capsule history of the allegations of crossborder alliances between Mr. Taylor and insurgents in Sierra Leone, and his reported support for a war on civilians that left upwards of 200,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands more maimed or raped or homeless in the late 1990's.

Mr. Taylor originally was a rebel warlord in his own country, and on coming to power, his accusers have charged, he helped rebel groups in neighboring countries, effectively franchising out his own civil war first to Sierra Leone and later to the Ivory Coast. In the case of Sierra Leone, one of the prizes in the conflict was access to Sierra Leone's wealth of diamond mines. ''Victims were routinely shot, hacked to death and burned to death,'' in Sierra Leone, one count of the new indictment said. Another said ''widespread sexual violence committed against civilian women and girls included brutal rapes, often by multiple rapists.''

A third count, involving the mutilations of civilians whose limbs were hacked off, charged that ''these mutilations included cutting off limbs and carving'' the initials of rebel groups on the bodies of the victims. The war crimes court in Sierra Leone, created jointly by the United Nations and Sierra Leone's government 18 months ago, has already indicted several militia leaders from the Revolutionary United Front and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, who made common cause with Mr. Taylor's government.

The indictment unsealed today charged that Mr. Taylor had ''to obtain access to the mineral wealth of the Republic of Sierra Leone, in particular the diamond wealth of Sierra Leone, and to destabilize the state'' provided ''financial support, military training, personnel, arms, ammunition'' and other support to the R.U.F., which in turn allied itself with the A.F.R.C.

In a statement released in Freetown today, the chief prosecutor of the special court, David M. Crane, said that he had unsealed the indictment when he learned Mr. Taylor would be in Ghana for the peace talks, and thus would be susceptible to arrest. He added, ''To ensure the legitimacy of these negotiations, it is imperative that the attendees know they are dealing with an indicted war criminal.''

A member of Mr. Crane's staff, contacted by telephone in Freeport on Tuesday night, said that the news of the indictment prompted ''cheering in the streets'' of Sierra Leone's capital. In Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, The Associated Press reported that thousands of panicked civilians were running home from work to find their children, apparently fearful of renewed civil strife if Mr. Taylor's government fell.

Mr. Taylor's announcement today that he would resign was made, in the third person, to warm applause, The Associated Press reported. ''It has become apparent that some people believe that Taylor is the problem,'' he said. ''President Taylor wants to say that he intends to remove himself from the process.''

Sourc: New York Times

Africa: Liberia: Rebel Leader Sought

Wanted for a campaign of rapes and mutilations in Sierra Leone and accused in the assassination of Felix Doh, a top rebel commander in western Ivory Coast, the warlord Sam Bockarie has found shelter in Liberia, the chief investigator for a special United Nations court said. Mr. Bockarie has been in hiding since his March 10 indictment by the Sierra Leone-based court for crimes against humanity. The investigator, Al White, called on the Liberian president, Charles Taylor, to turn him in or risk prosecution for harboring a war criminal.

Source: New York Times

Sierra Leone War Crimes Court to Begin Deliberations in Fall

The United Nations is pressing ahead with arrangements for a special war crimes court in Sierra Leone that officials say will be leaner and less bureaucratic than the tribunals that were created to prosecute war criminals in the Balkans and Rwanda. The United Nations signed an agreement with Sierra Leone two months ago creating a legal framework for trying a score of defendants accused of atrocities in the West African country's civil war.

Ralph Zacklin, the assistant secretary general for legal affairs, visited Sierra Leone from Jan. 7 to 19 to lay the groundwork. He said today that the new court could start operating in Sierra Leone by this fall and return its first indictments before the end of the year. Mr. Zacklin briefed the Security Council on the proposed court on Tuesday. Today, he discussed some of the details.

The new court, he said, would enlist judges and lawyers in Sierra Leone as well as prominent jurists from outside the country. Secretary General Kofi Annan would appoint a majority of judges; the Sierra Leonean government would select the other judges and the chief prosecutor. The court in Sierra Leone would have a single trial chamber with three judges, two of them foreign. The appeals chamber would have five judges, three of them foreign. In a report last week to the Security Council, Mr. Annan said the United Nations mission in Sierra Leone, through its human rights section, was in a position to provide evidence of abuses to the prosecutor.

