International Herald Tribune

Wednesday, July 8, 1998

NO COURT TO DETER THE BARBARITY IN SIERRA LEONE

By EMMA BONINO

Brussels - If an International Criminal Court were already in existence, there would be plenty for it to do. Consider Sierra Leone.

At the current Rome conference to found a permanent Court, all agree that the institution is supposed to be a deterrent. Does that imply that it should wait until events become history before acting? I hope not. A strong and independent Court should also be empowered to act on crimes committed before any peace treaty is signed.

Unspeakable crimes against humanity are occurring in Sierra Leone today. The international Community seems largely unaware of wait is going on.

Hundreds of unarmed civilians are being brutally killed and mutilated by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council and the Revolutionary United Front, which were forced from power when West African troops helped to restore the democratically elected president in Sierra Leone last February.

Amnesty International says the atrocities in Sierra Leone are the worst in Africa at the moment. Among witnesses to those atrocities are UN and other international observers, as well as various international missions to the region, including a recent EU-U.S. mission.

Rebel forces have engaged in a horrific campaign to terrorize the population through indiscriminate killings, systematic laceration, mutilation or severing limbs. The victims are men, women and children of all age.

Hospitals in Sierra Leone and neighboring Guinea have registered hundreds of victims of these attacks.

A mother and daughter with right arms amputated, babies with lacerated skulls, pregnant women and old men with debilitating wounds, and young men with both arms missing are common in the hospital wards of Freetown and clinics in refugee camps in Guinea.

Often the inhabitants of entire villages are rounded up and forced to watch the torture and killing of relatives, be it through beating, shooting, eyes being burned out with acid, babies snatched and killed, slashes with machetes, or amputations of arms above the elbow or at the wrist. After such attacks, villagers disperse into dense bushland where many bleed to death or succumb to fatal infections. Those who eventually reach safe areas in Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia have often walked for weeks through tropical bush feeding only leaves and fruit.

Such atrocities are not part of traditional warfare in Africa. They are the result of an orchestrated strategy to terrorize civilians, carried out by troops trained in such barbarous technique.

The systematic pattern of these crimes, as well as the scale of the terror, do not support claims that the rebels are retreating, isolated and beyond control. Field reports indicate that rebel movements could not take place without communication, control and supplies from outside. Crimes on this scale are usually orchestrated.

The international community should rally to find ways of putting an immediate end to violence and abuses against civilians in Sierra Leone.

It is important to provide instruments capable of delivering justice and reconciliation in the country. For Sierra Leone, as in other countries where the functions of state, including justice system, have failed or collapsed, the setting up of an International Criminal Court could be an important step on the road to peace and long-term stability.

For the Court to be effective in such a crisis, it must be empowered, independent and resourced to take action. In other words, t must provide a credible and immediate deterrent.

If the Court's founding conference in Rome does not deliver the goods, perpetrators of large-scale crimes in Sierra Leone and elsewhere will see a green light to continue their foul deeds.

There is also the danger that this crisis, and perhaps others, will be eclipsed and forgotten as the international community tacitly learns to live with crimes of such magnitude.

Sierra Leone reminds us that impunity fuels criminal violence in armed conflicts and rebellions.

The writer is the European commissioner for humanitarian affairs. She contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.