UN envoy to meet with Sierra Leone parties on implementation of ceasefire
13 November -- An envoy of Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said he intended to enter discussions with Sierra Leonean officials and the rebel army Revolutionary United Front (RUF) about the implementation of the recent ceasefire agreement reached between the two parties.
Oluyemi Adeniji, Mr. Annan's Special Representative for Sierra Leone, spoke to reporters today in Freetown upon his return from Abuja, Nigeria, where the 10-point ceasefire agreement was signed by the Government of Sierra Leone and the RUF at a meeting last Friday.
Prior to Friday's talks with the rebel group, a meeting on 8 November in Abuja between the Coordination Mechanism for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations had recommended that the meeting with the RUF focus exclusively on a ceasefire, and that all other outstanding issues relating to restarting the political dialogue be postponed until after a thorough assessment of progress made in implementing the ceasefire agreement, according to officials from the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL).
The coordination committee had also emphasized the importance of deploying UN troops throughout Sierra Leone to monitor the ceasefire, and called on ECOWAS to press the RUF to return all the weapons and equipment seized from UNAMSIL.
In other developments, Indian and Jordanian UN peacekeepers have begun to pull out from their positions in Sierra Leone. According to UNAMSIL, the withdrawal will be carried out in three phases, via advance redeployments, to ensure that no vacuum is created that could jeopardize the country's current security situation.
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