Three weeks ago, the Bush administration's war crimes ambassador, Pierre-Richard Prosper, criticized the tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda, suggesting they were flawed by unprofessionalism and mismanagement. United Nations officials and other legal experts disputed Mr. Prosper's characterization. The tribunals for Rwanda and the Balkans have annual budgets of $100 million. The Sierra Leone special court, with a smaller staff, would get only $60 million over three years, financed by 15 to 20 countries, including the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. ''A lot of states are looking at the special court to see if this kind of court can work and if it can be leaner'' than the other tribunals, Mr. Zacklin said. He cited Cambodia, which has yet to bring to justice the Khmer Rouge officials who oversaw the killings of more than a million Cambodian civilians. ''I have no doubt whatsoever that the Cambodians are looking at what is happening in Sierra Leone,'' Mr. Zacklin said.

The defendants in Sierra Leone would include the likes of Foday Sankoh, a former army sergeant who headed the Revolutionary United Front. His insurgent group inspired terror by hacking off limbs of thousands of civilians, raping women and forcing children to fight. Some former rebels contend that government soldiers also committed atrocities and should be brought to account. The court is deemed essential for Sierra Leone's return to relative normality. With elections planned for May 14, the government has lifted the state of emergency to allow campaigning by political parties.

The United Nations had 17,400 troops deployed in Sierra Leone as of Jan. 31, making it the largest peacekeeping mission. Mr. Annan asked the Security Council to extend the mission's mandate, which expires at the end of this month, until Sept. 30. The secretary general said in his report that more than 47,000 combatants in Sierra Leone have put aside their weapons.

Source: New York Times

U.N. War Crimes Court to Try 20 Suspects in Sierra Leone

Secretary General Kofi Annan authorized a war crimes tribunal today to be set up in Sierra Leone despite a big shortfall in financial pledges from the member nations of the United Nations. Mr. Annan said a United Nations planning mission would go to Sierra Leone on Monday to start the process of arranging headquarters for the special court, hiring local staff members and beginning investigations.

The tribunal's task would be to prosecute about 20 people accused of being ringleaders of the West African nation's decade-long civil war, which appears to be winding down. In 2000, the Security Council voted to set up the tribunal to try people charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of international law.

Sierra Leone's representative at the United Nations, Allieu Ibrahim Kanu, said the court could be ready to begin trying cases in about a year. The war pitted government forces and militias against rebels of the Revolutionary United Front who seized control of the country's diamond-mining areas and became notorious for hacking off the limbs of women and children, and for enlisting thousands of child soldiers in their cause. The rebels fueled the fighting by selling diamonds they mined for arms. But after a disarmament agreement was reached in May, the United Nations deployed its biggest peacekeeping operation across the country and collected the weapons of more than 40,000 fighters.

The United Nations mission would remain in the country through Jan. 18 and culminate in the signing of an agreement between the United Nations and Sierra Leone establishing a legal framework for the tribunal's operations, Mr. Annan said in a letter to the Security Council. While United Nations members have donated nearly enough money to finance the first year of the tribunal's operations, pledges for its second and third years have fallen well short of the amounts required, Mr. Annan reported. So the United Nations may have to request extra payments from members to make up any shortfalls, he said. The world body has already slashed the court's budget to $57 million from an original estimate of $114 million for three years because of problems raising the funds.

Source: New York Times

U.N. Confirms Liberia's Role In Smuggling Of Diamonds

A panel of international experts is expected to tell the Security Council in a report on Wednesday that Liberia and its president, Charles Taylor, have been playing the largest role in the smuggling of diamonds from Sierra Leone. The diamond sales have paid for a guerrilla war there.

