PRESS BRIEFING
FRIDAY, 23 FEBRUARY 2001
AMBASSADOR OLUYEMI ADENIJI - SRSG
MARGARET NOVICKI - CHIEF, PUBLIC INFORMATION SECTION
AND MAJOR M. M. YERIMA - MILITARY SPOKESMAN

SECURITY COUNCIL URGES WARRING PARTIES IN DRC TO DISENGAGE

In a resolution adopted unanimously yesterday, the United Nations Security Council demanded that the parties to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) begin disengaging on 15 March and that the signatories to the Lusaka Agreement adopt plans for the complete withdrawal of all foreign troops by 15 May. The Security Council also endorsed proposals put forward by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his report of 12 February, which recommended that the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) be modified in light of the experience gained over the past 15 months since its inception.

In yesterday's resolution, the Security Council urged the parties to the 1999 Lusaka Agreement to prepare by 15 May a plan for the withdrawal of their troops from the DRC, as well as a plan for the disarmament, repatriation or resettlement of other armed groups, such as the Interhamwe (militias responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda) and "ex-FAR" soldiers from Rwanda's former state army. The Council also welcomed the decision by Rwanda to pull out from the Congolese town of Pweto, the commitment by Uganda to withdraw two battalions from the DRC, and the DRC's invitation to Ketumile Masire, the facilitator of the inter-Congolese Dialogue, to go to Kinshasa to proceed with the dialogue.

Urging for increased relief aid to the Congolese population, the Council condemned the massacres and atrocities committed in the DRC and demanded that the parties put an end to human rights violations and the recruitment of child soldiers.

SECURITY COUNCIL DISCUSSES POSSIBLE PUNISHMENT FOR ANGOLA SANCTION VIOLATORS

The United Nations Security Council met yesterday afternoon to discuss whether to apply sanctions against countries found to be intentionally violating the UN embargo against Angola's rebel army, UNITA, as recommended by a UN panel investigating those violations. The Council is considering the final report of the Monitoring Mechanism on Angola Sanctions, which was established in April 2000. The Mechanism is following up on the March 2000 report by a Panel of Experts who revealed how the sanctions against UNITA, put in place by three Council resolutions, were being violated, and made extensive recommendations on how to further strengthen the sanctions regime.

UNAMSIL FORCE COMMANDER MEETS WITH THE RUF

The Force Commander, Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande, held a meeting with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) interim leader, Gen. Issa Sesay, in Makeni on 20 February. The Force Commander was joined by the Military Adviser of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Maj. Gen. Tim Ford, and the Deputy Force Commander, Maj. Gen. Martin Agwai, who were in Makeni to meet two UNAMSIL patrols sent from Port Loko and Mile 91.

Discussions focused on the recovery of UNAMSIL vehicles left behind in Kabala, as well as on the exhumation of the remains of one Nigerian UNAMSIL soldier buried in Lunsar. Future deployment of UNAMSIL into RUF areas was also discussed. Following the meeting, the Force Commander was shown the site in Makama village where Cpl. Robert Wanyama (Kenya), who died at Makeni Hospital on 9 May 2000, is buried. The UNHCR representative in Sierra Leone, Mr. Arnold Akodjenou, also met with Gen. Sesay to discuss the issue of safe passage and safe corridors for Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea.

The meetings were described as cordial.

ROYAL NEPALESE ARMY ON A FACT-FINDING MISSION

The Royal Nepalese Army representative yesterday paid a courtesy call on UNAMSIL Force Commander Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande at UNAMSIL Headquarters. The representative, Col. Gaurav SJB Rana, was accompanied by Mr. Madan Prasad Aryal, Lt. Col. Raju Dhoj Silwal, and Lt. Col. Hamanta Raj Runwar. Col. Gaurav said they had come to Sierra Leone to get first-hand information before making any recommendations regarding Nepalese Army assistance to the Mission. He further noted that Nepal had a wealth of experience in peacekeeping operations and had served before in Africa, in Somalia. The Force Commander said having seen the reality on the ground, the delegation would be better placed to make recommendations to their government on support to UNAMSIL.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji met with US Senator Russell Feingold who is visiting Sierra Leone as part of a tour in the region, and discussed mainly conditions for the establishment of the Special Court for which Mr. Feingold indicated that he is approaching his colleagues in the Senate to release funds. He stressed the importance of prompt action both with respect to the Court and the TRC.

In preparation for the review meeting on the implementation of the recent recommendations on the DDR programme, a World Bank team arrived in Freetown. Meetings with UNAMSIL, NCDDR, DFID and the British High Commission officials, as well as Deputy Defense Minister Chief Hinga Norman, centered on issues such as the assessment of the achievements under disarmament and demobilization process, and the status of the reintegration programme.

