Sierra Leone foes head for Abuja talks without leaders

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (Reuters) -- Warring parties in Sierra Leone headed for Nigeria for Thursday's talks on a new ceasefire, but without their leaders, government officials and sources said.

They said President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and Issa Sesay, the leader of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), would not be part of their respective delegations which are due to meet in Nigeria's capital Abuja.

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A presidency spokesman said on Wednesday that a five-member government delegation headed by Justice Minister Solomon Berewa had left Freetown on Tuesday.

National security adviser Brigadier Kelly Conteh was also part of the government team, the spokesman said, adding neither Kabbah nor Foreign Minister Sama Banya would attend the meeting.

The spokesman described the talks, sponsored by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as "technical."

According to government sources, the RUF delegation did not include Sesay, who took over the day-to-day running of the RUF after its figurehead leader, Foday Sankoh, was arrested in May.

The U.N. mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) is trying to rally the warrying parties around a new ceasefire to end a nine-year civil war, after a 1999 peace deal collapsed in May when RUF fighters took hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers hostage.

On Tuesday, however, Foreign Minister Banya said his government was not going to Abuja with a view to renewing peace talks but to remind the rebels of their commitments under the 1999 agreement signed in Lome.

Banya said the meeting had been organised after calls by the RUF for talks.

The RUF controls much of the north and diamond-rich east. Its fighters have recently raided northern villages.

The government says it has had little contact with Sesay since his appointment and some diplomats have questioned whether he is really in control of all the RUF fighters.

Former colonial power Britain has sent a naval rapid reaction force to support U.N. peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone.

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