The report, circulated today among diplomats, seems to confirm what other reports have said about Mr. Taylor's role. It recommends that the Council embargo all diamonds from Liberia until it can prove that it is not trafficking in gems from Sierra Leone or arming the insurgents there with the proceeds of illegal sales. The report further suggests that a travel ban similar to one imposed on senior Liberian officials by the United States should be applied by all nations. "President Charles Taylor is actively involved in fueling the violence in Sierra Leone, and many businessmen close to his inner circle operate on an international scale, sourcing their weaponry mainly in eastern Europe," the report said. Mr. Taylor has been the major supporter of the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel army in Sierra Leone that is known for amputating limbs to terrorize civilians.

The panel said there is "unequivocal and overwhelming evidence that Liberia has been actively supporting the R.U.F. at all levels, in providing training, weapons and related materiel, logistical support, a staging ground for attacks and a safe haven for retreat and recuperation, and for public relations activities."

In addition to Liberia, Burkino Faso was cited as being actively involved in the illegal diamonds-for-arms trade. Seven other countries were recommended for a watch list: Uganda, the Central African Republic, Ghana, Namibia, the Republic of Congo, Mali and Zambia. "Invoices from these countries need to be thoroughly checked," the report says.

Sierra Leone now has a diamond certification system approved by the United Nations, and the panel said it works for diamonds that "enter the formal system." But not all diamonds come from government-controlled areas and not all traders can be assumed to be dealing with legitimate stones, the panel found. The panel also found that several Liberian-registered planes that seemed to be outside the formal control of the Liberian government are being used by arms dealers. It recommended that planes bearing Liberian registration be grounded wherever they are found unless they can provide correct documentation and meet other requirements.

Arms dealers from Africa and the Middle East are using Liberian registration to ship illicit goods, the report says. Among dealers the panel cited are Sanjivan Ruprah of Kenya and Victor Bout, who is said to operate from Sharja in the United Arab Emirates. Another businessman described as close to Mr. Taylor is Talal el-Ndine, whom the panel describes as a wealthy Lebanese who acts as paymaster for the Revolutionary United Front.

The panel also looked at efforts by Foday Sankoh, the rebel group's leader, to get into the diamond business when he became part of the Sierra Leone government in 1999 after a peace agreement. Mr. Sankoh is now in jail after turning against the government and after his forces attacked United Nations peacekeepers last May. But he was chairman of the commission for the management of strategic mineral resources in a short-lived power-sharing agreement that was intended to rehabilitate the rebels.

In that capacity, he and Sierra Leone's president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, persuaded the United States to help pay for a conference in March of this year to which American diamond-mining investors were invited. Among those sending a representative was Lazare Kaplan International, whose chairman is Maurice Tempelsman, who had been involved in diamond mining in Sierra Leone decades ago but who had pulled out as the country sank into chaos. Officials at Lazare Kaplan International say they attended the meeting at the urging of the United States Agency for International Development, but came away seeing no future in returning to Sierra Leone. Shortly afterward, Mr. Sankoh was again in armed opposition and the plan to redevelop a legitimate diamond mining industry was scuttled.

The panel that wrote the study was led by Martin Chungong Ayafor of Cameroon. The members were Atabou Bodian of Senegal, an expert from the International Civil Aviation Organization; Johan Peleman, a Belgian arms and transportation expert; Harjit S. Sandhu an Indian agent from Interpol, and Ian Smillie, a diamond expert from Canada.

Source: New York Times

Sierra Leone Rebels Forcefully Recruit Child Soldiers

The rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone is forcing children, including demobilized child soldiers, to join its ranks and engage in combat, Human Rights Watch said today. The rights group has documented abductions of children as recently as early May. "The RUF has forced many children to join its ranks in recent weeks, placing them on the front lines of combat," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. "For child soldiers, the crisis in Sierra Leone is far from over." He called on all parties to the conflict in Sierra Leone to immediately stop the use of child soldiers and to release all abducted children and people under the age of eighteen.

Since taking United Nations peacekeepers hostage in early May, the RUF has forced many children, included demobilized RUF child soldiers who had laid down their arms, to join its ranks. Many other children have been abducted by the RUF in recent weeks to carry military equipment and looted goods, and female abductees are regularly raped. The RUF has a long history of using child soldiers.

