31 January: Former Sierra Leonean soccer star Ishmail Dyfan died early Wednesday morning in Boston hospital, where he had been undergoing treatment for colon cancer. He was 44. Dyfan played for Freetown's East End Lions from 1973-1980, before embarking on an international career with Ivory Coast's African Sports d'Abidjan and Egypt's Arab Contractors. He returned to Sierra Leone in 1987 to play for Sierra Fisheries, then from 1988-1990 was player-coach for St. Edward's. In 1990, he took over the reins of Mount Aureol. Following the 1997 AFRC military coup, Dyfan coached the Wallidan Football Club in the Gambia, but returned home in 1998 to lead Sierra Leone's national team, the Leone Stars. The funeral is set for this weekend.

President Kabbah has formally asked Parliament to delay presidential and parliamentary elections due for February and March, Justice Minister and Attorney-General Solomon Berewa said on Wednesday. "President Kabbah has sent a letter to Parliament for a six-month extension," Berewa (pictured right) told reporters in Freetown. He said the president's decision was based on a letter written last week chairman of the National Electoral Commission, Walter Nicol, informing him that the current election timetable was "unrealistic."  "The Electoral Commission stated many reasons why it is not practicable now to hold an election," Berea said. "Some of these reasons are connected with the war situation that is now prevailing in Sierra Leone. And of course the funding for the election, the logistics." The NEC also noted that the disarmament process had not been completed. The lack of funds has also meant that voter registration lists, last drawn up for the 1996 elections, have not been updated, and constituency boundaries have yet to be delineated. Meanwhile, Kabbah met Wednesday with parliamentary leaders to explain his decision, VOA correspondent Kelvin Lewis reported. Parliament is expected to debate the resolution next week.

A former Appeal Court judge, Justice Edmond Cowan, was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, defeating Deputy Speaker Abdul O. Bangura for the post by 41 votes to 26. Justice Cowan succeeds the late Justice Sheku M. F. Kutubu, who passed away earlier this month. 

Sierra Leone and Guinea will set up a military contact group to prevent civilians from being killed when Guinean helicopter gunships attack suspected RUF bases inside Sierra Leone, presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai said on Wednesday. "The group will monitor the situation around border villages in the north to ensure that lives and properties of innocent citizens are not endangered," Kaikai told reporters in Freetown. Recent cross-border reprisal raids by the Guinean military in northern Sierra Leone have left a number of civilians dead or wounded, and forced many others to flee their homes. "Revolutionary United Front rebels have been operating from Sierra Leone into Guinea and this has prompted the reaction of the Guineans," Kaikai said, adding "We ask for the understanding of the public and support in dealing with these unfortunate happenings, bearing in mind the Guinean government is firmly behind the people of Sierra Leone in the pursuit of peace." Meanwhile, Reuters quoted a source described as a senior advisor to Britain's defence ministry, who alleged that RUF attacks into Guinea were being backed by the Liberian government. "I don't think there is any doubt that there has been a concerted move. The RUF backed by (Liberian President) Charles Taylor could push forward small but effective units into Guinea," said the source, who was accompanying British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon on a two-day visit to Sierra Leone.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is hoping by the end of the week to begin relocating tens of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees placed at risk by new fighting along Guinea's southern border to a new refugee camp at Kuntaya, 82 kilometres north of Kissidougou, the UNHCR's country representative in Guinea said on Wednesday. "We hope that once we start moving, starting with the camp of Nyaedou, space will be created for refugees to leave the most dangerous places to this new camp, and we hope to do that for other camps in the region." Chris Ache told the BBC. Ache said the security situation around the Nyaedou camp, only 17 km. north of the embattled town of Gueckedou, had deteriorated to the point where some UNHCR implementation partners had refused to go there to distribute food. "(Agencies) had to physically look for volunteers and physically do this food distribution in that camp," he said. "Partners were afraid because of the persistent...attacks in these areas." Fighting in the area is still preventing aid agencies from reaching some 250,000 refugees and displaced persons stranded in the elongate of Gueckedou, more commonly known as the "parrot's beak," Ache added. Meanwhile, the UNHCR is expressing concern over what Ache called a "new phenomenon" in the Guinean capital: Many of the refugees who have left the camps for Conakry are refusing to be repatriated to Sierra Leone. "Some have gone to Sierra Leone and have come back to the country," Ache said. "And it’s creating new problems for us in Conakry, because they say that they prefer to remain in Guinea even though they left their camps. They left because of the insecurity in those camps, and we just hope that if we have a new site that they’re able to go there to the new site away from the border areas where the fighting is taking place."

ECOWAS Executive Secretary Lansana Kouyate (pictured left) arrived in Conakry on Wednesday for talks with Guinean President Conte on how to implement an ECOWAS decision to deploy 1,796 West African peacekeepers along the country's volatile southern borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia. Meanwhile, the Pan African News Agency (PANA) quoted ECOWAS sources as saying the deployment of an advance team might have fallen behind schedule due to a delay in appointing a force commander. The advance team was to have been in place by January 27. The commander is expected to come from Nigeria, which will be the largest troop contributor. Smaller contingents will be provided by Mali, Niger and Senegal. Nigerian Defence Spokesman Brigadier-General Godwin Ugbo told PANA a force commander had been chosen and was awaiting appointment by the ECOWAS heads of state and government. "Hopefully, he will be confirmed before Friday," Ugbo said.

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon visited the Benguema Military Training Centre Wednesday, where British troops are training soldiers for the restructured Sierra Leone Army, then flew by U.N. helicopter to Masiaka where he met with Sierra Leonean troops in the field. Hoon will return to Britain on Thursday.

30 January: Presidential and parliamentary elections due to be held in February and March respectively will be postponed due to insecurity in the country, Justice Minister and Attorney-General Solomon Berewa (pictured right) told Reuters on Tuesday. "The Electoral Commission has told the president that they are not able to conduct the elections now because some parts of the country are not accessible due to the war," Berewa told the Reuters news agency. He added that the National Electoral Commission (NEC) also lacked the estimated $23 million it would take to fund the poll. The government's announcement was not unexpected: In October, President Kabbah said he would seek to delay the elections under Article 49(2) of the constitution, which provides that if Sierra Leone is in a state of war involving its physical territory, and the president considers it is not practicable to hold elections, Parliament may extend the president's term for up to six months at a time. A United Nations Security Council mission which visited Sierra Leone last year reported broad agreement among civil society groups, U.N. agencies and regional leaders that Sierra Leone's elections could not be held on schedule. There is less agreement, however, on what form that delay should take, with some civil society groups and opposition politicians backing calls for an interim government of national unity. On Sunday, exiled UNPP leader Dr. John Karefa-Smart suggested the convening of a national conference which would elect an interim executive council to govern the country, and appoint a group of international experts to draw up a new constitution. And on Monday, NUP leader John Benjamin told the BBC that an interim caretaker government was "the way forward" for Sierra Leone.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed Alan Doss, a British national, as Deputy Special Representative of UNAMSIL, a U.N. spokesman said in New York. Doss, an expert in U.N. development activities, will work as deputy to Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Sierra Leone. Another Deputy Special Representative, Behrooz Sadry of Iran, will continue to assist in the overall political leadership, operations and management of UNAMSIL, the spokesman said. Doss is currently Director of the U.N. Development Group Office, which brings together the U.N.'s development agencies and is headed by an Executive Committee comprising the heads of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Food Programme (WFP). Prior to this, Doss was Director of UNDP's European Office in Geneva, during which time he served as UNDP's representative to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon left London for Freetown on Tuesday, where he will meet with British troops engaged in training Sierra Leonean soldiers and see for himself conditions in the country, the Ministry of Defence said. Hoon will meet with Brigadier Jonathan Riley, the commander of British forces in the country, and will reaffirm Britain's support for the Sierra Leone government in a meeting with President Kabbah. The defence secretary will also inspect newly-trained army units trained by British forces, and will visit a school for amputee victims. He is due to return to Britain on Thursday. 

Liberian President Charles Taylor said Monday his government would seek to improve relations with the United States, strained since allegations surfaced last year that the Liberian government was involved in the illegal arms-for-diamonds trade in violation of U.N. sanctions, and was actively supporting Sierra Leone's RUF rebels. "We will work to expand the level of contact and collaboration between Liberian and U.S. government officials," Taylor said in his annual address to the Liberian legislature. Last week Taylor's press secretary, Reginald Goodridge, told the BBC his country was dropping a reciprocal travel ban on U.S. officials as an overture to the new U.S. administration. Goodridge acknowledged that Liberia "had its share of problems with the former Clinton administration," but suggested his government was seeing "positive signals" that the change of government in Washington might provide an opportunity for the two countries to improve relations. Earlier this month, however, the U.S. introduced a motion in the United Nations Security Council which would impose sanctions on Taylor's government for its alleged support for the RUF and for rebel groups in Guinea —  charges Liberia continues to deny. The Sierra Leone government announced last week its support for the sanctions resolution, and has indicated it would like to see the international pressure on Liberia ratcheted up. A diplomatic source told the Sierra Leone Web that Sierra Leone was pursuing a two-pronged approach: first, a request for the extradition from Monrovia of former RUF field commander Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie "based on (Liberian Foreign Minister Monie) Captan's public statement to the effect that we had not requested the repatriation or deportation of (Bockarie) and others," and second, "to make sure that ECOWAS does not save Taylor by suggesting regional dialogue instead of sanctions." Intensive contacts are underway on both strategies both at the United Nations and in the sub-region, the source said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has "dramatically scaled down relief efforts in Guinea" and withdrawn most of its staff from the town of Kissidougou after new reports of fighting late Sunday and Monday near the town of Gueckedou, a spokesman for the agency said in Geneva. The fighting has frustrated hopes for quick access to an estimated 180,000 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and 70,000 displaced Guineans stranded in the volatile "parrot's beak" region, along the country's border with Sierra Leone. The spokesman expressed concern over reports from former refugees of beatings and torture by the Guinean army in the Gueckedou area. "There are also allegations of widespread abuses by Sierra Leonean rebels against desperate refugees who have resorted to walking back home through rebel-infested border areas," he said. "Refugees who have crossed areas of Sierra Leone controlled by the RUF rebels speak of rape, abduction and murder." The volatile situation, he said, had turned the relief effort into "an extremely risky ad hoc venture." Meanwhile, the UNHCR is continuing work on two new camp sites  —  at Borea, 62 kilometres north of Kissidougou, and at Kuntaya, 82 kms north of Kissidougou —  where the agency hopes to relocate refugees from the Gueckedou and "parrot's beak" regions. By the end of the week, the UNHCR will begin relocation convoys from the endangered Nyaedou camp, which is only 17 kilometres north of Kissidougou. Nyaedou currently houses some 30,000 refugees. On Monday the UNHCR airlifted 8,100 jerrycans, 7,000 blankets and 500 rolls of plastic tarpaulins to Conakry from Copenhagen, Denmark. The supplies are destined for the new camps. Meanwhile, tensions between Liberia and Guinea, who accuse one another of supporting rebel insurgencies in their respective territories, show little sign of abating. Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea, who last week accused the Guinea army of cross-border shelling near the Lofa County town of Foya, alleged Tuesday that Guinean helicopter gunships had bombed a Liberian customs post at Soloba and a market in Foya, killing ten persons. "That has been an area of concentration of the attack in recent weeks," Chea told the BBC. "We don’t know why, but they have to stop it because Liberia is doing everything to ensure that peace comes to the region. We have no other interest in the region other than to see peace. But this wave of constant unprovoked attacks against our territory will not be condoned. It’s a matter of time before we get fed up." Chea said Liberia was pursuing the matter through diplomatic channels, but that Liberian troops along the border area had been instructed "to stand by and if possible bring down the first helicopter that flies through our airspace."

