Anguish in Parrot's Beak

By Gamal Nkrumah
The already deplorable condition of over 250,000 defenceless Sierra Leonean refugees trapped without access to international humanitarian assistance in Forecariah Prefecture, Guinea, is fast deteriorating. The refugees, fleeing fighting between the Sierra Leone government and the armed opposition group pitted against it, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), are cornered in a remote area of impenetrable equatorial jungle where the borders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone meet -- Parrot's Beak, technically on Guinean soil.
Tens of thousands of sick and bedridden refugees need immediate medical attention. The rest are war-weary, numb with hunger and exhaustion. The population of the Guinean town of Gueckedou, just outside Parrot's Beak, has swollen dramatically in recent years on account of the influx of countless Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees. A provincial backwater at the best of times, the town simply cannot cope.
The United Nations and international relief agencies are having great difficulty reaching the refugees because the ongoing fighting in the region makes for a daunting security situation. "We urgently need a corridor of security and safety for refugees and humanitarian workers," urged United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Rudd Lubbers after a tour of the war-torn countries last week. Many are hoping that Lubbers, widely seen as a seasoned troubleshooter, will be able to ease tensions in the region and rescue the refugees, but he will have his work cut out for him.
The Sierra Leonean government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah is calling for the RUF to guarantee safe passage through Sierra Leone's Kambia District for the refugees and their eventual relocation in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown. RUF spokesman Gibril Massakoi recently said that his movement, which controls over two-thirds of Sierra Leonean territory, would co-operate in setting up a humanitarian corridor. But RUF's cooperation is conditional. Two alternative safe corridors have been suggested by the UN. One, skirting Sierra Leonean territory altogether, crosses 800kms of rugged Guinean terrain from Parrot's Beak to the Guinean capital of Conakry, where the refugees would continue by ship to Freetown. The other route is far shorter, but cuts through RUF-held territory in Sierra Leone. This would require RUF's consent and cooperation with UN authorities -- and thus de facto recognition of RUF control of huge swathes of Sierra Leonean territory. The plight of the refugees has become a bargaining chip held by the RUF.
"They cannot continue holding the people of Sierra Leone to ransom. See what is happening in [Parrot's Beak]," Sierra Leonean Minister of Information Dr Julius Spencer protested last week. But the Kabbah government has little choice. There are few signs that RUF fighters are suffering from battle fatigue and the rebels are confident enough to call for power-sharing with the Sierra Leonean government.
Interim RUF leader Issa Sesay, who took over the organisation's leadership after RUF founder Foday Sankoh was incarcerated, has sent conciliatory signals to the Sierra Leonean government, their British benefactors and the UN. The British dismiss Sesay as a mere protégé of Liberian President Charles Taylor who they say calls all the shots.
The British temporarily knocked the wind out of the RUF when they captured Sankoh and handed him over to the Sierra Leonean authorities. Britain dispatched warships and several hundred élite paratroops, including a Royal Marine commando unit, to defend the beleaguered Kabbah against RUF and stop the rebels from overrunning the country. The British, who have vital economic and commercial interests to protect, hold Freetown and Sierra Leone's international airport in nearby Lungi.
Militarily, it was an impressive campaign, soundly conceived and ably executed. Superior British fire power and state-of-the-art equipment ensured that the RUF was obliged to beat a hasty retreat. Politically, however, it was disastrous. The RUF survived Sankoh's imprisonment, replacing him with Sesay, and British interference did not endear them to the Sierra Leonean population or to the 16-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
More importantly, it did nothing to lessen the influence of Liberian President Charles Taylor, the regional kingpin. Britain, accusing Taylor of backing the RUF and of illicitly trading in Sierra Leonean diamonds to purchase weapons, is calling for more stringent international sanctions against Liberia.
"I'm going to have a tough talk with Mr Taylor," warned UNHCR chief Lubbers, and London continues to try to force Taylor to disavow the RUF completely, rather than coming up with a compromise solution that accommodates all parties, including the RUF and Taylor.
In contrast, ECOWAS generally adopts a more conciliatory position towards the RUF. However, there is also a realisation that agreements between successive Sierra Leonean governments and armed opposition groups have not brought an end to the violence -- a total of 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. Violence escalated again in 1997, 1998 and again last month -- barely six months after the last agreement was signed in the Togolese capital Lomé. Still, ECOWAS rejects British coercive tactics. UN Special Representative Oluyemi Adeniji, a Nigerian national, conceded that Taylor, as RUF's chief backer, played a critically important role in concluding the Abuja peace treaty signed late last year.
It remains to be seen if the United Nations will be able to bring peace to Sierra Leone. Several hundred UN peace-keepers were taken hostage by RUF last year, for example, and have no mandate to intervene militarily on either side of the conflict. The hostage crisis was averted at the last moment only by the arrival of British troops operating outside the UN mandate.
Many suspect that the UN will simply tow the British and American line, as it did in Iraq and the Balkans. The UN appointed a senior British army officer, Brig Gen Alistair Duncan, as United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) chief of staff. Thus the British, in a sense, have returned to "rule" their former colony, at least until a better-equipped UN force can be trusted to carry out peace-keeping tasks. Meanwhile, a political solution to the ongoing crisis in Sierra Leone remains elusive, with presidential and parliamentary elections originally scheduled for February and March postponed indefinitely and tens of thousands of potential voters still on the run.
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