Ghana will contribute an additional battalion to the UNAMSIL force, U.N. officials said on Tuesday.

Former AFRC leader Johnny Paul Koroma has portrayed himself as a man of peace who nevertheless was compelled to lead the military junta which overthrew Sierra Leone's civilian government in May 1997. "It just happened that I found myself in a situation wherein...I was surrounded by evil. And I was trying all my best to make sure things go the right way," Koroma told the BBC in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on Tuesday. "The soldiers by then were planning to kill all the politicians and the senior officers. I prevented them from doing that. Had I not been in their midst at that time it will have been very, very bloody." Koroma said he had become a born-again Christian while in prison following an earlier coup attempt in September 1996, and that later, while in the jungle, an angel had appeared to him. "I will not elaborate on that. But all what I can tell you is that I am having personal contacts with God," he said. Koroma insisted that he had stayed on as junta leader because of threats to himself and the risk to his family if he had tried to leave the country. "I was trying by all possible means to make sure, by my own power and the power of God, to stop things from going bad because by then there was the RUF, and when the RUF came there were some of them who were trying to even take over again. And we were faced with all that," he said. "So if I had abandoned that situation at that time then it will have been very, very chaotic, more than it was."

This Sierra Leone government and the RUF will meet in Bamako, Mali "very soon" to discuss a proposal for a new cease-fire, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing a UNAMSIL spokesman. "Because the Lomé Peace Agreement has broken down since May this year, something concrete has to be put in place and that is a concrete cease-fire which all the parties involved can respect," the spokesman was quoted as saying on Monday. No date has been set for the talks. Meanwhile, there have been new reports of RUF attacks on villages near the towns of Lunsar and Kabala. Military officials were quoted as saying 25 people were killed and several hundred homes burned, causing residents to flee the area. There has been no independent confirmation of the report. The officials told Reuters the RUF had attacked the villages after young men and women refused to join the rebels. However the Associated Press quoted the Sierra Leone Army's Director of Media Relations, Major John Milton, as saying the attacks were launched to steal food. UNAMSIL military spokesman Lieutenant-Commander Patrick Coker said the RUF and the Kamajors clashed twice last week, but he added that much of the fighting appeared to have occurred when RUF and Kamajor patrols stumbled into one another. The Joint Task Force said Tuesday that RUF activities in the border area around Gberia Fotombu in Sulima Chiefdom had forced residents to flee their homes. A spokesperson told the Sierra Leone Web that RUF rebels were reported to be south of the Guinean town of Madinawulla, in a Sierra Leonean village called Sainya.

Former Assistant Peace Corps Director Saidu Turay died Sunday in Freetown after a long illness, according to a statement by the Washington, D.C.-based group Friends of Sierra Leone. Turay spent most of his career working for Peace Corps Sierra Leone until the Peace Corps pulled out of the country in 1992 in view of the worsening security situation. After the May 1997 coup, Turay joined the AFRC military junta, first as Commissioner of Information and then, in December 1997, as Deputy Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

30 October: British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told Parliament Monday that Britain would deploy a naval task force off the coast of Sierra Leone for a limited time in November as a gesture of support for the UNAMSIL force. The task force will include the amphibious helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, which was first sent to Sierra Leone last May, backed by the landing ship HMS Fearless, three Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels, and the 42 Marine Commando. "While in the area, the group will be able to practice procedures and conduct a detailed reconnaissance, both of which will significantly reduce the time needed to deploy should the reaction force be needed in future," Hoon told the House of Commons. He gave assurances that British troops would not become directly involved in any fighting. The primary purpose of British forces going to Sierra Leone is to train the forces of the government of Sierra Leone," he told lawmakers. Hoon also stressed that Britain was not suggesting UNAMSIL was ineffective. "There is no indication that the rebels have taken any new ground," he said. "We have made it clear that the government of Sierra Leone should have effective forces on which they can call. The early training teams have done a tremendous job in making soldiers available to the government of Sierra Leone. Essentially, what we want to see is a situation ultimately in Sierra Leone where the democratically elected government can control their own territory."