A peaceful procession on Wednesday organized by the Sierra Leone Marketing Association was attended by between 50-90 persons, mostly women, who carried placards that read, "Help UNAMSIL bring peace", Hand your guns over to UNAMSIL, we are ready to forgive."

UNAMSIL PATROLS

This week, UNAMSIL has continued conducting patrols in the four sectors in which it is deployed, as well as into RUF-controlled areas. In Sector 1, NIBATT-8 conducted a patrol to Patifu Malal and Katonge on Wednesday. NIBATT-7, on Tuesday, also conducted a patrol from Rogberi to Lunsar and Makeni. In Sector 2, on Tuesday, NIBATT-5 conducted a patrol to Masere and Magbese. A commercial vehicle conveying 20 people from Freetown was searched and an assortment of arms and ammunition was captured.

In Sector 3, ZAMBATT-2 carried out a patrol to Bendu Junction where two checkpoints manned by the RUF were observed on the route from Mano Junction to Bendu Junction. The patrol also met RUF Col. Rambo at Bendu Junction, who stated that the RUF wanted a meeting with all warring factions, that the RUF is ready to disarm but wants its detained comrades released, and that it wanted freedom of movement between Daru and Kenema. In Bo, a MILOBs patrol passed through Mongeri on Tuesday and met with CDF officials there. The patrol established that about 750 CDF members were currently training in the camp there.

In Sector 4, BANBATT-2 patrolled from Mile 91 to Magburaka and Makeni where they met up with the NIBATT-7 patrol, as well as with the Force Commander and the Military Adviser of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Maj. Gen. Tim Ford. The patrol slept at Makeni Teachers College before returning to Mile 91.

TRANSCRIPT
SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OLUYEMI ADENIJI ANSWERS QUESTIONS POSED BY THE MEDIA

Q: What is the present position of the Security Council on the sanctions on Liberia?

A: The present situation is that the Security Council has agreed with a suggestion by ECOWAS that sanctions, which the Council is deciding upon on Liberia, be suspended for two months. The two-month period is to enable ECOWAS and the Security Council to ascertain the seriousness with which the Government of Liberia would have undertaken certain promises which ECOWAS reported that the President of Liberia has made to meet the concerns of the international community vis-à-vis the interference as it were of the involvement of Liberia both in the conflict in Sierra Leone as well as in the conflict which is now going on on the Guinea-Sierra Leone-Liberia border.

Q: Concerns have been raised on the establishment of the TRC and the Special Court since it might have implications on the DDR process given UNAMSIL's incapacity to deploy troops throughout the country now. Do you think it is timely for the establishment of the TRC and Special Court?

A: As you know, a conference was held a few days ago in Freetown on the TRC and Special Court, and the kind of interface between these two institutions. Nobody seriously questioned the relevance of the two institutions that are being proposed to be set up. Obviously the timing of the setting up of each would vary because adequate arrangements have to be made for each of them. Concerns have been raised initially as to how these two bodies might affect the DDR programme, in other words, would they discourage combatants from coming out to disarm? I think by and large the conclusion has been reached that this would not necessarily be so. On the one hand, the TRC, which was in any case part of the Lomé Peace Agreement was approved by everybody including the RUF and they have not said anything to the contrary. The Special Court arose after the incidents of May that disrupted the peace process. But, amazingly enough, the RUF spokesman himself had once said that they are not afraid of the Special Court, provided its operation is going to be fair, that is, everybody who might be accused of having committed atrocities, notwithstanding the group to which he/she belongs, will be brought before the Court.

Q: In many of your familiarization meetings with the RUF, this issue of them wanting their colleagues in detention to be released before disarmament keeps coming up. How do you harmonize this since this is a political issue?

A: The contacts with the RUF have not been of a familiarization nature. It is meant to press forward the implementation of the Abuja Ceasefire Agreement. Every meeting is meant to advance on where the previous meeting left off, on the process of implementation. The fact that they made this demand is not uniform because it depends at the local level on whom our people talk to. Some of them don't even refer to that, which means that there is no consensus among them to make this a precondition. But beyond that anyone of them who mentions this and at any forum in which it is mentioned, they are told clearly that this is a political issue on which UNAMSIL does not have any competence. In any case they are not even supposed to raise any political issue until UNAMSIL has concluded and recommended to ECOWAS that the follow-up meeting to review the Abuja Ceasefire Agreement can be held. Once there is consensus among all interested parties, ECOWAS, the United Nations, that in fact the Abuja Ceasefire Agreement has been implemented, then the political issues can be raised, which would then have to be discussed between the RUF and the Government of Sierra Leone with the facilitation of both the United Nations and ECOWAS.

Q: I understand that there is a demonstration being planned in connection with UNAMSIL's slow pace of disarmament. Does the proposed demonstration bothers you?

