DATE=4/1/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=SIERRA LEONE REBELS (L)
NUMBER=2-260835
BYLINE=JOHN PITMAN
DATELINE=ABIDJAN
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The United Nations says more than 200 rebels
have surrendered their weapons in Sierra Leone. U-N
officials say this is the largest group of combatants
to disarm since last July, when a peace agreement
ended Sierra Leone's eight-year civil war. V-O-A's
John Pitman reports from our West Africa bureau.
TEXT: According to a U-N spokesman in New York, 240
former Sierra Leone Army soldiers turned in their
weapons to U-N peacekeepers near the town of Kabala,
in the northern part of Sierra Leone.
The spokesman said Friday that this was the largest
operation carried out by the U-N peacekeeping force,
known as UNAMSIL, since it started deploying in Sierra
Leone late last year.
Spokesman Fred Eckhard said all of the 240 rebels were
members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, or
A-F-R-C, which seized power briefly in a coup in 1997.
Mr. Eckhard said the rebel unit that had surrendered
was led by a man who called himself "Colonel Savage."
The peacekeepers apparently convinced the rebel leader
to surrender after his men were involved in 10 days of
clashes with another rebel faction.
/// OPT /// The A-F-R-C military government, led by
Johnny Paul Koroma, was ousted just eight months
later, in February 1998, by the West African, ECOMOG,
peacekeeping force. Following their defeat by ECOMOG,
thousands of A-F-R-C loyalists formed a shaky alliance
with the main rebel faction, the Revolutionary United
Front, or R-U-F, and continued to fight a guerrilla
war against the government. However, since the peace
agreement was signed last year, a power struggle
between Mr. Koroma and R-U-F leader Foday Sankoh has
left that alliance in tatters. /// END OPT ///
According to the U-N, the surrender of Colonel
Savage's 240 troops followed the disarming of 60 other
rebel fighters on Thursday. The U-N says the
combatants from both groups turned in assault rifles,
heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades.
U-N spokesman Eckhard says the former combatants will
be transferred to a demobilization camp near the
capital, Freetown. He says they will be accompanied
by another 95 unarmed combatants who turned themselves
in to peacekeepers earlier in the week.
This sudden flood of surrenders comes just days after
thousands of Sierra Leonean students marched in the
streets of Freetown to protest the slow pace of the
disarmament process.
According to government figures, fewer than half of
the estimated 45-thousand combatants in the field have
turned in their weapons. (SIGNED)
Neb/jp/dw/JP
01-Apr-2000 08:47 AM EDT (01-Apr-2000 1347 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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