U.N. Council cautiously welcomes Sierra Leone truce

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- U.N. Security Council members Tuesday called on combatants in Sierra Leone, especially the rebels, to honor a new cease-fire pact that could lead to a truce in the West African country's 9-year-old civil war.

In an initial reaction to the accord signed in the Nigerian capital of Abuja Friday between the government and rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), council members welcomed the agreement "as a first step towards the resumption of the peace process in Sierra Leone."

"They call upon the parties, especially the RUF, to honor the commitments made so that Sierra Leone will get a real chance to find a lasting and durable solution to the conflict," Council President Peter van Walsum, the Netherlands ambassador, told reporters after a private council session.

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"At this time we hope of course that this is going to be an effective step in the right direction," van Walsum said in answer to queries. "But I believe I can safely say that given the history of Sierra Leone, there was guarded optimism" among the 15 council members the cease-fire would hold.

The new accord also allows the U.N. Mission in Sierra Leone, known as UNAMSIL, to deploy across the country in diamond field areas controlled by the rebels, who have sold the gems for guns to fuel the war effort. But diplomats said they doubted U.N. troops would risk this before testing the accord.

"The agreement itself is a perfectly respectable agreement," British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock said. "But the first thing to test is whether RUF delivers arms back that have been stolen from the United Nations," disarms and stops being a threat to U.N. peacekeepers and civilians.

"We want to see the results from preliminary contacts on the ground between UNAMSIL and the RUF about implementing the agreement. And it's on the credibility of the RUF response that further decisions will depend," Greenstock said.

Liberian President Charles Taylor, who helped negotiate the truce, appeared to be serious in seeking an agreement Greenstock said. But he said that Taylor and the RUF, which was by no means monolithic, were now also testing the United Nations.

Taylor, who is close to the RUF, has been widely accused of benefiting from the diamond trade, used by the rebels to pay for weapons.

UNAMSIL has some 13,000 troops in Sierra Leone. Britain, the former colonial power, has several hundred soldiers to train government forces, and another 500 marine commandos are to be stationed off Freetown as part of a naval task force.

The new accord follows a peace and power sharing agreement signed in the Togo capital of Lome in July 1999 that was to have ended the war, in which the rebels mutilated, raped and killed civilians.

But RUF fighters were slow to give up their weapons and took some 500 U.N. peacekeepers hostage last May. RUF leader Foday Sankoh has been imprisoned since May and replaced, for the time being, by his former field commander, Issa Sesay.

Within hours of the signing of the cease-fire, military and diplomatic sources in Freetown said most fighting appeared to have stopped. But they said the RUF was still fighting Guinean forces near the frontier area, where a series of border raids from Sierra Leone and Liberia began in September.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Government of Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone Civil Defence Force
UNAMSIL Mission in Sierra Leone

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