Rebels hold 300 U.N. troops in Africa

The hostage-taking in Sierra Leone jeopardizes an ambitious peacekeeping plan.

By Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 6, 2000

UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. peacekeepers began surrendering without a fight Friday in Sierra Leone, where rebel soldiers have now taken more than 300 U.N. hostages, commandeered 13 U.N. armored vehicles and confiscated hundreds of U.N. weapons and uniforms.

"There has been no word of fighting in Sierra Leone today," said U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard. But that was because peacekeepers in the West African country were no longer resisting the Revolutionary United Front.

Although the rebels had been expected for months to test the mettle of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, the crumbling of the multinational forces appeared to catch diplomats by surprise.

Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned that the deteriorating situation in Sierra Leone -- combined with the unwillingness of the United States and European powers to intervene -- threatens to undercut international support for peacekeeping efforts throughout Africa.

Eckhard said 208 Zambian peacekeepers were captured by the RUF Thursday while traveling to the town of Makeni to reinforce Kenyan peacekeepers who had come under attack. In addition, an estimated 110 other U.N. peacekeepers, military observers and civilian workers are being held by the rebels.

A contingent of more than 100 Nigerian peacekeepers was also detained but later released, "minus their weapons," Eckhard said.

After several days of tough rhetoric about standing up to the rebels, U.N. officials conceded that there was little the peacekeepers could do to resist the RUF, whose estimated 5,000 to 15,000 battle-hardened fighters have earned a grisly reputation for chopping off the limbs of civilians they consider sympathetic to Sierra Leone's elected government.

Diplomats said they were uncertain why the rebels seized U.N. hostages. In addition to speculation that they planned an assault on Freetown, the capital, some suggested that the rebels were trying to scuttle the peace process so they could keep their armaments.

Earlier this week, U.N. officials said, four Kenyan peacekeepers were killed and 12 other U.N. troops were wounded while resisting attempts by the RUF to confiscate their weapons.

The U.N. Mission for Sierra Leone, or UNAMSIL, consists of 8,700 troops from African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries. Even when it grows to its full strength of 11,100 troops this summer, officials said, it will not have the means to subdue the rebels without the backing of a major Western military power.

"The emphasis is not at this point to go to war against the RUF," Eckhard said. "It's to find a political solution to a problem that is threatening the peace process at its core."

The United States, Britain and France this week rebuffed a request by Annan to send a heavily armed "rapid-reaction force" to reinforce the peacekeeping mission and help free the hostages.

"Ideally one would want to see a rapid-reaction force go in to assist, but this can only happen if those with the capacity are prepared to offer," Annan said.

European and American officials Friday dismissed the possibility of a rescue operation.

Annan, meanwhile, has been reduced to the hope that African leaders, particularly Moammar Ghaddafi of Libya and Charles Taylor of Liberia, will be able to use their influence to persuade RUF leader Foday Sankoh to release the hostages.

Sankoh promised this week to carry out his commitments under a peace agreement, signed last July in neighboring Togo, that ended an eight-year civil war. In return for an amnesty that protected Sankoh and his soldiers from war crimes charges, the pact calls for the RUF to stop fighting, give up its weapons and allow U.N. personnel to move freely around the country. But it is unclear whether Sankoh fully controls his field commanders.

So far, the diplomatic intervention by Taylor has secured the release of just six hostages, all members of a civilian Russian helicopter unit.

"The efforts right now are political in nature -- to get anyone who has influence with Foday Sankoh to convince him to comply with the peace agreement," said Eckhard. "If that fails I don't want to speculate what happens next."

The Clinton administration has made it clear that no U.S. soldiers will be dispatched as peacekeepers in Sierra Leone, but U.S. officials said the administration was considering whether to provide airplanes to help the United Nations fly in more than 2,000 Indian, Jordanian and Bangladeshi reinforcements. Anwarul Karim Chowdury, Bangladesh's ambassador to the United Nations, told the U.N. Security Council that his government was still committed to sending a battalion of about 700 troops, despite the deteriorating security situation.

The Washington Post reported that the United States, Britain and other Western countries were considering ways to help the United Nations beef up the existing U.N. rapid-reaction force, comprised of about 200 Indian and Jordanian soldiers. At the moment, U.N. officials say the force is designed to conduct limited military operations and mundane policing activities like crowd control.

Britain said Friday it would send a dozen military specialists today to advise the peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone. But there was broad agreement at U.N. headquarters that such minor efforts would have little impact, and that the outlook for peacekeeping in Africa was growing bleak after a period of optimism earlier this year fed by U.S. support for a new mission in Congo.

"Foday Sankoh is delivering an open challenge to the U.N. authority," said Joseph Sala, a former State Department official who advises companies and foreign governments on African affairs. "If this is permitted to stand, he will have effectively crippled UNAMSIL, because it will be clear that the Sankoh can get away with murder."

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