29 January: The joint UNAMSIL - RUF Contact Group is expected to meet at Makeni on Monday to discuss the situation around Mange, and the possible deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in the area, according to a UNAMSIL statement. On Saturday two RUF officials, Colonel Alfred Morlu Jimmy, a member of the RUF Contact Group, and Major Mohamed Gibril Sesay, commander of the Fourth RUF Brigade at Magburaka, handed over a letter to the commander of the Bangladeshi battalion, BANBATT-2, addressed to the chairman of the UNAMSIL Contact Group and requesting the meeting. Meanwhile, UNAMSIL's Russian Aviation Unit and Force Military Information Staff conducted an aerial reconnaissance mission of the Daru - Segbwema - Pendembu Road as well as the Manowa Ferry site on Saturday. The road was found to be "in reasonably good condition with no major obstacles which could impede vehicular traffic," UNAMSIL said. Two filled-in trenches were observed on the stretch of road between Segbwema and Mobai. No checkpoints were observed along the road. The ferry was found to be operational by means of rope, the statement said, adding that no evidence of RUF personnel or traffic was seen at the ferry site. Also on Saturday, U.N. military observers based in Kenema conducted a patrol to the town of Giehun. No RUF presence was observed in the village. The patrol established that the RUF was present in the town of Lalehun, and that unarmed RUF members frequently visit Giehun, the UNAMSIL statement said, noting that the RUF members were not in conflict with the local CDF forces.

Polio immunisations for 18 West African countries exceeded expectations last year, with 76.9 million children vaccinated in the region between January and November, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday. In Sierra Leone, 842,817 children were immunised, a number UNICEF said fell 21.9 percent short of its target due to the security situation in the country. 

The interim leader of Sierra Leone's opposition National Unity Party, John Oponjo Benjamin, called Monday for an interim caretaker government to be set up when President Kabbah's term in office expires in February. "An interim government is the way forward for this country," Benjamin told the BBC Network Africa programme. "They can start off with looking at the political parties that are presently in Parliament plus the civil societies that have been involved in the process of establishing democracy in our country. They have a lot to contribute in view of the fact that they are in touch with people on the ground." Benjamin, who last month acknowledged his role in the 1992 NPRC coup which overthrew the government of then-President Joseph Saidu Momoh, served briefly as the NPRC's Chief Secretary of State. Then, in 1993, he was appointed Secretary-General of the NPRC government. Benjamin is currently Executive Director of African Information Technology Holdings, an information technology company which operates in Freetown and the Gambia. He is also an announced candidate for president, and in Monday's interview he criticised the government for having a leadership he said was "far removed from the people," and accused government leaders of having "virtually given their responsibility over to foreign countries." Benjamin suggested he would do things differently. "I have the situation where I don’t surrender my responsibility to foreign countries or foreign organisations who do what I am supposed to do," he said. "If U.N. have to come they will meet a programme there they will fit in. If Britain has to come they will meet a programme they will fit in. They will not tell me what I have to do in my country." Benjamin, who was born 48 years ago in the eastern town of Segbwema, told the BBC his party wanted to "break the people free from the tribal chain that they have been tied down to." Sierra Leone, he argued, should see itself politically in the context of what is happening in the rest of West Africa. "How many of these old parties do you see still in governance? How many of these old people do you see still in governance?," he asked. "This is a generation war we have with these people. And if we don’t free our country from tribal sentiments we go nowhere." Benjamin was elected interim leader of the NUP party following the resignation of Dr. John Karimu in 1997. "I have no doubt that because of the manner in which I have held the party together that I would be elected to be the substantive NUP leader," Benjamin told the Sierra Leone Web on Monday. But as to recent media reports suggesting that his party may, in fact, be coming unraveled, with some high-ranking members reportedly planning to switch allegiances to the ruling SLPP, Benjamin declined public comment on specific individuals, but lashed out against those who might be planning to leave the NUP. "A famous world statesman once said, 'Some people change their party because of their principles; Others change their principles because of their party'," he said. "I would add to this that, 'Some people change their party because they have no principles'." 

The Guinean government has placed five prefectures (provinces) hit by recent insurgent attacks under military administration, the Pan African News Agency (PANA) reported on Monday. According to a decree announced Saturday on state radio and television, President Lansana Conte has appointed gendarmerie officers to administer Gueckedou and Kissidougou, while a naval officer will oversee Macenta. Senior civil servants who previously served as prefects in other areas of the country are being transferred to help administer the prefectures of Kindia and Forecariah. The fighting along Guinea's southern border has put at risk hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and displaced Guineans caught between warring armed groups.

The European Union said Monday it supports initiatives by the United Nations Security Council to "step up pressures on Liberia's President Taylor who, according to the evidence given by the U.N. survey report on Sierra Leone, continues to play a decisive role in the conflict that rages in that country." The communiqué, which was issued in Brussels, said Ambassador Pierre Schori of Sweden announced the EU's position during Thursday's Council debate on the report by a panel of experts, which examined the link between the illicit diamond trade and arms trafficking in Sierra Leone. Sweden currently holds the chairmanship of the 15-member European body. The EU believes "the links between the conflict, arms and diamond trafficking comprise the mainstay of the tragedy the people of Sierra Leone are suffering from," Schori told the Council, adding: "The Revolutionary United Front continues to bank on the illegal trade of diamonds to finance its violent campaign." He charged that U.N. sanctions on the trade in Sierra Leonean rough diamonds and on arms trafficking were violated by the Liberian government. "President Taylor's destabilising scheme also extends to Guinea with dramatic effects on security and the situation of refugees and displaced persons in that country," Schori said. 

Exchange rates for the leone against the U.S. dollar and pound sterling, posted in Freetown on Monday: [Buying / Selling] Standard Chartered Bank: [$] 1700 / 2100 [£] 2400 / 2800. Commercial Bank: [$] 1500 / 1700. [£] 2220 / 2516. Frandia: [$] 1650 / 2000 [£] 2400 / 2850. Continental: [$] 1700 / 2000 [£] 2400 / 2900.

27 January: The president of Médecins sans Frontières' International Council has called the refugee crisis in Guinea a "worst case scenario," as hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees remain stranded in the country's volatile southern border region. "We do have perhaps a quarter of a million refugees that are trapped," Dr. Morten Rostrup said in a BBC interview. "They don’t have any protection. They don’t have any freedom of movement. They cannot escape. they don’t get any assistance when it comes to food, medicines and other non-food items, and there is an increased tendency of violence in the area." He said the refugees should be moved immediately to safer areas, starting with the 30,000 to 40,000 residents of the Nyaedou camp, which is located only about 15 kilometres north of the embattled town of Gueckedou. Rostrup acknowledged reluctance by the Guinean authorities to move large numbers of refugees further into the country's interior, but warned that the alternative was "an uncontrolled massive movement of people" which would be of no benefit to anyone, including the Guinean government. "So I think it should be possible to try to push the government also to allow for this controlled movement at this point of time," he said. He added that the refugees should be screened before being relocated, but argued that this could be done relatively quickly. "Of course it’s very tricky, and I must say from my perspective as a doctor I can just see people suffering, and I can just imagine what’s going on in the 'parrot’s beak' (on the Sierra Leone border), and we just need to find a solution," he said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in coming under pressure from aid agencies, including the medical charity Medècins sans Frontiéres, to "try and get their act together" and move hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees away from Guinea's troubled southern border area, BBC West Africa correspondent Mark Doyle said on Saturday. "The problem," he said, "is getting permission and so on from the Guinean authorities." Doyle quoted a priest from the area of Guinea's so-called "parrot's beak" region — a strip of land which juts into Sierra Leonean territory where an estimated 250,000 refugees and displaced Guineans are trapped by the fighting — as saying he thought relief agencies, and the U.N. in particular, were being too reticent in taking action. "I know where all the refugees are, I don’t know where the aid agencies are," the priest was quoted as saying. But Doyle noted that the UNHCR, which is the lead agency in the operation to move the refugees, still needed to get the permission of the Guinean government. "They are liable to do what the Guinean authorities tell them to do because it is after all Guinean sovereign territory, and the Guineans are very worried that any large uncontrolled movement of refugees might mask rebel maneuvers of some sort," Doyle said, adding that the vast majority of the refugees had no involvement in the fighting. Doyle said that during his visit to Kissidougou this week he saw "very heavily-armed Guinean convoys" heading south towards Gueckedou, the scene of new fighting at the beginning of the week. "And as well as regular Guinean troops I saw ULIMO people," he said. "These are basically Liberian dissidents. Some of them are of Guinean nationality, but some of them certainly are of Liberian nationality. They certainly speak with Liberian accents. And so the Liberian accusation against Guinea that it is harbouring at least some Liberian dissidents does appear to be true. At the same time, I saw some people who the local people told me were Kamajors. These are the pro-Sierra Leonean government civilian militia, and I’m not quite sure what they’re doing in Guinea, but there certainly are some of them there." Meanwhile, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said Saturday that the agency had been forced to temporarily suspend the distribution of food and other aid to refugees after encountering heavily-armed pro-government militiamen in two of the camps.

