Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Glittering diamonds

By Gamal Nkrumah

It is hard to imagine a scenario in which the British will not lose ground in their fight to keep control of the tiny West-African country of Sierra Leone, the first British colony in Africa. Britain has dispatched warships and several hundred élite paratroops to defend the Sierra Leonean government and train its newly revamped army. The naval task force includes a Royal Marine commando unit that has been placed on high alert.

The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and UN peace-keeping forces were ill-equipped to deal decisively with the onslaught of armed opposition forces in the country when several hundred UN peace-keepers were taken hostage by them in May. The UN was not mandated to intervene militarily on the government forces' side; but, with British prodding, it did so anyway. The Sierra Leonean government was incapable of warding off the armed opposition's advances. Britain, which had enough weight to elbow its way into the Sierra Leonean conflict, seized the opportunity provided by the resulting instability and stormed into Sierra Leone to forcibly stop the armed opposition from overrunning the country. The Sierra Leonean government, backed by Britain, is now caught in a tug-of-war situation with the armed opposition forces. Neither side seems eager to reduce the tension.

The British are now running the show, ostensibly until a better-equipped UN peace-keeping force can be trusted to carry out the tasks that its mandate requires. Britain has a vested interest in propping up the beleaguered government of President Ahmed Tijan Kabbah and keeping at bay the armed opposition Revolutionary United Front (RUF) led by Corporal Foday Sankoh, who has been detained by the British and their Sierra Leonean government cohorts. British troops cannot be relied upon to play a fair peace-keeping role. Clearly partisan, many Sierra Leoneans deeply resent the army's presence in their country.

As fighting intensified in Sierra Leone last week, the UN appointed a senior British army officer, Brig Gen Alistair Duncan, as UNAMSIL's new British chief of staff.

"I have a UN blue cap on my head, so Britain has contributed in its little way to UNAMSIL," said Duncan, presumably tongue-in-cheek, soon after his appointment.

A new cease-fire was signed in the Nigerian capital Abuja last week between RUF and President Kabbah. Barely hours after the signing, however, British troops put on an unprecedented show of strength in the form of military exercises, presumably to intimidate RUF supporters.

For the top position, the UN chose an East African, Lt Gen Daniel Opande as the new head of UNAMSIL. Opande, a Kenyan national, has field experience in West Africa, having led a UN observer mission between 1993 and 1995 in Liberia -- Sierra Leone's immediate neighbour to the south. Opande replaces India's Gen Vijay Jetley, whose sharp differences with the British and the large and influential Nigerian contingent of peace-keeping troops led to India's unceremonial exit from Sierra Leone. India is now pulling out all its troops from the country; Jordan is following suit.

"It is important to note that the rift between Gen Jetley and Garba resulted in India's decision to withdraw troops," explained Alfred Akibo-Betts, former mayor of Freetown.

The 16 nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), unlike the British, generally adopts a more conciliatory position towards RUF in particular. However, there is also a realisation that agreements between successive Sierra Leonean governments and armed opposition groups have not been particularly binding -- 12 peace accords have been signed between the government and armed opposition and insurrectionist groups, the most important being the landmark agreement signed in the Ivorian capital Abidjan in 1996.

However, violence escalated again in 1997, 1998 and again last month -- barely six months after the last agreement was signed in the Togolese capital Lome. Still, ECOWAS rejects British coercive tactics. A major bone of contention between the British and RUF is the critical role played by President Charles Taylor of Liberia, an ECOWAS member, as RUF's main backer. UN Special Representative Oluyemi Adeniji has said that Taylor played a critically important role in concluding the Abuja peace treaty.

The truce signed last week failed to quell the intermittent fighting because of the British show of force. As December nears, and the end of the rainy season is taken advantage of, rival groups of opposition Kamajor and RUF militias are expected to advance again towards Freetown. Indeed, they are already reported to have attacked government-controlled villages near the towns of Bo, Kabala and Lunsar. It is in this context that the 12,500-strong UN peace-keeping force in Sierra Leone, the largest such force in the world, is projected to increase. The UN's planned increase of its peacekeeping troops to at least 20,000 now seems highly unlikely. The troops pledged by different countries so far are simply not sufficient to carry out the UN mission in Sierra Leone.

The British objective at the moment appears to be to secure Freetown and Sierra Leone's international airport in nearby Lungi. Their long-term strategic interest remains economic, particularly control of the diamond-studded northeastern area now largely in RUF hands. Diamonds mined in Makeni, Kono, Tongo and Daru cross into neighbouring Liberia. Britain may have shed the pomp and ceremony associated with its once huge British Empire, of which Sierra Leone was a part. However, the fruits of economic imperialism are harder to let go of.

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