Seventeen-year-old "Abubakar" (not his real name) told Human Rights Watch that he had gone to a camp for demobilized RUF child soldiers in Makeni in March 2000 after fighting as a child soldier in the RUF for four years. He described how the RUF regularly came to the demobilization camp to pressure children to return to the RUF, telling the children that they would be sold when they left the camp, or stating that the RUF had located their families and would help them reunite. On at least one occasion, RUF fighters came to the camp and told the children that the RUF would kill everyone in the camp if they did not rejoin the rebel army. Abubakar estimated that the RUF took at least fifty children out of the camp through the use of threats, false promises, and false rumors.

When fighting broke out in early May, Abubakar was forced to rejoin the RUF when he was abducted while walking near the demobilization camp in Makeni. "It was not my wish to go fight, it was because they captured me and forced me," he told Human Rights Watch, "There was no use in arguing with them, because in the RUF if you argue with any commander they will kill you." Abubakar took part in recent fighting in Lunsar, Rogberi Junction, and Waterloo. He and others were often forced to commit abuses. In Rogberi Junction, their commander ordered them to burn down the entire town after a counterattack on the RUF by government helicopters. RUF commanders also used looted U.N. vehicles to move looted civilian properties back to RUF bases. Abubakar finally managed to sneak away from the RUF and return to the demobilization camp, which was evacuated to Freetown soon after. On their way to Freetown, the large group of demobilized child combatants was harassed by the pro-government Kamajor militia as well as by the Sierra Leone Army (SLA), who beat them. Abubakar said the Kamajors got angry with the children for showing them demobilization documents, saying that the children were provoking them because it was known that Kamajors were not educated and could not read.

Fifteen-year-old "Foday" (not his real name) was abducted by RUF when he was eight years old and had gone to the Makeni demobilization camp after the Lomé peace accord. He told Human Rights Watch further details of the evacuation of the Makeni demobilized child soldier camp on May 23. He also said that RUF commanders regularly came to the camp to threaten and scare former child combatants into rejoining the RUF, and explained that the camp was evacuated early in the morning of May 23 because of fear that the RUF would attempt a mass abduction. On their way to Freetown, the eighty-six former child soldiers who left the camp were stopped by RUF and stripped of their possessions: Foday lost a new watch, his clothes, a radio, and some money. The RUF then forced Foday to join them to carry looted goods back to an RUF camp located twenty-seven miles away. He later managed to escape from the RUF, but was then harassed and beaten by Kamajors, who took away his remaining possessions and threatened to kill him until a commander intervened and stopped the abuse.

RUF forces have also abducted children to carry loads of looted goods and military equipment for them, and have abducted girls for the purpose of rape. Fifteen-year-old "Musa" (not his real name) was abducted from Port Loko during an RUF attack in mid-May, and forced to carry a heavy bag of salt for four days. He told Human Rights Watch that the rebels shot and killed his brother, twenty-year-old Lamina K., after Lamina complained that his load was too heavy. Musa showed Human Rights Watch a large bump on his head which he had sustained when he was beat by the RUF with rifle butts.

Rape of captured women and girls is routine. Twenty-year-old "Miriam" (not her real name), still nursing her five-month-old baby, was raped in front of her husband almost as soon as they were captured near Masiaka on May 21. She told Human Rights Watch that she was raped almost continuously by seven RUF fighters, including some as young as fourteen, over the next three days. Some of the girls raped after capture are very young. "Malikah," who told Human Rights Watch that she was ten but looked much younger, told Human Rights Watch that she was raped by an RUF rebel after being captured, and watched her twenty- year-old sister Mawa Kamara die after RUF rebels amputated both her hands and one foot. "Children face some of the gravest abuses in this war at the hands of the RUF," said Takirambudde. "The RUF specifically targets children for recruitment as child soldiers, forced labor, and sexual exploitation."

Source: Human Rights Watch

Militia Leader Leaves Liberia Under Siege

The leader of a powerful militia was airlifted out of Monrovia today to attend peace talks next week in Ghana aimed at ending Liberia's six-year civil war, diplomatic and military officials said. A United States diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the militia leader, Roosevelt Johnson, left Monrovia today.