26 January: Britain announced Friday that it would extend its programme to train soldiers for the restructured Sierra Leone Army through September of this year. At that point, it is expected that responsibility for long-term training will be taken over by a British-led International Military Advisory and Training Team (IMATT). The announcement, by Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon (pictured right), follows visits to Sierra Leone this month by two high-ranking British military officers. According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Defence, British troops are expected to train some 1,500 additional Sierra Leonean soldiers in a series of six-week programmes conducted at the Benguema Military Training Centre outside of Freetown. In a written reply to the House of Commons, Hoon said that Britain would spend an additional £5 million, and would maintain an operational headquarters in Freetown through the end of the year. To date, over 6,500 Sierra Leonean soldiers have completed the British training course. 

Sierra Leone has formally requested the extradition from Liberia of former RUF battlefield commander Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie, the Associated Press reported. Presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai (pictured left) said Bockarie and his followers were wanted to "join the peace process" in Sierra Leone, but added that it would be determined after their extradition whether they would face a proposed Special Court being set up jointly by Sierra Leone and the United Nations to try those guilty of war crimes committed in the course of the Sierra Leone conflict. Bockarie has lived in Monrovia since he broke publicly with RUF leader Foday Sankoh in December 1999. Earlier this month, he told reporters he planned to return to Sierra Leone to address what he called "the present leadership crisis and vacuum within the RUF," but after the Liberian government announced his departure, he said he had changed his mind. A government spokesman in Monrovia confirmed this week that Liberia was seeking a third country willing to accept the former rebel commander.

Food distribution at Guinea's Nyaedou refugee camp resumed on Thursday after a two-day suspension due to fighting in nearby Gueckedou, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in Geneva. The agency expressed concern, however, about the overall security situation in the region, where conflict has displaced hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and Guinean residents. Armed men showed up at the Nyaedou and Massakoundou refugee camps for a second straight day on Thursday, ignoring the UNHCR's appeal that they respect the civilian nature of the camps. Other individuals who were unarmed but appeared to be members of Guinean militia groups were also present. Gunmen claiming to belong to the Liberian ULIMO-K faction were seen leaving Massakoundou camp with several bags of food meant for the refugees, the spokesman said. Meanwhile, many of the refugees who had arrived at Nyaedou after fleeing 18 border camps, and who had not received food aid in months, demanded a larger ration. Guinean soldiers who escorted the relief personnel had to break up several disputes among refugees upset with their ration, and frustrated with the precariousness of their situation. In both camps, refugees continued to express a desire to return home rather than wait for food aid. "To get home, however, they must reach the Guinean capital of Conakry, more than 600 kilometres to the west. Those few refugees who have successfully reached Conakry, where they can catch a ship home, report having to pay up to $50 for transport and bribes," the spokesman said. He also noted continued resentment among the local Guinean population toward the refugees. In the town of Dabola, some 230 kilometres north of Kissidougou, some residents have protested plans by the Guinean government and the UNHCR to relocate refugees away from the border regions. "Flyers protesting the resettlement plan have been tacked on walls in Dabola, reportedly containing threats against local officials and UNHCR if they continue with the plan," the spokesman said. Both the agency and local Guinean officials are mounting an information campaign to inform local residents the plans and to seek their support. In an eyewitness account from Kissidougou, BBC West Africa correspondent Mark Doyle said Friday that some of the refugees trapped in the border area had not received food aid for five months, and were increasingly falling prey to armed men from all sides in the conflict. "When I visited one of the refugee camps in the border area I saw a hellish situation where terrified people were having fistfights over dwindling food supplies," Doyle said. "Meanwhile, armed militiamen allied to the Guinea government side in the war swaggered around the camp taking some of the already insufficient supplies." As the UNHCR continues to negotiate with Guinean officials on moving the refugees to safer areas, "time is running out for a quarter of a million people trapped between armed men," Doyle said.

The Liberian government said Friday it was lifting a travel ban it imposed last October against U.S. officials and their families. The measure was a response to a similar ban on travel to the United States by Liberian officials after the U.S. accused Liberia of continuing to support Sierra Leone's RUF rebels. Reginald Goodridge, press secretary to President Charles Taylor, told the BBC the move was an overture by the Liberian leader to the incoming administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Last week the United States introduced a resolution in the United Nations Security Council which would impose a global travel ban on senior Liberian officials, but Goodridge insisted the Liberian government was seeing what he called "positive signals" coming out of Washington. "The fact that so far the Bush administration has not made any negative remarks about the Liberian government, the fact that President Bush has said that he will review the executive orders that were put into place by his predecessor, the fact that there will be a change in the State Department —  these are all positive signs," Goodridge said, adding that Liberia was looking for an opening to improve relations with the United States. "We, too, must be seen to be doing something to meet them halfway, because as I’ve said, diplomacy is a matter of reciprocity," he said.

Guinea's ambassador to Sierra Leone apologised Friday for recent attacks on Sierra Leonean territory by Guinean helicopter gunships. In one attack last week on Yelibuya Island, a number of civilians were killed and wounded, several homes destroyed, and many residents were forced to flee. "If the air raids by the Guinean air force did indeed spill over to some towns and villages in Sierra Leone as alleged, I would like to apologise to those Sierra Leoneans affected," Ambassador Mohamed Lamine Sompare told the  Reuters news agency in  Freetown. "Guinea has no intention of bombarding her friendly brothers and sisters in Sierra Leone. We are only chasing those who are making life difficult for those peaceful and law-abiding Sierra Leoneans and Guineans in the two countries." UNAMSIL said Friday the number of persons known displaced by the January 20 Yelibuya Island raid had reached 1,500 at Barlo Wharf and 300 at Barbara. Two Guinean helicopters were said to have been employed in the operation, in which fishing boats and the settlement area on the island came under attack. An exchange took place between approximately ten RUF fighters and the gunships, a UNAMSIL spokesperson said, adding that the gunships used conventional guns and may have also used rockets. 

Liberia threatened retaliation Friday for alleged shelling by the Guinean army into the country's northern Lofa County. "The continuous shelling of Liberian territory by Guinean troops is unacceptable," Defence Minister Daniel Chea told reporters late Thursday. "If Guinea continues the artillery shelling on Liberia, we will do what we can to stop it because we have to protect our government, people and young democracy." Chea alleged the bombardment, which he said targeted the town of Foya, was deliberate. "If you are fighting dissidents, the shelling must land on the rebels and not on Liberia. I do not think the shelling was a miscalculation," he said. The accusations drew an angry response from Guinea's embassy in Monrovia. "The government of Guinea...raised a strong and indignant protest against the accusation made against the Guinea army forces, to have shelled the Liberian city of Foya in Lofa County," the embassy said in a statement. In New York, Guinea's ambassador to the United Nations accused Liberia of supporting cross-border attacks by Guinean insurgents and RUF rebels. The charges and counter-charges are only the latest sign of increased tensions between the two countries, which regularly accuse each other of backing attacks by dissidents on their respective territories. Last week Liberia withdrew its ambassador from Conakry, citing a long list of grievances which extend back to 1999. Caught in the middle are some 250,000 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and displaced Guineans, stranded beyond the reach of aid agencies and trapped by fighting between the Guinean army, rebel forces, and various militia groups.

The Sierra Leone government announced on Thursday the shortening of the curfew by one hour, the Sierra Leone News Agency (SLENA) reported. The curfew now takes effect at midnight, and ends at 5:30 a.m. 

Preliminary findings by a food security assessment mission to two chiefdoms in Pujehun District indicate that the food security situation in Makeple Chiefdom is stable, but have raised concerns about the availability and accessibility of food in Soro Gbema Chiefdom, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. The mission, which included representatives of the WFP and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), recommended the immediate implementation of food-for-agriculture and food-for-work programmes, as well as a school feeding programme. In the Western Area, the WFP has begun monthly distribution of 43 tons of food aid to 6,610 school children at 24 schools through the School Feeding programme. In addition, the WFP distributed food to some 57,000 internally displaced persons at camps in the Western Area during the past week. The agency also distributed food to some 31,700 school children at 65 schools in Bo District, and 8,300 school children in Moyamba District, under the Emergency School Feeding (ESF) programme. The WFP, together with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), conducted a joint assessment of 89 schools in Pujehun District, where CRS will be implementing the ESF programme with the WFP. During the reporting week, the WFP distributed 769 tons of assorted food commodities to 78,370 beneficiaries in Sierra Leone, the agency said.

