19 May 2000
Jackson Lauds Nigeria for Positive Role in West African Crisis
(Envoy speaks on way to Liberia) (850) By Jim Fisher-Thompson Washington File Staff Correspondent Lagos, Nigeria -- The Reverend Jesse Jackson, President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright's special envoy for the promotion of democracy in Africa, left Lagos May 19 for Liberia, the next stop on his mission to help end the crisis in Sierra Leone, but not before praising Nigeria for its "willingness" to assume peace enforcement and peacekeeping responsibilities in the neighboring West African nation. At a departure press conference, accompanied by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Howard Jeter, Jackson said Nigeria's acceptance of a major peacekeeping role in Sierra Leone "is good news for the region and world." Recalling his meeting with President Olusegun Obasanjo a day earlier in Benin City, Jackson said, "I had a very good discussion with President Obasanjo on his ideas for re0storing peace to Sierra Leone and ways in which the United States can help those efforts move forward." Emphasizing the importance of West African leadership in getting the peace process back on track in Sierra Leone, Jackson said, "I am thankful for President Obasanjo's commitment to continue working with [Liberia's] President [Charles] Taylor to secure the release of all remaining U.N. hostages." Earlier in the week, Taylor convinced Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels to release about a third of the 500 U.N. peacekeepers they had seized more than a week before. To counter the violence and instability that the Foday Sankoh-led RUF continues to perpetrate in Sierra Leone, Jackson said that Obasanjo said "he would be sending his personal envoy to meet with President Taylor and with President [Blaise] Compaore [of Burkina Faso] to discuss issues related to the restoration of peace and stability in Sierra Leone." Obasanjo, Jackson said, also "indicated a willingness to send additional troops to Sierra Leone to help UNAMSIL [U.N. Mission in Sierra Leone] restore peace and demobilization, and reintegration." Nigeria supplied the bulk of ECOMOG, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Monitoring Group, for two years before being replaced by UNAMSIL peacekeepers last April. Jackson said Obasanjo stipulated, however, that if Nigerian forces were to go back into Sierra Leone under a U.N. mandate, "it would have to be under chapter seven" of the U.N. Charter, which allows troops to have more of a peace-enforcement capability instead of "being target practice for RUF." The Nigerian president also specified that the international community would have to provide logistical support for the troop commitment, Jackson said. Asked how the United States plans to support efforts to bring stability to Sierra Leone, Jackson said the country "is working with the West African leadership, with ECOWAS , ECOMOG, and UNAMSIL ... to try to mobilize help by working with allies to stop further incursions by RUF." Jackson emphasized that while the United States would help with logistical matters, it is U.S. policy to push for a regional approach to the Sierra Leone crisis because there is no security plan that is sustainable unless it is "local and regional" in concept. The United States has logistical personnel discussing possible assistance with Nigerians now, he added, "to stop any further incursions by RUF, [and] to work to make sure that those guilty of atrocities are held accountable." Jackson stressed that the United States wants to make certain that the U.N. peacekeepers taken hostage by RUF are set free. It was RUF, he said, that deliberately broke the Lome Accord. "They had the option to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate voluntarily," which they did not do, he said. Now, said Jackson, "it is very clear from what President Obasanjo was saying that RUF must no longer have the military option" to hold over the head of democracy in Sierra Leone. "The diamond-smuggling, gun-running terrorists must be forced to stop," he said. Obasanjo, Jackson said, suggested that he was prepared to send in as many troops as were needed to defeat and disarm RUF. He spoke the same day that ECOWAS ministers meeting in Abuja authorized a further four battalions of troops from their member nations to be sent to Sierra Leone. Nigerian Defense Minister Theodore Danjuma announced the same day that Nigeria would provide two of those battalions of between 750 and 1,000 men. Asked if he believed Nigeria could afford to send troops to Sierra Leone, on its own, Jackson said that Nigeria, "to be sure, deserves adequate support to carry out this mission." Nonetheless, he also said: "While the international community must do more to support Nigeria in this effort, let me make it clear that it is in Nigeria's interests to have regional security and real stability. No one is safe until all are safe. If RUF is allowed to run amuck and terrorize that democracy, it could do that in neighboring states. So the investment Nigeria made in Sierra Leone, in soldiers and resources," has been well spent. (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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