A high-ranking official with the West African peacekeepers here said the troops had slipped Mr. Johnson out of a besieged army barracks, the Barclay Training Center, in a convoy of tanks and armored vehicles and put him on a helicopter to Freetown, Sierra Leone, en route to Ghana.

The United States bolstered its forces at the Embassy to 290 marines, from 230, and three United States warships carrying 2,000 more marines moved within three miles of the coast for the third straight day. The United States Ambassador, William Milam; a United Nations envoy, Anthony Nyakyi, and leaders of the West African peacekeepers said Mr. Johnson had agreed to a cease-fire late Thursday. But by this morning, negotiators had not been able to reach his rival, Charles Taylor, who had insisted that Mr. Johnson surrender before fighting stops.

The standoff between Mr. Taylor and Mr. Johnson ignited the latest fighting, which began April 6.

Source: New York Times

West African Surprise: Suddenly, Peace Takes Root in Sierra Leone

Six months ago, while neighboring Liberia seemed well on its way to ending its catastrophic civil war, Sierra Leone stood out in the minds of many in this region as the most hopeless case in West Africa. Army officers who had seized power ruled over the capital, Freetown, enriching themselves in the clandestine diamond trade.

South African mercenaries bloodily prosecuted a seemingly unwinnable bush war against one of the continent's most vicious guerrilla movements. With the rebels burning villages and hacking peasants to death without any apparent provocation or explanation, talk of holding democratic elections this year was greeted with deep skepticism by foreign donors and, for a time, indifference by the country's war-weary people. But in one of the most remarkable changes of fortune this continent has seen since the dawn of independence from European colonialism nearly 40 years ago, Sierra Leone carried out its most peaceful and democratic national elections ever in March, replacing its young military dictators with a civilian Government.

In recent weeks, the new Government has concluded a cease-fire with the rebels, and the country now seems well on its way to peace. The turnabout can be atributed to many factors, foremost among them war fatigue among the rebels and a growing sense of isolation as neighboring countries have declined to give them a sympathetic hearing. And when Sierra Leone's military leaders repeatedly sought to back out of the elections, Western donors sent sharp warnings of consequences ranging from a cutoff of badly needed aid to diplomatic isolation.

Now Freetown, a city with a dilapidated charm, is suddenly abuzz with development consultants, aid donor delegations and relief experts. No one predicts that the road ahead will be easy, or that a country that has been as unstable as this one is immune from setbacks. But where foreign diplomats and aid officials only recently saw hopelessness for what is by some measures the world's poorest country, many now see a tremendous opportunity for a mineral-rich and sparsely populated land to have another crack at building a modern state. "Africa never runs out of surprises," said Berhanu Dinka, the United Nations special representative to Sierra Leone, who played a key role in holding the military to its election schedule and helped draw the rebels into peace talks. "The lesson here is that things can always change for the better, and it is never too late to save a situation."

The story of how Sierra Leone was able to hold its improbably successful elections and advance toward peace is a story of personal and collective heroism. It is a striking example of what can happen when a devastated country's international partners pull determinedly, if only briefly, in the same direction.

At the center of this story stands the unshakable will of one man, James Jonah, 62, a former senior United Nations official from Sierra Leone. He returned home at the military's invitation to head an electoral commission, and surprised the army by taking its promises of holding honest elections seriously. By all accounts, Mr. Jonah then proceeded to deftly outmaneuver the military leadership each time it tried to slip out of its commitments. More than once, Mr. Jonah's determination nearly cost him his life. When he refused a request to lower the minimum age required for presidential candidates so that the 30-year-old military ruler, Capt. Valentine Strasser, could run, Mr. Jonah's home and office were bombed.