A: This is a country where people are free to express their opinions, and freedom of association is allowed. I think all that is required for a demonstration is to have a police permit after assuring them that it is going to be peaceful. You can choose any subject on which to demonstrate. Why should I be worried about that?

Q: According to the Abuja Ceasefire Agreement there should be a follow-up meeting after 30 days of the signing of that agreement in which political issues can be raised. How soon do we expect this follow-up meeting to be held or is it that you are not yet satisfied with the implementation of the Agreement?

A: I think you and I can agree on that, that we share the view that the ceasefire agreement has not been fully implemented. If we agree on that, then we are of the same mind that it will be premature to hold that follow-up meeting.

Q: At a meeting with the RUF, one of them said there should be a meeting after 30 days of the Abuja Agreement, but that most of their leaders are in prison. You have said you met with the RUF on this deployment issue. What are the remaining conditions that have not yet been fulfilled, which is holding up the follow-up meeting?

A: The Abuja Agreement did not address the issue of anybody in prison. There is absolutely nothing in the agreement that talks about prisoners. The Abuja Agreement stipulates not only the issue of a ceasefire in fighting, but also it stipulates the implementation of a number of measures which are meant partly to build confidence between the parties, partly also to advance the process towards the confidence of all parties to engage in political discussions. Now the question of release of prisoners who are in detention would form part of that second stage. So what we have all agreed upon is that it is premature now. As a matter of fact, in the meeting held on 12 February that the Force Commander had with Issa Sesay, this was routinely raised by one of them and another one of them said to him that the Force Commander is not mandated to discuss such issues, that that will have to be left to another forum and another authority. So they themselves realize it, but there are some of them that are more insistent than others. But even they know that what they are asking for is not realistic.

The Abuja Agreement says the meeting is after 30 days. The point is that they themselves realize that to hold such a meeting now would perhaps come to the conclusion that they have not implemented all the conditions set up in the Abuja Ceasefire Agreement. So they are not really complaining that the meeting has not been held. If you look at the terms stipulated in the Abuja Agreement, it talks of the disarmament and demobilization of all factions, not just the RUF, the opening up of roads all over the country, the expansion of governmental authority, the assurance of the freedom of movement of civilians and operation of humanitarian agencies. But it also talks about the deployment of UNAMSIL throughout the country, which is still to be implemented. The delay in summoning this meeting is for the benefit of all sides to have sufficient time to implement their own part of the agreement so that a follow-up meeting would be one that will be able to come to definite conclusion with the full facts being available to everybody.

Q: What news do you have for us on the soliciting of troops for Sierra Leone?

A: There is a lot of effort being put into soliciting for more troops for Sierra Leone. These efforts should be encouraged by Sierra Leoneans through preaching to all sides in Sierra Leone that the present ceasefire should be allowed to continue to hold because the moment it becomes clear that the ceasefire is not going to hold, and that what the Sierra Leonean people want is a resumption of the fighting, then you discourage people from pledging troops. We may not get any more troops.

As you have just heard, the decision by the Security Council initially to deploy troops to the DRC was taken after the Lusaka ceasefire agreement in July 1999, which was about the same time as the Lomé Peace Agreement. Up till now those troops have not been deployed because of two principal reasons. One is that the signatories to the Agreement had assured the UN that the fighting would cease and they are now ready for the UN to set up a peacekeeping mission with both military observers and also with troops, like we have in UNAMSIL. But immediately thereafter, nothing changed in terms of fighting. Indeed, countries that had pledged troops to DRC immediately after the signing of the Agreement have since changed their minds. Some of them have withdrawn their offers because they say they are not prepared to send their people to go into a war situation. Some have even diverted the troops they earmarked for DRC into the Ethiopia-Eritrea operation, which is a classic peacekeeping mission. So here, if you keep on talking about UNAMSIL going to fight the RUF, you will just discourage countries from pledging troops, and so you will not get an improvement of the situation, that is number one.

Number two is the fact is that we want to avoid being overstretched, which means that our deployment has to be carefully done in a manner which itself becomes a deterrent to the RUF trying anything that was tried in the past, where we were really scattered all over the place because we thought we were going to perform a classic peacekeeping operation. What I should also add is that the reason why we are taking so much time in holding series of meeting to press forward the implementation of the Abuja Ceasefire Agreement with the RUF is that in our own minds, we are clear that this time deployment is not just to go and show UN flag anywhere. Deployment is meant to be able to do all that was set up in the Abuja Ceasefire Agreement, that is to encourage disarmament and demobilization, because, as you know, the RUF themselves are saying that until we deploy, they do not feel safe to disarm and demobilize. Deployment is also meant to encourage the other factions to disarm and demobilize and be able to commence the reintegration programme. But what is even more important from our point of view: Deployment is meant to immediately encourage the Government to extend its authority to wherever we have deployed. In other words, we are not deploying and then resting side by side with an RUF administration.