British troops of the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment were replaced last week by troops of the 1st Battalion the Prince of Wales Own Regiment, who now take over responsibility for training troops for the restructured Sierra Leone Army at the Benguema Military Training Centre. Meanwhile, the passing out exercise for the latest battalion to complete training will take place on Friday. The spokesman for the British forces in Sierra Leone, Lieutenant-Commander Tony Cramp, told Radio France International that the training was going well. "Some of the troops already trained have already been deployed at the front line in the Lungi and Port Loko area, while others are undergoing continuation training," he said. "What was decided a month or so back was that it was okay just training them in the very basics, but we also needed to give them assistance to learn the much harder skills, and the continuation training is very much reflecting that, so that the product that comes out at the end is capable of going straight to the front line and being an effective soldier." He added that Britain was committed to training 3,000 more troops, which would mean that that most of the SLA soldiers will eventually undergo the training. Cramp also noted that Britain was providing the army with logistical equipment, weapons and ammunition, to include small arms for the troops and possibly some heavier weapons as well. "The first of that equipment has already arrived," he said. "We’re expecting a ship to come into Sierra Leone very shortly which will have the bulk of the first load which will include transport and general equipment for the armed forces." Cramp said the Sierra Leonean troops had made "significant advances" and should now be in a position to defend "very robustly" areas under their control. "What we’re aiming to do is give Sierra Leone the ability to look after the whole country by itself," he said. "Obviously we’d hope for a peaceful solution to the present conflict, but what we’re doing is ensuring that Sierra Leone has the ability to look after itself and if necessary in the future take the fight and take those areas by force if that becomes a requirement."

CCP Chairman and former AFRC leader Johnny Paul Koroma, in a BBC interview broadcast on Monday, said he no longer controls military forces in Sierra Leone. "I don’t have any more fighting men in the bush. They are all out now," he said, adding that the only armed personnel he had were for his personal security. "I don’t have any more fighting men. I’m not controlling any territory." Koroma dismissed the West Side Boys militia, which had professed loyalty to him while fighting alongside and then against pro-government forces and harassing civilians, as "a thing of the past." "There are no more West Side Boys," he said. "With the attack from the British (to rescue British military hostages) I think that is over now. Some of them are in prison. Some of them are in DDR camps, and they are no more." The former junta leader called the British presence in Sierra Leone "good and very, very timely." "They’ve done a lot and I hope that they will not be discouraged and they will continue to do more," he said. "Their presence here has changed a lot of things. Had it not been for their presence, there should have been a lot of underground game by some of these unpatriotic people or so-called politicians, because there are some of them who would have plunged this country to another round of hostility." Koroma pointed to his own efforts in advancing the peace process since he joined the government as CCP chairman. "I’ve done a lot towards the disarmament process by getting a lot of my men out, a lot of the RUF out, and during the unfortunate incidents of May I was the one that God used to turn the situation around," he said. "And I think with all that, I think the people are very, very happy with me and whatever thing I [sort of] have done in the past, I think they’ve forgiven me for that."

Ivorian novelist Ahmadou Kourouma was awarded France's second-highest literary award Monday, the Renaudot, for his book "Allah Doesn't Have To" in which he describes wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia as seen through the eyes of a child. Kourouma said he had written his book after children at a conference asked him to write something about tribal wars in Africa. 

Consultations on Sierra Leone by the United Nations Security Council scheduled for Monday have been postponed until Council members receive the new report of the U.N. Secretary-General on UNAMSIL, while is due out this week, a U.N. spokesman said. Meanwhile, Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued an emergency proposal Monday to strengthen U.N. peacekeeping operations with additional support staff and resources to coordinate its 15 current peacekeeping operations around the world. Annan suggested that 249 positions be added next year to enlarge military and civilian police coordination units at United Nations headquarters. The report also recommended transferring 24 positions from other departments to help create a system wide coordination office for peacekeeping. The proposals come in the wake of a report by a U.N.-appointed panel in August, which warned of significant future U.N. peacekeeping failures unless the world body created the equivalent of a ministry of defence. 

29 October: The Greek Merchant Marine Ministry said its coast guard arrested four illegal immigrants from Sierra Leone and five from Ethiopia Sunday when they landed on the eastern Aegean island of Kos. The vessel's Turkish captain was also arrested. There was no immediate confirmation of the refugees' nationality. Many would-be immigrants from Africa claim Sierra Leonean citizenship, believing Sierra Leoneans are more likely to be granted asylum because of the civil conflict in the country.