25 January: Britain and the United States urged the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Liberia as Council met in open session Thursday to debate the report by a panel of experts on the illicit diamond trade and arms trafficking in Sierra Leone. Sanctions Committee Chairman Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh, who presented the report to the Council, said the panel's findings should not end up "on the proverbial shelf, gathering dust," and stressed that all of the recommendations in the report should receive full, due and thorough consideration. While the report named many of those deemed responsible for violating United Nations sanctions and dealing in arms and diamonds with Sierra Leone's RUF rebels, the panel singled out Liberia which, it said, had been "actively supporting the RUF at all levels, in providing training, weapons and related materiel, logistic support, a staging ground for attacks and a safe haven for retreat and recuperation." In response, Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan handed out a 150-page line-by-line rebuttal to the panel's 64-page report. He denied his country was involved in illegal activities, and claimed Liberia was being unfairly demonized by what he called "grossly unsubstantiated allegations."  But in an effort to head off the proposed sanctions, Captan told the Council that Liberia was now prepared to cooperate with the world body. He said the U.N. would be asked to post monitors at the country's airports, seaports and borders, and to oversee Liberia's diamond industry. "On the issue of diamonds, the government of Liberia can neither deny nor confirm that the war in Sierra Leone is financed by the sale of conflict diamonds. What the government of Liberia can confirm is that it is not connected, nor is it a party to the illicit trade of Sierra Leone diamonds," he said, adding: "If we are involved in violating the sanctions, why would we want verification? Why would we want monitoring?" But British Deputy Permanent Representative Stewart Eldon told the Council that Liberia's overtures were "too little too late." Even as Liberia was pledging cooperation, Eldon said, there have been increasing reports of Liberian support for recent rebel attacks in Guinea which have left hundreds dead and displaced hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees. "Liberian actions are threatening the stability of the entire region," Eldon said. "It is high time for the Security Council to act." Britain's position was backed by the United States, which last week formally introduced a draft resolution in the Security Council which would impose such sanctions on Liberia as a ban on Liberian diamond and timber exports, a strengthening of the 1998 arms embargo, the grounding of Liberian-registered aircraft, and a travel ban on senior Liberian officials. "We are concerned that these last minute announcements, in the face of imminent council action, are a calculated ruse designed to divide the Security Council rather than to signal any genuine change of policy," said Deputy U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham (pictured right). "The steps announced thus far are unconvincing and not sufficient." French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte also voiced his country's support for the resolution, saying "too many promises have been made in the past for us to settle for mere oratory" from the Liberian government. But Levitte said France preferred that a time limit be placed on embargoes and that the criteria for lifting sanctions should be clearly spelled out. He said his country preferred to see a gradual imposition of the sanctions beginning with a diamond embargo, with other sanctions to be applied in stages if at all. Russia and Ukraine also criticized the report, and accused the panel of exceeding its mandate in proposing remedies and recommending sanctions. Russia has expressed opposition to the diamond certification system, while Ukraine objected to references to arms smuggling by Ukrainian nationals. Perhaps the most vociferous attack on the report was made by Gambian Ambassador Baboucarr-Blaise Jagne, who said he was "flabbergasted" by the report's "malicious allegations" against his country. "What is the motive behind these baseless allegations," Jagne demanded. "Is there a hidden agenda to mount a smear campaign against the Gambia?" The report did not, in fact, name the Gambian government, but noted that Gambian diamond exports to Belgium averaged over $100 million a year between 1996 and 1999. Gambia produces no diamonds of its own, and industry sources were quoted as saying that 90 percent of the exported gems were likely "conflict diamonds" from Sierra Leone. A vote on the sanctions resolution is not expected for some weeks, but Russia, Mali, China and Ukraine all expressed strong reservations over the panel's recommendations.

Sierra Leone's permanent representative to the United Nations told the Security Council Thursday that the findings of a U.N. panel of experts of Liberian backing for the RUF was "credible," and said his country backed a draft resolution which would impose sanctions on the Liberian government. "Against the background of the painful events of the past several years, the revelations contained in the report...and the serious humanitarian crisis now emerging along the borders of the Mano River Union states, we are compelled to say, enough is enough," Ambassador Ibrahim M'baba Kamara told the Security Council. He said Sierra Leone concurred with the main findings of the panel, and in particular with the panel's conclusion that Liberia was actively involved at all levels in providing support for the RUF. "In this regard we concur with the panel that the Security Council should take effective and appropriate mandatory measures to deal with this serious threat to international peace and security," Kamara said. The ambassador referred to the thousands of displaced Sierra Leoneans unable to return to their homes due to conflict while, he said, Liberia was continuing to trade in diamonds and arms with the rebel group in violation of U.N. sanctions. "Some delegations say sanctions should not hurt innocent people of Liberia. We agree," he said. "But for ten years weapons derived from the illicit trade in our diamonds, mainly through Liberia, have been used to kill and maim thousands of our own people. Sierra Leoneans have lives too. We have lost revenue that could have been used for social services for the benefit of our people." Following the Security Council debate, Deputy Permanent Representative for Political Affairs Ambassador Sylvester Rowe (pictured left), told reporters that Sierra Leone was satisfied with the Council proceedings. "In spite of the refutation of some of the revelations in that report, we feel that the report has exposed a whole lot of things that have been going on between Liberia and the RUF, and that it has served a purpose," Rowe said. "Representatives of states have a right to deny whatever is claimed or alleged in the report. We feel that it has served a purpose, because Liberia, for the first time, has come to the United Nations to explain its position." Rowe suggested that the Liberian government had announced it was breaking ties with the RUF only to ward off U.N. sanctions. "That’s why I said that the report has served a purpose," he said. "We feel that they are doing this to forestall action by the Security Council in taking punitive action against them for what they have doing all along in support of the RUF."

Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees at the Nyaedou camp, 15 kilometres north of the Guinean town of Gueckedou expressed "fear, frustration, and desperation to get home," when they met with UNHCR representatives on Wednesday, AllAfrica.com reporter Ofeibea Quist-Arcton told the BBC. Aid workers pulled out of the camp on Tuesday after the sound of fighting was heard coming from the direction of Gueckedou. "(The refugees) feel that Nyaedou is not a safe area, and they were saying to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representatives who went to the camp yesterday, Wednesday, that they need to be moved and they want to be moved quickly, and they said they don’t want to be at a new safe site, they all want to go home —  even to Sierra Leone or Liberia," said Quist-Arcton, who accompanied the UNHCR team to the camp. She added that the UNHCR's Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Abou Moussa, told the refugees that they would have the option of being repatriated or moved to safer areas of Guinea, but that it would take time. Quist-Arcton told the BBC's Network Africa programme that conditions at Nyaedou camp were generally good. "I was surprised at how many of the refugees looked reasonably well fed and healthy, although there were a lot of sickly babies tied to their mothers’ backs," she said. "There was a little market, there was a clinic, there was a school. I saw a tailor, and there was even a project: one centre for gender-based violence." Some of the refugees had been at the camp for as long as eight years, Quist-Arcton noted, and had settled until the latest trouble along Guinea's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia. She said the situation in the area appeared to have calmed since Tuesday, but that the refugees were still tense. All, she said, now felt unwelcome by the local population, and many complained they were being targeted by local Guinean soldiers and civilians who accused them of being rebels. Quist-Arcton said the refugees were being recruited by Kamajor militiamen from Sierra Leone, who were apparently fighting alongside the Guinean army. "(The Kamajors) are going into Nyaedou camp and trying to recruit and enroll refugees, including children," she said. "Some refugees say they’ve been told that they’ll be offered safe passage back to Sierra Leone in exchange for serving for the militia groups." The UNHCR, Quist-Arcton said, expressed concern that the presence of militia groups in the camps would lead to the refugees being targeted by the rebel forces. "So they’re saying to people, 'don’t let yourselves be recruited, even if they promise you safe passage'," she said. "'We will get you home if that’s what you want to do, but don’t let yourself be fooled by anyone'."

24 January: Guinean helicopter gunships have reportedly launched new attacks against suspected rebel positions north of Kabala, Sierra Leone's Senior Assistant Police Commissioner, Abu Kamara, told reporters in Freetown on Tuesday. The report has not been independently confirmed. Meanwhile, 800 new internally-displaced persons have arrived at Barlo Wharf since Monday following Friday's reported attack on Yelibuya Island by a Guinean helicopter gunship. According to a UNAMSIL statement, eleven of the civilians who arrived wounded were evacuated to the government hospital at Lungi, while four others who were seriously wounded were airlifted to Freetown for medical treatment by UNAMSIL. Some of the victims had suffered both shrapnel wounds and burns, the statement said. 

Sierra Leone's presidential election, which is due to be held after President Kabbah's five-year term expires next month, may have to be delayed because of a lack of funds and continued instability in the country, National Electoral Commission chairman Walter Nicol told Reuters on Tuesday. "The electoral commission needs a total of about $23 million," Nicol said. "The government of Sierra Leone should provide half of that amount and we are looking to foreign donors for the rest, but they are reluctant because of insecurity in the country." Under the constitution, presidential elections are to be held within three months of the expiration of the president's term. The constitution also provides, however, that "if Sierra Leone is at war in which the national territory is physically involved, and the president considers that it is not practicable to hold elections," that Parliament has the option to extend the president's term, but that "no such extension shall exceed a period of six months at any one time." Last October, President Kabbah told a United Nations Security Council mission that he planned to organise the elections toward the end of 2001, and in a BBC interview shortly afterward suggested that he would be prepared to ask for only a single six-month extension. But in an address to the nation last month, the president said that the holding of elections this year would be linked to an improved security situation in the country.

Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan met in New York Wednesday with Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh, the chairman of the United Nations Security Council's Sierra Leone Sanctions committee. The meeting took place on the eve of a public Security Council debate on the report by a panel of experts, which documents the link between the illicit diamond trade and arms trafficking in Sierra Leone. The report, which was submitted to the Sanctions Committee last month, accuses Liberia of sanctions-busting and of "actively supporting" Sierra Leone's RUF rebels at all levels —  a charge Liberia denies. Last week, the United States formally introduced a draft resolution which would impose sanctions on Liberia until President Charles Taylor's government "has ceased its support for armed rebel groups of neighbouring countries, in particular its support for the RUF," and agreed to implement U.N. resolutions banning arms sales to Liberia and imposing a global ban on the sale of Sierra Leonean rough diamonds. Following his meeting with Chowdhury, Captan told reporters that Liberia was prepared to cooperate with the Council in order to head off the sanctions. "I don't think punitive sanctions should be the first response of the international community to this problem. I don't think that's going to solve the problem," he said. "What I believe is that the U.N. should say, 'Liberia, you've said you are willing to cooperate...let us take you up on that.' ...You have the option of last resort to impose sanctions." Captan claimed that Liberia had not yet seen any evidence of diamond dealing by Taylor or senior Liberian officials. "We feel Liberia is being demonized," he said. "We believe this matter is far more complicated than people assume it to be, and we believe there has to be far more of an objective investigation into what has happened." He said Liberia was prepared to allow the United Nations to post monitors at its airports, seaports, and borders, and to allow the U.N. to oversee the diamond trade in Liberia, including a new certification system to curb the sale of so-called "conflict diamonds." A diplomatic source told the Sierra Leone Web late Wednesday that Captan had apparently persuaded the Council to defer action on the sanctions resolution until after the arrival in New York of a ministerial-level ECOWAS delegation during the first week in February. "It appears that Mali is trying to develop an ECOWAS position on the Liberian issue," the source said, adding: "We expect many speakers, including the Gambia and Burkina Faso, to defend themselves in tomorrow's debate. The ECOWAS delegation will also be discussing the deployment of ECOWAS military observers along the Guinea-Liberian border."

