Sierra Leone's Amb. Leigh Blames Liberia's President for Fighting
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Correspondent
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Speaking November 2 during a fund-raising
drive for the victims of conflict in Sierra Leone, Ambassador John
Leigh pointed to Liberian President Charles Taylor as the person
largely responsible for the continuing turmoil in his country.
Leigh told an audience of high school students at the U.S. Steel
building in downtown Pittsburgh that the way "to conquer the problem
of conflict is take the profits from the plunderers of diamonds in
Sierra Leone." And the chief plunderer, he said, is Taylor.
Leigh's address, "Sierra Leone: African Conflict - International
Response," was sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh as
part of a November 2-4 fund-raising drive sponsored by the Brother's
Brother Foundation and The Cotton Tree Association. Both
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have collaborated in sending
thousands of books and medical supplies to Sierra Leone in the past
year.
Leigh said, "We need to attack the entrepreneurs of violence" in
Sierra Leone, who are involved in an illegal diamond and arms trade
that is fueling the fighting.
He charged that much of the diamond-producing area of Sierra Leone is
controlled by Taylor's National Patriotic Front forces. "They are
terrible people ... and they use high school students as slave labor
to mine the diamonds," he said. "I'm sure Americans don't want to buy
goods produced by slave labor."
Leigh said it was to "the credit of the Clinton administration that it
has earmarked $60 million to support ECOMOG, the peacekeeping arm of
the Economic Community of West African States, in its efforts to
counter Taylor's forces.
This is an appropriate response by the United States and the three
West African countries that have helped Sierra Leone with troops --
Nigeria, Ghana, and Guinea - Leigh said, because "these people [the
RUF] understand no other language except removal by [military] force."
As well as acknowledging Taylor's role in the turmoil in Sierra Leone,
Leigh praised the Clinton administration for the recently enacted
African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which extends favorable
trade benefits to sub-Saharan nations that reform their economies.
Leigh said, "We're hoping that as soon as this war is over, given our
location, connections, and the fact that Sierra Leone has Africa's
largest anchorage, American companies will be able to do business
there, manufacturing and shipping goods to the United States at a
cost" that will benefit both countries.
Later Leigh addressed faculty, staff, and students at Duquesne
University on the role of NGOs in the rebuilding of Sierra Leone. The
event was sponsored by the Catholic university's Office of
International Affairs.
Leigh recalled that after Sierra Leone was established in 1792 and
inhabited largely by African-Americans, the first NGOs in the nation
were church-related. "There are absolutely no racial hassles in our
country," he said, "thanks to the work of missionaries."
Now, he said, NGOs have an important role to play in the conflict in
Sierra Leone, including:
-- helping to fight the "plunderers," who use slave labor to mine
diamonds illegally and "spread poverty and disease in Africa." NGOs
should make the plunder a legitimate world trade and civil rights
issue, he said, adding that "stolen goods should not be allowed to
enter the commercial stream of law-abiding nations."
-- providing security, because "you can't have development without
it." The U.S. government, he said, should support United Nations
activity in Sierra Leone, but he said that U.N. peacekeeping
operations must change. Now peacekeepers are provided by poor
countries who go there for the purpose of earning income from the
government while the troops are unpaid, Leigh said, and the U.N.
command structure also is too complex to impose peace.
The U.N.'s method works when there is a peace to keep, he said, but in
places like Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Congo, "you have to make
peace because the rebels are not going to walk away from $300 million
a year in diamonds. We need a better approach to peacekeeping, and I
suggest we consider reputable international security forces to back
the U.N. Without security, warehouses will be looted, volunteers
killed, goods will be stolen, people assassinated, and there will be
general chaos."
-- creating "economic activity" in the West African nation to lure
back many of the 150,000 Sierra Leoneans who have moved to the United
States.
But the main role of NGOs, Leigh said, should be "to work with
Liberians to establish a responsible government there." Until then,
Liberia, led by Charles Taylor, will remain "a criminal organization"
bent on robbing and destabilizing its neighbor.
(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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