28 October: British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is likely to order a naval task force with some 500 Royal Marines back to Sierra Leone, the BBC reported on Saturday. The Amphibious Ready Group, led by the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, is currently on exercises in the Mediterranean and could reach the Sierra Leone coast in a matter of days. The Ocean is expected to be accompanied by two other warships and support vessels. According to the BBC, plans to send the task force "are at a very advanced stage" and the order to deploy could come on Monday. Earlier this month, Britain announced it would increase its troops on the ground in Sierra Leone from around 300 to over 400, and would offer a U.K.-based rapid-reaction capability up to brigade strength -- approximately 5,000 personnel. Ministry of Defence sources stressed Saturday that the British troops would remain offshore as a rapid reaction force. 

RUF rebels have attacked and burned a number of villages in the Gbinti area, some 15 miles north of Lunsar, according to a statement issued by the Joint Task Force Headquarters in Freetown. The villages were named as Gberi, Ro-bor-bo, Wari and Wula. RUF rebels also attacked the town of Batkanu, but were repelled by the CDF, the statement said.

27 October: The first Certificate of Origin for the export of Sierra Leonean diamonds has been issued to a London-based company, Anaconda Worldwide, the Pan African News Agency reported on Friday. "The new system, which has been approved by the U.N., is designed to ensure that no diamonds going to the international market come from mines controlled by the rebel Revolutionary United Front," a company spokesman said. A U.N. source subsequently told the Sierra Leone Web that, in fact, the first license had gone to Mackie, a Lebanese dealer. Presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai had been expected to announce the lifting of the embargo Friday at a press conference in Antwerp, Belgium, but he reportedly missed his connecting flight to Brussels in Conakry. With the introduction of the certification system, Belgian Economics Affairs Minister Charles Picque claimed his country was "beyond reproach." "The system will give great credibility to the Belgian government's concern in providing full transparency," he told Reuters. "We have a system that can be put in place in other countries -- a system that is completely accurate and credible." Peter Meerus, head of Antwerp's High Diamond Council, said the new system should go a long way toward reducing conflict diamonds on world markets. "I believe if we multiply the system in all the African countries that we will be able to eliminate a huge part of conflict diamonds," he said. "But I cannot predict that in one bush or another this (illicit trade) will not occur." High Diamond Council officials expect to import $5 million in Sierra Leonean diamonds in the coming weeks, as compared to $1.5 million for 1999. But Nicolas Karras, president of Anaconda Worldwide, was skeptical that the certification system would be effective. "It's going to make it more difficult to move large amounts of stones," he said, adding that the RUF had not used official export channels to sell diamonds. "They were smuggled out," he said. He predicted that diamond brokers operating outside of official controls would find new markets for the illicit stones. "New York, Hong Kong, India," he said. "Go down 42nd Street. People there buy diamonds."

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is studying a Guinean proposal of six new camp sites which could be used to relocate some 125,000 refugees away from the most insecure areas along the country's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia, a UNHCR spokesman said on Friday. According to the Guinean authorities, there have been 15 cross-border attacks in the area since September resulting in 360 deaths. Two of the proposed sites were rejected -- one because of its proximity to a forest reserve and the other because local residents refused to host the refugees. The other four sites can each accommodate 25,000 people without causing damage to the environment. An assessment mission has been sent to the area to determine the cost of developing the proposed sites, all of them located in the Kissidougou area some 100 km. from the border. In 1999 the UNHCR and its partners began moving 20,000 refugees from border areas in Gueckedou, but the project was put on hold because of a lack of funds, the spokesman said. Discussions are also underway to relocate up to 30,000 refugees from areas of Forecariah Prefecture only 30 km. from the Sierra Leone border. Meanwhile, a UNHCR technical mission to Kissidougou and Gueckedou last week found less harassment of refugees by young vigilantes at checkpoints. The mission determined there had been few incidents in the camps themselves despite continuing rumours of possible attacks in the Gueckedou area. UNHCR's medical coordinator warned of a "deteriorating medical situation" in the camps. Food distribution has now resumed, with 27,000 beneficiaries receiving supplies at Forecariah between October 17 and 21. Next week distributions will resume in Gueckedou with deliveries for 43,000 beneficiaries, the spokesman said. Most of the refugees in Gueckedou have not received food since the June-August period.