Some 180,000 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees stranded without assistance in Guinea's "parrot's beak" region risk being drawn ever deeper into the escalating border conflict as dissidents move into the refugee camps, many of which have been abandoned by aid workers. "There is an element of militia presence in the camps, which is extremely worrisome, as it could make them a target. It is something we have not seen before," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Peter Kessler told Reuters, adding: "We absolutely have to preserve the civilian nature of the refugee camps." In addition, Kessler said, an estimated 70,000 Guineans had been displaced by the fighting. "They've not only been forced from their huts, they've been forced off their land, so their coping mechanisms have gone," he said. Kessler said the growing instability in Guinea had forced some Sierra Leonean refugees to flee back into rebel-held parts of Sierra Leone. "Basically we're seeing a breakdown of law and order," he said, adding that several hundred of the refugees were known to have made their way to the northern town of Kabala. Kessler said last week that 800 refugees were reported to have reached Kabala, but a Western source who visited the town told the Sierra Leone Web that as of the end of the week "the refugee count in Kabala was 480, give or take an orphan or two." Meanwhile, Guinea is reportedly seeking clarification from ECOWAS over the mandate of a 1,696-member West African force expected to be deployed shortly in the border region. "The Guinean government, as I understand it, is still seeking clarification of...what exactly are they going to do," BBC West Africa correspondent Mark Doyle said on Wednesday. "Are they going to fight the rebels who are clearly attacking southern Guinea? Where are they coming from? Will they arrange the Sierra Leonean and Liberian governments to sort things out first, or will they come in guns blazing? —  which is perhaps unlikely, but the Guineans still are seeking clarification about what they will do and how effective they might be. And so far, all that we’ve had is groups of senior soldiers doing reconnoiters and trying to find out what the situation is, and as yet no concrete force on the ground."

Parliament adjourned in disorder Wednesday after an SLPP-backed motion to delay the election of a new House Speaker to replace the late Sheku M. F. Kutubu resulted in a 31 - 31 tie, VOA correspondent Kelvin Lewis reported. Pandemonium broke out when the acting speaker, A. O. Bangura, ruled in favour of the motion, and opposition parliamentarians accused the ruling SLPP party of trying to manipulate the election process. "I believe a travesty of democratic principles, and a rape of the aspirations of the people has just been committed," said NUP leader Ramadan Dumbuya, who argued that under parliamentary rules a tie vote meant that the motion should have failed. But the majority leader, S. B. Marah, disagreed. "He is chairman, and whenever you have a tie the chairman decides," Marah said. "That’s it. He has no interest." SLPP parliamentarian Ansu Kaikai told the VOA that the ruling party had pushed for the postponement because it hadn't yet settled on whom to back for the post. "The SLPP doesn’t have an official candidate for speaker here," he said.

RUF commanders from Lunsar met Monday with the UNAMSIL Sector 1 commander at Port Loko, UNAMSIL said on Wednesday. The two sides discussed the U.N. force's plans to send a patrol to Lunsar on January 31, proposed repairs to the Kumrabai Bridge, a guarantee of security for non-governmental organisations operating in the area, and the proposed establishment of a joint monitoring group to oversee activities of the various factions in the Sierra Leone conflict. The group could include representatives from the RUF, the Sierra Leone Army, and UNAMSIL, the statement said. The four RUF commanders were named as Colonel Moleski Mohamed Kallon, Lieutenant-Colonel Kodjo, Colonel Kamara and Major Daiki. Meanwhile, ten CDF militiamen, including two child combatants, were disarmed at the Wilberforce Barracks on Tuesday, UNAMSIL said. The two children were handed over to Caritas in Freetown.

A Sierra Leonean parliamentarian has been elected to the 14-member governing Bureau of the ECOWAS Parliament, the regional body said in a statement. Dr. Alex M. Koroma of the opposition National Unity Party was elected to a one-year term as Second Parliamentary Secretary during the Parliament's inaugural meeting in Abuja. A Malian, Professor Ali Nouhoum Diallo, was elected as Speaker. Each of the 16 ECOWAS member states is guaranteed five seats in the Parliament, with the remaining 40 seats allocated on the basis of population. Nigeria has 35 members, Ghana eight and Ivory Coast seven. Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Senegal have six members each, while Sierra Leone, Benin, Cape Verde, the Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Togo each have five representatives.

23 January: Liberian President Charles Taylor pledged Tuesday he would resign if a U.N. panel of experts investigating the illicit diamond trade and arms trafficking in Sierra Leone could prove allegations he is helping the RUF to smuggle diamonds. "I have informed the Liberian legislature and the people of Liberia that in the event that this is found to be true, I shall resign my position as president," Taylor said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan which was read over Liberian radio. Taylor challenged the U.N. to either verify the panel's findings or to exonerate his government.  The Liberian president also called on the U.N. to establish a "blue ribbon panel" to investigate his personal finances, and that if the panel found that he was benefiting from the illegal diamond trade he would resign as president. "In the event that it is determined that I own large personal funds in any foreign accounts, the information should be made public and the funds confiscated and transferred to the Liberian people," he wrote, adding that he had waived "all rights of nondisclosure to all banking institutions." Taylor argued that the movement of large sums of money would necessarily involve cash, cheque or bank transfers which would leave a paper trail. It was reasonable to assume, he said, that if he were involved in diamond smuggling then the United Nations should be able to prove it. The letter was read Tuesday morning during a popular radio call-in talk show in which two presidential spokesmen, John Whitfield and former Deputy Information Minister Milton Teahjay, appeared to defend Taylor's position.

There has been renewed fighting near the Guinean town of Gueckedou, aid workers said on Tuesday. Insurgents first attacked the town in early December, in one of a series of cross-border raids into southeastern Guinea since last September which has displaced hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and Guinean residents. U.N. aid workers at the Nyaedou refugee camp, ten kilometres north of Gueckedou, reported hearing "heavy exchanges of fire" Tuesday coming from the direction of the town, BBC West Africa correspondent Mark Doyle said. "Aid workers say that they’ve seen truckloads of Guinean soldiers heading towards Gueckedou from the general area of Kissidougou, which is to the north of Gueckedou, and one can only assume that they’re going to try and rout the insurgents," he told the BBC Focus on Africa programme. Doyle said the current military situation in the area remained unclear. "The whole situation is quite chaotic in that border area," he said. "It’s undoubtedly one of the most dangerous areas in the world because of the different warring factions from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea who are operating there, including of course the Guinean army who are trying to protect their territory from these attacks. But it’s complicated by the fact that there are militias loosely allied to the Guinean army: a Liberian dissident faction known as ULIMO-K for example, and even some Sierra Leonean traditional militiamen known as Kamajors in the area according to various reliable reports." United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Peter Kessler told Reuters that UNHCR staff pulled out of the Nyaedou camp when they heard the sound of machine-guns and heavy weapons fire coming from Gueckedou. "Just as we began to get access, we have had to withdraw again," Kessler said. "There seems to be, at least in part, a determined effort to isolate civilians from humanitarian aid." He expressed concern for some 30,000 refugees housed at a camp 30 kilometres north of Gueckedou, many of whom had already fled camps in the so-called "parrots beak" area of Guinea, along the country's border with Sierra Leone and Liberia. "Some of the refugees are frenzied, they don't know where to turn," he said.

A Liberian government spokesman acknowledged Tuesday that former RUF field commander Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie was still in Monrovia despite a previous announcement that he had departed from the country, but he insisted that Liberia was not to blame. "Mr. Sam Bockarie is here, but not on account of anything that the Liberian government has done, as it has been rumoured that we are harbouring him or we are having him under any type of duress or anything like that," Reginald Goodridge told the Voice of America. "He is in Monrovia. He’s a free man, has been a free man here over the past years since the United Nations and the international community acquiesced with his coming here as a means of preventing a breakdown in the Lomé peace process in Sierra Leone." Earlier this month Bockarie announced that he was returning to Sierra Leone to rejoin the RUF, but in a Washington Post interview last week he said he now had no plans to leave Liberia. Goodridge, who is press secretary to President Charles Taylor and also deputy minister of public affairs, brushed aside a suggestion that Liberia might hand Bockarie over to the authorities in Freetown due to his activities in the RUF. "We don’t know if he’s a wanted man," Goodridge said. "This is my first time hearing of this. In terms of the matter of expelling him, I think that Liberia has asked him to leave, which is in a sense an expulsion. There is no official communication from the Sierra Leone government asking for him, and whether he’s a wanted man or not, that is not the concern of the Liberian government." Goodridge insisted that the former rebel commander was in Liberia at the behest of the United Nations and the international community, which had wanted him removed from Sierra Leone to give the peace process a chance to succeed. "Now people are calling for his return," he said. "We are a little bit disappointed, and we believe that some members of the international community have been a little bit hypocritical because they were the ones in the first place that asked us to bring Sam Bockarie here." The spokesman acknowledged that Liberia was engaged in talks with ECOWAS to find a third country willing to accept Bockarie, but he declined to give details. "We don’t want to pre-empt any situation and in so doing bring into the light whatever negotiations are going on," he said. "But rest assured that such discussions are going on, and as soon as a situation is found for the safe conduct of Mr. Bockarie from this country, that will also be made known." Goodridge said Liberia had played an active part in the Sierra Leone peace process, but complained that "we’ve done all of these things and yet this government does not get any credit for trying to help bring peace to Sierra Leone." He dismissed charges, made most recently by a U.N. panel of experts, that the Liberian government was involved in diamond smuggling and arms trafficking in Sierra Leone, and he lashed out at the international community for "threatening to impose crippling sanctions on this country, especially at a time when we are still struggling with our post-war reconstruction." For this reason, Goodridge said, Liberia was disengaging from the peace process in Sierra Leone. "We are not going to use our country as a venue for the passage of RUF personnel again," he said. "We’re not going to use our country as a venue for holding meetings to solve the Sierra Leonean problem. We are going to disengage from the RUF; we are going to disengage from the problem. This is not to say we are not interested in what happens in Sierra Leone. We still want peace to come to Sierra Leone, because peace in Sierra Leone means peace in Liberia." Goodridge noted that while the conflict in Sierra Leone was nearly a decade old, charges of diamond smuggling were only leveled at Liberia in the past two years. "Someone doesn’t like President Charles Taylor out there," he said. "They’re trying to demonize him, they’re trying to discredit him, they’re trying to bring this government down. And all we are saying is that if you are accusing us of doing all of these things, we are going to disengage, we are going to close the border, we are going to protect ourselves and see if this problem is going to be solved. And if it’s not going to be solved, then try and look elsewhere and try to readjust the attitude that we are causing this problem by smuggling diamonds and gun-running."