Q: Part of the mandate for UNAMSIL is to ensure that elections are conducted. Do you think the six-month extension of the life of the government is plausible to create the conditions for elections?

A: According to our mandate, we will assist the Government of Sierra Leone in its conduct of elections. We are not conducting the elections. Elections will ultimately be conducted by Sierra Leone. The date for elections will be decided by the Government of Sierra Leone based on its own assessment that all conditions necessary for credible elections have been met. The Government of Sierra Leone itself will base its judgment on the recommendations of the Sierra Leone National Electoral Commission, which has more things to worry about than just the question of security, because holding credible elections in a country like this where so much disruption has taken place involves a lot of preparatory work. Think in terms of just establishing a credible voters' list. Even in areas where there is peace, electoral lists in Africa are not the easiest things to establish. And if you want to make sure that your elections are not flawed from the beginning, you must be able to ensure that everybody who is qualified for voting is inscribed on the voters' list, or at least credible efforts are made so that nobody can complain that he or she has been deliberately omitted or that in fact registration was not done in his or her area, or that registration was done before he or she had the opportunity of returning to the country. Parliament itself still has to decide on what method will have to be adopted, whether it is going to be proportional representation, constituencies. If it is going to be constituencies, you have to make sure that they can be demarcated in such a way that those who are supposed to vote in a constituency can really vote there. These are issues that perhaps go beyond the mere question of security. So we have bear all these in mind when we talk about elections.

But six months is a long time in which a lot of things can happen and that bridge will have to be crossed when the Government gets to it. The role of the international community in any election would be mainly to be supportive of the aspirations of the Government and the country concerned. You must also bear in mind that with the present situation, a lot of the resources needed for the elections will have to come from donors abroad, and so a lot also will depend on how encouraged they are to make the pledges, and how willing they are to deliver the pledges.

Q: The sanctions on Liberia would have blocked the importation of arms and ammunition by the RUF. Don't you think that the two-month postponement of the sanctions on Liberia will affect your deployment operations?

A: Without necessarily disparaging sanctions, sometimes we attribute an efficacy to sanctions which ultimately really is not borne out by the facts. The two months' delay, rather than perhaps inhibiting our own operation in terms of whether the RUF continues to receive weapons or not, might in fact help the situation, not necessarily as far as UNAMSIL deployment is concerned, but help the situation with respect to advancing the peace process here. Why? Because it looks as if from what one has seen and from the undertakings given to ECOWAS by Liberia, that the Government of Liberia itself is very much aware of the total seriousness of the international community, not only the UN, but ECOWAS, in ensuring that Liberia's intervention in the conflict in Sierra Leone ceases and I think that serious signal from the international community is not lost on the Liberian Government, so I have a feeling that it is likely to help.

Q: You are here to disarm and demobilize the fighters as a major step to peace. Do you have an idea of how many RUF we are talking about right now, because the Kamajors are saying they have 99,000 and I don't know how many of them have been disarmed. Francis Kaikai of the NCDDR keeps saying they have disarmed 27,000 or more before and after the May crisis in total. So how many RUF are we talking about?

A: According to the estimate we have from the DDR secretariat of the RUF combatants to be disarmed was partly based on the whole figure, which was 45,000 made up of 15,000 RUF, 15,000 of the Kamajors and then the others. But since then I have also heard the figure of 99,000 from just one group. I hope that figure is not correct, because then we will never get out of this! But that also might have been based on some misconception of the nature of the benefits which would come out of the DDR.

We think that the figure of 12,000 RUF will be closer to the real number remaining to be disarmed. One of the principal mandates given is to assist in the disarmament and demobilization programme. This programme was meant to be done voluntarily and that is still the perspective because if it is going to be done by force, then not only UNAMSIL, but even the Government of Sierra Leone will probably need a capacity much more than what either of us has at the moment. We think that if all sides are persuaded of the benefit of the disarmament and demobilization process, followed immediately by the reintegration process, which will then assure all concerned-and here you are not only thinking of the RUF, but also a number of the CDF who say they have since lost touch with their own businesses and their own trade, so if they can benefit from the reintegration programme, so much the better for them. So all these are things which should be used to attract people to realize that at the end of the day there is so much to be gained in peace, and if they are convinced, then they will be convinced to hand over their weapons. From our own contact with a number of RUF boys in the bush, they keep on vowing that they have had enough, they want to go back and they are only waiting for instructions from their bosses so that they can disarm en masse and be able to pick up the pieces of their lives thereafter.

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For additional information, contact UNAMSIL Public Information Office: UNAMSIL Headquarters, Mammy Yoko, P. O. Box 5, Freetown, Sierra Leone Tel: 232-22-273-183/4/5 Fax: 232-22-273-189