17 May 2000
Holbrooke Calls Sankoh Capture "Positive"
(What happens next is up to the secretary-general, envoy says) (450) By Judy Aita Washington File United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- U. S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke May 17 called the capture of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader Foday Sankoh "a positive development." Holbrooke, the chief U.S. representative to the United Nations, said the RUF leader "is in a position where he is going to be able to be dealt with appropriately and he will not be able to continue the outrageous agreement-breaking ways" that have done "such immeasurable damage to Sierra Leone." U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said that Sankoh was captured around 6 a.m. local time and is now in the custody of the Sierra Leonean police. "Some added to that 'under the auspices of the United Nations.' He is not under the auspices of the United Nations, he is in the custody of the Sierra Leonean police -- period," Eckhard said. Press reports have said that Sankoh, whose RUF continued to hold about 350 U.N. peacekeepers hostage in Sierra Leone, was initially taken to a barracks in Freetown, but was moved after it was surrounded by a mob calling for his death. The U.N. spokesman also said that 93 of the detained peacekeepers (14 Kenyans and 79 Zambians), whose release was arranged by Liberian President Charles Taylor, "arrived in Freetown and appeared to be in reasonably good condition." He added: "We are extremely concerned about reports that the remaining detainees ... may be injured and many require urgent medical assistance. They will receive the necessary care at the Lungi reception center, which has been set up to clothe, feed, and look after the released detainees." The calm of the last few days was shattered by renewed fighting in Port Loko, about 40 kilometers northeast of Freetown, and at a site near the Lungi international airport, Eckhard said. One Nigerian peacekeeper was killed in the attack at Port Loko and six other Nigerians wounded, he noted. Holbrooke, on his way to the Security Council to report on the special mission he headed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told journalists that Sierra Leone is not a metaphor for Africa nor "for all of U.N. peacekeeping. It is a unique situation that should be dealt with on its merits. I cannot tell you how unfair and wrong it is to the people of the entire continent for others to say that what is happening in Sierra Leone is automatically a metaphor for the whole continent." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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