The Sierra Leone Appeal Court on Monday set aside a High Court judgment against the partly U.S.-owned flour company Seaboard West Africa Ltd., which awarded damages of three billion leones to businessman Eric James, head of James International Enterprises Ltd. The court found for Seaboard on eight of eleven grounds of appeal raised by the company's attorney, Freetown solicitor Abdul Tejan-Cole. "The case of Eric James v. Seaboard has once again restored my faith in the Sierra Leonean judiciary," Tejan-Cole told the Sierra Leone Web. "(The case) is a relatively straight forward case of breach of contract, but from a legal point of view it raises several novel points, including whether a business not registered in Sierra Leone can enforce a contract, the extent of damages to be awarded, etc...The case sends the right signal to foreign businessmen that the laws of Sierra Leone will be interpreted regardless of nationality." James, who is represented by A. F. Serry-Kamal, is expected to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

The rate of return home by Sierra Leonean refugees from Conakry to Freetown by boat is expected to increase with the addition of a second vessel, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday. The MV Fanta and the MV Oberbeck will transport 500 and 350 persons per day respectively, with departures planned every day except Mondays. This will increase the rate of arrival in Freetown from an average of 1,440 to 2,550 per week, a UNHCR statement said. Since late December the UNHCR, and now the International Organisation for Migrations, have helped 4,700 Sierra Leonean refugees return to Sierra Leone by sea. Meanwhile, refugee transit centres in the Freetown area are rapidly filling up, the agency said. After building several extensions to the two existing centres, the UNHCR opened a third centre at Lumpa on Tuesday. The centre will initially accommodate 1,000 persons, but its capacity will rapidly be increased to between 5,000 and 6,000. The two existing centres at Jui and Waterloo currently house 2,265 people. In Geneva, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski expressed concern about the challenges facing the returnees. "Most of the people who are going back on these boats are going back to areas where they never lived before," he told the Voice of America. "In fact they come from areas which are controlled Sierra Leone rebels and they cannot go back home, so they have to be accommodated elsewhere. Considering how difficult he situation is in Sierra Leone, it’s quite a challenge to accommodate these people and put them somewhere where they can live and possibly farm without causing friction with the local population, many of whom are also displaced themselves." Even more desperate, Janowski said, was the plight of those refugees trapped in Guinea's so-called "parrot's beak" region along the Sierra Leone border. "To go back (to Sierra Leone) by land they would have to cross rebel-controlled territory and territories controlled by various militias, and that would be extremely dangerous," he said. "And these people have been as far as we know prevented by government forces from going deeper into Guinea and making it to Conakry." He added that the refugees were being prevented from reaching Conakry by roadblocks manned by pro-government militias which operate on both sides of the Sierra Leone - Guinea border.

22 January: More than a week after the Liberian government announced his departure from the country, former RUF field commander Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie is still in Monrovia and has no plans to leave, the Washington Post reported on Monday. Bockarie, who earlier this month said he would return to Sierra Leone to solve what he called "the present leadership crisis and vacuum within the RUF," told Post reporter Doug Farah that he was operating a diamond mine near Monrovia, and had been given a lumber concession. "I am just a businessman now," he said. "I just want to be left alone here to live my life." The former rebel commander said he had abandoned his dream of returning to fight with the RUF because troops loyal to him would split the rebel group into warring factions. "I want to forget about the war in Sierra Leone, and I am happy here," he said. "My family is here. Where else could I go? I just want to do big business here, so big that next time you see me you will be ashamed." He added that Liberian President Charles Taylor was like his father and would never force him to go. But the Liberian government, facing the prospect of international sanctions over its alleged support for the RUF and for its involvement in the illicit arms-for-diamonds trade, has made no secret of the fact that it would like to see Bockarie's back. "(Bockarie is) a monkey on my shoulder that I'm trying to unload, and I hope we can do it soon," Taylor told the Post. "We are looking for anybody who is prepared to take him. But I will be the first to state that we want to get him out of here yesterday, we want him out sooner than later." Other RUF members residing in Monrovia have apparently left the Liberian capital. Farah quoted sources as saying at least six transport helicopter-loads of RUF combatants, liaison personnel and their families had been flown from Monrovia to Sierra Leone. In addition, several rebel safe houses and the RUF communications centre had also been closed, the sources said. Meanwhile, Liberia's pro-government Monrovia Guardian newspaper quoted a foreign ministry source Monday as saying that while "all the liaison officers and relatives of top brass of the RUF" had departed, Bockarie was still in the Liberian capital. "The continued presence of Sam Bockarie is predicated upon the fact that the RUF commanders in Sierra Leone have refused to allow him entry into areas controlled by the warring factions," the source was quoted as saying, adding that the Liberian government was consulting with ECOWAS to identify a third country willing to accept him. "The government of Liberia has resolved to do all within its powers to clear its name from unfounded allegations that Liberia is supporting the RUF in its war effort in Sierra Leone," the source said. 

Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan will put his country's case against proposed U.N. sanctions to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, when the Council meets to debate the report by a panel of experts on diamond smuggling and arms trafficking in Sierra Leone. The panel has said it found "unequivocal and overwhelming evidence that Liberia has been actively supporting the RUF at all levels" —  a charge Liberia denies. Captan left for New York on Monday.

A Guinean helicopter gunship attacked the Sierra Leonean town of Yelibuya on Sunday, BBC correspondent Sylvester Rogers reported. Residents fleeing the area spoke of some civilian deaths, but no details were available. The Guineans have launched a number of reprisal raids in recent months against Sierra Leone's RUF rebels, who they blame for attacks on Guinean territory.

Liberia and Guinea have continued to trade charges over incursions along their common border, even as aid agencies struggle to assist vast numbers of refugees displaced by recent fighting in southeastern Guinea. In August 1999, thousands of Sierra Leoneans refugees were among those forced to flee when insurgents launched cross-border attacks into Liberia's northern Lofa County. More recently, Guinea has accused Liberia of instigating a series of rebel attacks on its territory which began in September, and which have displaced hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and Guinean nationals. Last week, Liberia recalled its ambassador from Conakry, citing a long list of grievances and accusing Guinea of support for a group of dissidents who, it said, were preparing to attack Liberia. In a BBC interview broadcast on Monday, Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan said that recalling the ambassador was "a sign of protest to Guinea." He insisted that Liberian President Charles Taylor had expressed willingness to hold talks with President Lansana Conte of Guinea over the problem between the two countries, but said Conte had declined. "He doesn’t see dialogue as the solution," Captan said. "If he doesn’t see dialogue as the solution, then one would wonder what is his perception of a solution to the problem between Liberia and Guinea." Captan accused Guinea of harbouring Liberian dissidents from the former ULIMO and LPC factions who, he said, "have been trained, armed and equipped inside Guinea," but denied his country had reciprocated by supporting Guinean rebels. "We have told the Guinean government that we reserve the right to take action, punitive action, against any aggression against our territory. We have not done so," he said.

Britain's Head of the Land Command, General Sir Mike Jackson, arrived in Freetown Sunday, according to a statement by the U.K. Joint Task Force in Sierra Leone. Jackson's visit to Sierra Leone was the second by a high-ranking British military official within the past week.  

21 January: The Sierra Leone government has reacted cautiously to a pledge by Liberian President Charles Taylor to "disengage" from the Sierra Leone peace process and to cut all ties with the country's RUF rebels. Deputy Defence Minister Sam Hinga Norman told the BBC Sunday that the government welcomed the statement, but was waiting to see concrete evidence of a change on the ground. "We have not as yet seen sufficient evidence of the policy on the ground on the issue of cutting ties in Sierra Leone," Norman said, adding: "We do not want to doubt the authenticity (of the statement), but we are only saying since we have not seen evidence on the ground, we intend to just make sure that we at least analyse the situation, maybe as events are moving on." Norman said he had not yet been in contact with the Liberian authorities over their announced change in policy. "I have only taken a look at this statement which I say it is better that we make the comment that until and unless we see evidence on the ground we are yet to evaluate the situation as events unfold," he said.

The Liberian government announced Sunday it was grounding all Liberian-registered aircraft until the planes' owners could document that they were in compliance with all Liberian civil aviation laws and regulations, as well as standards of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). A Ministry of Information statement urged aviation authorities worldwide "to assist in the enforcement of the aircraft grounding order." The press release referred to irregularities discovered in the Liberian aircraft registry, and said the measure was an attempt to increase its effectiveness. Accordingly, it said, the Ministry of Transport had revoked the appointments of all agents who had been acting on behalf of the Liberian government in matters of aircraft inspection and registration. Because of its lax license and tax laws, Liberia has for many years been a "flag of convenience" for what a U.N. panel of experts investigating arms trafficking and diamond smuggling in Sierra Leone called "the fringe air cargo industry." In its report issued last month, the panel found that the Liberian "EL" registry was "clearly connected to illegal activities that go beyond the economic rationale for the offshore registration of aircraft or crews" and that Liberian-registered planes were frequently used to transport illegal arms shipments. The Liberian Civil Aviation Authorities and the Ministry of Transport were unable to tell the panel how many planes carried Liberian registrations, and maintained that the documentation had been lost or was destroyed due to the Liberian Civil War. In its recommendations to the United Nations Security Council, the panel called for the immediate grounding of all planes bearing the EL registration number, and said operators should be required to file their airworthiness and operating licenses and their insurance documents with the ICAO's headquarters in Montreal, including documentation on all inspections carried out during the past five years. Aircraft belonging to operators who refused to comply would have their planes grounded, and planes which failed to meet ICAO standards would be grounded permanently.