When Captain Strasser was overthrown in January by his deputy, Brig. Julius Maada Bio, Mr. Jonah pressed ahead with his election plans as if nothing had changed. The military responded by stepping up its peace feelers toward the rebels, and urged that with peace within reach it would be irresponsible to rush into elections. Unmoved by those arguments, and initially backed by few, Mr. Jonah pressed ahead. "Those of us who have had the privilege of living in open societies as I have for 40 years have a special obligation to promote the idea of democracy to our brothers and sisters," Mr. Jonah said. "A lot of people told me I was crazy, or that I was importing European ideas that didn't apply here. But I was convinced that if the people got a chance to have a say in how their country was being run for once, they would seize it." Seize it they did. Turnout in the first round of voting, on Feb. 26, was 65 percent. In the final round, which produced a new President, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, turnout rose to 75 percent despite threats by the rebels to disrupt the vote and maneuvers by the army to panic voters.

Mr. Jonah plays down suggestions of his own heroism, preferring to talk of that of the citizens, led in many instances by women's groups, who withstood weeks of intimidation. When Mr. Jonah told Brigadier Bio that he would hold the vote as scheduled, regardless of the results of the peace talks, the military leader challenged Mr. Jonah to prove that the people really wanted elections. So two weeks before the vote, Mr. Jonah convened a meeting of civic groups, from religious organizations to student and labor unions, in which each was invited to express its view on the subject.

To discourage turnout, the army lined the route to the meeting place with the most impressive display of weapons ever seen in the capital. Those taking part had to walk the final mile to the conclave under the hostile gaze of soldiers. Still, hundreds showed up, and their verdict -- elections now -- was so overwhelming that the military walked out of the conference center. Once-skeptical diplomats began to throw their full weight behind the elections, warning the army at every turn of the consequences -- from international isolation and arms embargoes to trade sanctions -- should the military interfere with the vote.

On the day of the second round of voting, March 15, with citizens waiting to vote in long lines, diplomats say the military engineered a series of loud explosions in the capital to create the impression of a rebel attack. But instead of fleeing for shelter, people defiantly held their ground, chanting: "We must vote! We must vote! Jonah, Jonah, we must vote!"

Rather than fight, the country's military leadership, including Brigadier Bio, finally took its cue and has begun taking up foreign offers of assistance in arranging scholarships abroad. "This was an extraordinary moment for the forces of democracy in Sierra Leone and an extraordinary moment for the forces of democracy in Africa," said John L. Hirsch, the United States Ambassador.

Responsibility for fulfilling this opportunity now rests largely on the shoulders of the new President, Mr. Kabbah, 64, a lawyer and former United Nations Development Program official, who took office last month. "We have decided to embark on fully open government," Mr. Kabbah said in an interview at his home in Juba Hills, a mountainside suburb overlooking a broad azure bay. "Everything that this Government does will be fully explained to the people, and public accountability will become the rule, not the exception."

Mr. Kabbah's first order of business was to consolidate a tentative peace agreement with the rebels. He traveled almost immediately to the neighboring Ivory Coast to meet with the rebel leader, Foday Sankoh, hitting it off well enough to get Mr. Sankoh to agree to an "indefinite" truce. Mr. Kabbah said that when Mr. Sankoh, an enigmatic former army photographer and corporal who has spent the last five years in the bush, expressed wonder over the gleaming high-rises and smoothly paved roads of the Ivory Coast, he told him, "Yes, there are many nice things here, and with peace there is no reason we shouldn't have all this and more."

Source: New York Times

New Leader Pledges Vote in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone's new leader, who took over in a bloodless coup on Tuesday, is committed to holding multi-party elections on Feb. 26, as planned, a Government spokesman said today. Addressing the nation a day after overthrowing Capt. Valentine Strasser, Brig. Julius Maada Bio called on rebels of the Revolutionary Unite Front, who have been fighting since 1991, to come to peace talks with his Government. "The democratization process, which started in June 1995 with the lifting of the ban on party political activities, continues unabated and is still on track toward the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections on Feb. 26 this year," Brigadier Bio said.

In neighboring Guinea, Captain Strasser said that he had agreed to hand over power and that his departure should not be called a coup. Freetown residents said the city was back to normal. Airports and land borders were open.

Source: New York Times