The New York Times

Friday, May 12, 2000

The War in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a difficult place for peacekeepers, as the United Nations has found in recent days. U.N. forces sent to the West African nation to enforce a peace agreement have instead been ordered into battle against rebel forces that defied the accord and are now assaulting Freetown, the capital. To prevail in this fight, and to prevent a new round of indiscriminate killing by the rebels, the U.N. forces must quickly be reinforced with troops from the alliance of West African countries led by Nigeria. Washington and its allies should be generous in providing this regional force with the logistic and financial resources it needs to respond swiftly.

The U.N. was handed what now appears to have been an impossible mission, assigned to keep a false peace. It is clear that the rebels' leader, Foday Sankoh, cynically exploited the July 1999 peace agreement in order to rearm and enrich himself through diamond smuggling. He now appears determined to seize power.

The Nigerians and their West African allies have a strong interest in stabilizing the region. Nigerian troops are also better equipped and better trained than the U.N. forces. Nigeria is West Africa's major power and now its leading democracy. When still a dictatorship, it intervened in Sierra Leone and Liberia, reversing rebel grabs for power.

Support for West African troops should not preclude further aid to the embattled U.N. force. Washington should follow through on its commitment to help transport 3,000 Indian, Jordanian and Bangladeshi troops to bring the U.N. force to its full strength of 11,000 peacekeepers. The objective of these forces must be to convince Mr. Sankoh that a military seizure of power is impossible.

President Clinton is sending Jesse Jackson to the region to try to revive peace talks. As part of that effort, the existing peace agreement will have to be reconsidered. Its central flaws were an amnesty granted to Mr. Sankoh and his confederates for war crimes, and his inclusion in a transitional government in a post that gave him authority over Sierra Leone's lucrative diamond trade. There will be no lasting peace in Sierra Leone until the diamond trade is brought under legitimate control and Mr. Sankoh is held accountable for war crimes.