The plight of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees in southeastern Guinea remains precarious, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Peter Kessler said on Sunday after returning from a visit to the town of Kissidougou. Kessler told the BBC that that while the situation there had calmed down following rebel attacks in mid-December, the town was still tense. "The rebels came very, very close to Kissidougou, and of course Gueckedou, which was under attack last Saturday and again on Monday, is not very far away," he said. Kessler said the UNHCR and other aid agencies were currently providing assistance to upwards of 50,000 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees at the Nyaedou and Massakoundou camps, but that an estimated 180,000 refugees and 70,000 displaced Guineans were still stranded in Guinea's volatile "parrot's beak" area along the country's borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone. "There are a great many people who are in a very precarious situation, who fled their homes already, and many of them have even fled the refugee camps where they’ve been living for the last years," Kessler said, adding that some of the refugees had received no food rations since September. He referred to reports by some refugees that Kamajor militiamen were advising them to return to Sierra Leone as soon as they received food. "Food distributions are ongoing, but they’re very chaotic, and that’s a real problem," he said. "We need to see much greater security in and around the refugee camps —  security being controlled by the Guinean authorities, not by Liberian or Sierra Leonean foreigners, who seem to have a big hand in the situation right now." He said the Guinean army had a big military presence in the Gueckedou area, and that aid agencies were not allowed access to the region. "It’s still a very tenuous situation, and the fact that so many refugees are so frightened, we have to redouble our efforts to set up new refugee camps further into the interior and look at possibilities to get people back if they’d rather go back home to their home countries," he said, adding: "It’s a situation completely out of sight, yet one of the most alarming we’re seeing in Africa."

20 January: Liberia has announced it will abandon its efforts to restore peace in Sierra Leone, the Associated Press reported on Saturday. The decision was taken Friday at the first cabinet meeting of the year to protest against accusations, made most recently by a U.N. panel of experts, of trafficking in arms and and illicit diamonds, and of actively supporting Sierra Leone's RUF rebels —  a charge the Liberian government has denied. "Despite the level of interest it has shown over the last year in ensuring that its neighbor, Sierra Leone, regains peace and stability, the international community continues to picture the Liberian government negatively," Liberian President Charles Taylor said Saturday on his private radio station, KISS-FM. The BBC quoted Taylor as saying the decision to disengage was a difficult one, but that he had to bear in mind Liberia's best interests. Meanwhile, the United States this week formally introduced a resolution in the United Nations Security Council which would impose sanctions on the Liberian government in support of the world body's demand that Liberia "immediately cease its financial, military, material, and other support for armed rebel groups in neighbouring countries, in particular its support of the RUF in Sierra Leone." Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan is expected to address the Council next Thursday when it debates the panel's report on diamond smuggling and arms trafficking in Sierra Leone, a source at the U.N. told the Sierra Leone Web.

19 January: The first meeting of the UNAMSIL and RUF core contact group took place Wednesday at Mile 91, according to a UNAMSIL statement. The UNAMSIL delegation was led by the Head of the Policy and Planning Section and included both civilians and military officers. The RUF delegation was led by Colonel Edward Sembey. The two sides agreed to establish regional contact groups at Daru, Kenema, Mange and Mile 91, the statement said. The groups will meet weekly, while the core group will meet every other week or whenever requested by either side in the event of an emergency. UNAMSIL will search all vehicles plying the roads to ensure they are not carrying "lethal materials," the statement said.

Former Speaker of Parliament and Chief Justice Sheku M. F. Kutubu received a state funeral in Freetown on Friday. Kutubu died January 4 at Choithram Hospital after suffering an apparent heart attack.

Liberian President Charles Taylor, facing the prospect of United Nations sanctions against Liberia over diamonds-for-arms sales in support of Sierra Leone's RUF rebels, said Friday he would pursue a policy of "complete disengagement" with the rebel group, and would adopt voluntarily several of the measures recommended last month by a U.N. panel of experts. "It is the intention of Liberia to sever all links to the RUF, both formal and informal," Taylor told the Washington Post in an interview at the Executive Mansion. He added that a large contingent of RUF leaders departed from Monrovia on Thursday. Taylor's pledge comes as the U.N. Security Council is set to consider a U.S.-sponsored resolution imposing a range of sanctions on the Liberian government, including a ban on diamond and timber sales and an international travel ban on senior Liberian officials. These sanctions would "kill Liberia," Taylor told the Post. Taylor has long acknowledged ties with the RUF, but has insisted that he has used the relationship to work for peace in the sub-region. He said Friday that his decision to now sever ties with the rebels was "a kind of protest."  "We are saying, 'You used us to do what you wanted to do when you wanted us, and now we are supposed to be the bad guys'," Taylor said. " 'So do it your own way and just leave Liberia alone'." The Liberian president called the U.N. panel's report a "political document," but said his government accepted it "with deep reservations." He told the newspaper he had ordered the grounding of all Liberian-registered aircraft until they could be inspected and registered to prevent their use in arms trafficking, and that he would ask a U.N. group to oversee the sale of Liberia's diamonds. He also repeated an offer to resign if any U.N. member state could discover evidence that he had stashed a personal fortune in overseas bank accounts. Taylor claimed that the proposed sanctions were part of a U.S. campaign to "demonize" him and to "bring this government down, or maybe even assassinate the president."  "What has Liberia done that is so bad to deserve this?" Taylor asked. "We have been allies for 150 years, but they shut every door on us. So what else can we conclude but that this is what happens when they want to take a guy out? It is terrible."

Since January 9 the transit camp in Conakry for refugees wanting to return to Sierra Leone has received approximately 300 new arrivals per day, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. The total number of refugees in the camp, constructed to house 3,000 persons, has now reached 3,675. To date, more than 4,000 Sierra Leonean refugees have been repatriated to Freetown by boat, where they are then relocated to two transit camps operating at Jui and Waterloo. The WFP and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recently carried out a food security assessment at Soro Gbema and Makpele Chiefdoms in Pujehun District, to evaluate the overall food security situation and to determine whether refugees have begun returning to the area. Both areas are close to the Liberian border, where there have reportedly been cross-border attacks.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called Friday for the immediate relocation of an some 250,000 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees in Guinea's trouble Gueckedou Prefecture, where recent fighting has put at risk hundreds of thousands of both refugees and Guinean residents. Particularly in the country volatile "parrot's beak" region bordering Liberia and Sierra Leone, an estimated 180,000 refugees and 70,000 displaced Guineans have been stranded by the fighting, making humanitarian assistance "is permanently hampered and intermittently impossible, MSF said in a press statement. Following a January 12 attack by insurgents, many of the refugees have attempted to reach the Nyaedou camp north of Gueckedou. But the Nyaedou camp itself has been threatened by armed groups and cannot be considered safe, MSF said. "Urgent action is needed before it is too late, said Dr. Morten Rostrup, president of MSF's International Council, who visited the area this month. "If the relocation is not being implemented immediately, MSF fears a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the region and we may face soon a major humanitarian crisis." The MSF statement referred to plans to relocate refugees to safer areas near the towns of Albadaria and Dabola, but warned that the existing time frame would not allow the necessary immediate solution to the problem. "MSF finds the current situation unacceptable," the statement said. "To guarantee the security of the refugees, which should now be the highest priority, the relocation process must accelerate regardless of potential logistical constraints. MSF therefore urges the Guinean government and the UNHCR to sign proper agreements immediately in order to facilitate and accelerate transport of refugees to the new locations."

On the last full day of his eight years in office, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed an executive order Friday prohibiting the import of diamonds from Sierra Leone into the United States unless they are accompanied by a government-issued certificate of origin. The order brings the U.S. into compliance with last July's United Nations Security Council, which imposed a global embargo on all rough Sierra Leonean diamonds. The illicit trade in so-called "conflict diamonds" is blamed for fueling conflicts in Sierra Leone, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A bipartisan bill introduced last year by Representatives Tony Hall and Frank Wolf aimed at preventing the import of conflict diamonds into the United States stalled in committee in October.

The outgoing U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, criticised the United Nations Friday for not fully implementing a Security Council resolution adopted last July mandating information on AIDS be provided to U.N. peacekeepers serving in Sierra Leone and in other U.N. missions around the world. "This has to be a core function" of the peacekeeping office, Holbrooke told the Security Council during his final day at the U.N. "Otherwise, it doesn't make sense, and the U.N. will end up causing more deaths than lives they save." He called two books given to U.N. troops as "technical, wordy and out of date," and buried the fact that people can die from the HIV virus. "We spend billions of dollars on peacekeeping," he said. "But not even $500,000 was spent to protect troops from HIV/AIDS. I am encouraged about what I heard but obviously not satisfied." Holbrooke also pointed to the problem of testing. Some troop-contributing countries cannot afford to test their troops, while others, he suggested, feared the stigma of discovering how many of their soldiers carry the disease. In response, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guéhenno pointed to training courses his department had developed, along with the wide distribution of condoms. Guéhenno acknowledged that some of the U.N. peacekeepers came from countries where AIDS infection rates are soaring, but said the U.N. cannot force the testing of troops before, during or after their arrival on a mission. 

Among the images "etched most clearly" in her mind during her eight-year tenure as U.S. Secretary of State were the faces of Sierra Leonean children whose limbs were amputated during the country's brutal civil conflict, Madeleine Albright told State Department workers on Friday. "I have been called the most powerful woman in the world," Albright said. "But there have been times when I could not speak." Albright, who visited Sierra Leone in October 1999, steps down Saturday as President Bill Clinton turns over the reins of power to former Texas governor George W. Bush.

Relief agencies have begun to resume work in parts of southern Guinea after having been forced to scale down operations earlier this week as a result of new fighting at the weekend, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Friday in Geneva. The UNHCR and the Red Cross have begun food deliveries to longtime residents of Nyaedou camp, 15 kilometres north of Gueckedou, and to thousands of other refugees who fled camps further south to escape the fighting, according to UNHCR spokesperson Delphine Marie. She said that by Friday more than 25,000 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees would have received a one-month ration (amounting to 1,600 kilocalories per day) of corn flour, dried beans and vegetable oil. This is far below the U.N.'s recommended 2,500 kcal./day, but is the maximum food aid currently available, she said. As soon as possible, food will be distributed to some 35,000 refugees at the Massakoundou camp, 10 kilometres southwest of Kissidougou, and to 12,000 mainly Sierra Leonean refugees who fled to several sites along the road north of Kissidougou. The UNHCR's partner, Medècins sans Frontiéres, has established health posts in several camps and started a vaccination campaign against measles, Marie added. Meanwhile, refugees at the Nyaedou camp have told aid workers they preferred to return to Sierra Leone rather than to rely on the precarious aid pipeline into southern Guinea. Marie said the UNHCR had received reports of refugees crossing dangerous rebel-held areas to return directly to Sierra Leone from southern Guinea after their movement towards Conakry was blocked by Guinean security forces. The first priority for the UNHCR, she said, was to evacuate some 200,000 stranded refugees from Guinea's volatile "parrot's beak" region and move them to safer sites.

On Wednesday the vessel MV Overbeck, chartered by the International Organisation for Migrations (IOM), returned 353 Sierra Leonean refugees from Conakry to Freetown. The IOM took over the voluntary repatriation from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) earlier this month. According to a statement attributed to IOM spokesperson Niurka Piñeiro, the IOM said it will begin operating a second chartered boat, the MV Fanta, within a few days in order to increase the return capacity between Conakry and Freetown. "As of next week, an average of 2,500 persons a week are expected to return to Freetown with IOM assistance. This should contribute to decongest and defuse rising tensions in Conakry's overcrowded transit centre," Piñeiro said. To date, some 4,000 Sierra Leoneans have been returned to Freetown under the programme.

18 January: The United States formally introduced a resolution in the United Nations Security Council Thursday which would impose a range of sanctions on Liberia, intended to stop that country from trading in illicit diamonds and weapons with Sierra Leone's RUF rebels. A report issued last month by a U.N. panel of experts found there was "unequivocal and overwhelming evidence that Liberia has been actively supporting the RUF at all levels, in providing training, weapons and related matériel, logistical support, a staging ground for attacks, and a safe haven for retreat and recuperation." The U.S.-sponsored resolution, which is strongly backed by Britain, calls on all U.N. member nations to "prohibit the direct or indirect import of all rough diamonds from Liberia to or through its territory," and also bans the export of Liberian timber, whether "rough or whether or not stripped of bark or sapwood or roughly squared." The U.N. panel alleged that the principals of Liberia's timber industry were involved in a variety of illicit activities, and that "large amounts of the proceeds are used to pay for extra-budgetary activities, including the acquisition of weapons." The resolution would impose a flight ban on all Liberian-registered aircraft, and broaden an arms embargo first imposed in November 1992. It would also impose a travel ban on senior Liberian officials and military commanders and adult family members. The sanctions would remain in place until the U.N. secretary-general certified that Liberia was no longer involved in the illicit diamonds and arms trade. 

Liberia recalled its ambassador to Guinea on Thursday amid charges of Guinean government support for Liberian dissidents who, the Liberian foreign ministry claimed last week, were preparing to launch cross-border attacks into the country's northwestern Lofa County. Guinea, for its part, has accused Liberia of backing insurgents who have launched a series of attacks into its territory since last September, displacing hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and Guinean residents. The Liberian foreign ministry, in a statement released Tuesday night, said staff at its embassy in Conakry had been reduced, adding that it was constrained to take these measures because of "the continued acts of aggression and unfriendly acts perpetrated by the government of Guinea against the Republic of Liberia." 

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said Thursday it was increasingly concerned about the plight of over 200,000 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and displaced Guineans trapped by conflict in Guinea's so-called "parrot's beak" region along the country's borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone. "I fear serious malnutrition problems may soon set in on these," said Ardag Meghdessian, the WFP's representative in Conakry. He told reporters that the estimated needs for last year and for the first weeks of 2001 had been far too low due to increased fighting, which has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee the area. "If we do not have urgent additional supplies from donor communities, refugees here might be heading for the worst," he said. Meghdessian said the WFP had just reopened its office in Kissidougou, which was forced to close late last year after insurgents launched attacks in the area. The WFP is currently providing food for some 85,000 refugees and displaced persons in Guinea, Meghdessian said.

Sorius Samura's documentary "Cry Freetown" was among Wednesday's winners of the prestigious duPont Award, presented annually by the Columbia School of Journalism to journalists working in the field of radio and television news. During the January 1999 rebel attack on Freetown Samura, who was at the time working on a film project for UNICEF, took his camera into the streets and, at the risk of his life, filmed atrocities committed by both rebel forces and ECOMOG troops during the battle for the city. "We wanted everybody to understand, but nobody heard us," Samura said in accepting the award. The documentary, originally released last year under the name "Out of Africa," has also received the Rory Peck award, the Mohamed Amin Award, Free Press-Africa award, the One World Media award for best television documentary, and the ICRC Dignity in Conflict Award.

Fatou Mbaye Sankoh, the Senegalese-born American wife of imprisoned RUF leader Foday Sankoh, has asked an unnamed Nigerian attorney to represent her in her petition to have a Nigerian human rights commission investigate the arrest and detention of her husband after he travelled to Nigeria in March 1997, the Lagos-based P.M. News reported on Thursday. The commission, led by Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, was set up by the Nigerian government to look into abuses committed by the regime of the late military dictator General Sani Abacha. In a December 20 letter to the commission, Mrs. Sankoh stated that her husband had visited Nigeria "as part of a planned tour of the sub-region for the purpose of soliciting support for the full implementation of the Abidjan Accord" —  a tour necessitated, she said, by the need "to seek assistance in stopping the fighting between the Kamajors and the Sierra Leone Army at that time." Foday Sankoh, who had remained in Abidjan after signing the peace agreement at the end of November 1996, made an apparently unannounced visit to Nigeria in March 1997, where he was arrested and charged with weapons violations. In her letter, Mrs. Sankoh noted that her husband was only released from Nigerian detention "two years later" (in July 1998), and handed over to the Sierra Leone government. He was subsequently convicted of treason for issuing orders to his followers by satellite telephone to join forces with the AFRC military junta after the May 1997 coup, and was sentenced to death. He was later released to attend peace talks in Lomé, Togo, and joined the government as chairman of Commission for the Management of Strategic Resources, National Reconstruction and Development after the signing of the Lomé Peace Accord. Sankoh was again detained in May 2000 after the collapse of the peace process, and following an incident at his residence when his followers opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators. "My husband told me about this experience and revealed that President Kabbah was part of the conspiracy along with his friend, Abacha, to have Foday arrested and detained in Nigeria," Mrs. Sankoh said.

17 January: Britain's Chief of General Staff, General Sir Michael Walker, arrived in Sierra Leone on Tuesday, where he met with President Kabbah and British High Commissioner Alan Jones, according to a statement issued by the U.K. Task Force in Sierra Leone. Walker also visited British forces training Sierra Leonean soldiers at the Benguema Military Training Centre, and visited recently-trained officers and soldiers of the Sierra Leone Army's Fifth Brigade at Masiaka. The African-born Walker was appointed Chief of General Staff in April of last year.

The first meeting of a newly-formed contact group between UNAMSIL and the RUF was due to meet Wednesday at Mile 91, according to a UNAMSIL statement.

The commander of the Sierra Leone Army's First Battalion has confirmed that the RUF has repaired the Bumbuna - Magburaka and Bumbuna - Binkolo roads in northern Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL said on Wednesday. The roads remain closed, however, as Defence Headquarters has not yet given instructions to open them.

Richard Holbrooke, the outgoing U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, criticised the world body Wednesday for what he called a "continuing shortfall" in peacekeeping and combating AIDS in Africa. Pointing to Sierra Leone, which has suffered a decade of civil conflict, Holbrooke said that the current fragile calm was not good enough. "It will only get better if the U.N. takes an aggressive leadership role," he said. He added that while the international community must give all sides to a conflict a chance to accept a negotiated settlement, in a case like Sierra Leone the U.N. could not remain impartial. "Let us be honest, that if one side is the primary cause of the problem that we have to let the U.N. show its feelings," he said. "In that regard I’m very pleased that recent resolutions last year on diamonds and other issues on the countries we feel are most responsible for this situation. In Sierra Leone, what we have is a fragile, but democratically-elected government trying against considerable odds to deal with one of the world’s most repugnant insurgencies, the RUF." Holbrooke, who made Africa one of his priorities during his tenure at the U.N., was also critical of the OAU, which he said was sometimes "less than the sum of its parts," especially when it came to Sierra Leone. In a veiled reference to Liberia, which a U.N. panel of experts accused last month of backing Sierra Leone's RUF rebels, Holbrooke suggested that the OAU might consider refusing to seat governments which cling to power by unconstitutional means.  

16 January: Renewed fighting in southeastern Guinea has dashed hopes for a speedy delivery of humanitarian aid to an estimated 180,000 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and 70,000 displaced Guineans in the country's troubled "parrot's beak" region, according to a statement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Aid agencies have been unable to assist the stranded refugees since fighting broke out in the area in early December. The latest unrest in the region prompted the agency to withdraw 25 staff members from its regional base at Kissidougou on Tuesday, leaving 45 UNHCR staff members who will continue to provide assistance wherever possible. Food distribution was scheduled to begin Tuesday at the refugee camp in Massakoundou, ten kilometres southwest of Kissidougou, the agency said. The camp's population has increased from 20,000 to 35,000 over the past few weeks due to an influx of refugees who fled the fighting along Guinea's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia. The UNHCR is going ahead with the preparation of two new camp sites which will be able to  house some 40,000 refugees fleeing the border area. During a brief visit to Gueckedou on Monday, aid workers found the town almost entirely deserted amid a heavy military presence, the UNHCR said. At the weekend, 1,000 refugees seeking to escape fighting in the town flooded into the nearby Nyaedou camp. The group included two young men who suffered gunshot wounds while working in their fields. Meanwhile, UNHCR spokesman Peter Kessler told the BBC Tuesday that aid workers who visited refugees in the Gueckedou region early last week found them to be in a