Eight Sierra Leonean amputees, six of them child victims of the country's nine-year civil conflict, will meet at United Nations headquarters Friday afternoon with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu. Also invited to the briefing are "key actors" -- U.N. staff members and representatives of non-governmental organisations -- who could potentially collaborate in support of physical and social rehabilitation of young amputees in Sierra Leone. The amputees were brought to the United States last month for medical treatment by Washington-based Friends of Sierra Leone, in conjunction with Rotary clubs in New York and ARIMED, a prosthetics company. The groups have expressed the hope that their presence will draw attention to the crisis in Sierra Leone, and to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leoneans affected by the war. 

Medècins sans Frontiéres - Belgium has reported that a deterioration of the food security situation in the government-held town of Bumbuna, according to the latest emergency report by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). During the week, the MSF evacuated eleven severely malnourished children to a therapeutic feeding centre in Freetown. Bumbuna is surrounded by RUF-held areas and is only accessible by air. The WFP's delivery capacity is limited to a single helicopter with a capacity of 1.6 tons -- insufficient to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, which is estimated at 27 tons. During the past week, the WFP delivered 945 tons of food to 50,700 beneficiaries in Freetown, Bo and Kenema, despite having to cut back operations due to a serious shortfall in cereals. Future shortfalls are currently estimated at 1,858 tons for the months of November and December. The WFP also delivered 25 tons of food to Daru with the help of a UNAMSIL helicopter. This was the first delivery to Daru in four months due to access problems, the WFP said. The food was distributed to 2,500 school children and 80 child ex-combatants. The WFP noted reports by the U.N. of an increase in fighting between the RUF and the CDF, with attacks reported at Batkanu and in villages northeast of Yele. "Fighting also erupted in villages near Monghere, 27 miles north of Bo, but it was unclear if it was between RUF and CDF, or internal within RUF," the WFP said.

The United States Department of Agriculture authorised $14 million in credit guarantees Friday for 21 African countries, including Sierra Leone, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

In an interview with IRIN, the U.N. Integrated Regional Information Network, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Advisor on Africa called the situation in Sierra Leone "very complicated." Ibrahim Gambari said the main issues were how to extend the government's authority throughout the country and bring the diamond-producing areas under government control, while finding a way to deal politically with the RUF. Gambari also pointed to the question of the Special Court to try those most responsible for atrocities in Sierra Leone and the problem of finding ways to expand the size of the U.N. peacekeeping force. "Finally, you have the regional dimension where you have all kinds of military action and border problems between Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone," he said. "The sub-region is awash with weapons, it is awash with all kinds of militias, it is awash with refugees criss-crossing the border and it is very important that all this be looked at in a very holistic, regional context."

Exchange rates for the leone against the U.S. dollar and pound sterling, posted in Freetown on Friday: [Buying / Selling] Standard Chartered Bank: [$] 1950 / 2300. [£] 2750 / 3045. Commercial Bank: [$] 1850 / 2100. [£] 2700 / 3045. Frandia: [$] 2150 / 2300 [£] 3000 / 3500. Continental: [$] 2150 / 2300 [£] 2950 / 3350.

19 October: At least 100,000 persons have died worldwide this past year as the direct result of armed conflict, with 60 percent of the deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to a report released on Thursday by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS). Efforts to mediate conflicts in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Eritrea and in Central Africa "seem at best only to bring a brief respite from all-out fighting," the report said. The IISS also pointed to weaknesses in peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone and Congo which were identified in September by the so-called Brahimi report. "The long-term aim of the U.N. operation in Sierra Leone is unclear, and the capacity of the U.N. to make a sensible contribution to what is a hugely unstable situation in the Congo is questionable," the IISS said. "Member states are incapable of producing the sometimes very large contingents that a proper operation would require. Equally, the quality of cease-fires, truces, military disengagements and peace arrangements is often too poor to support U.N. deployments in peacekeeping mode." Since Sierra Leone's civil conflict began in 1991, IISS estimates that some 43,000 people have died, Assistant Director Terence Taylor told the Sierra Leone Web. "Our statistics focus on those killed directly by armed conflict, we do not attempt the far more difficult job of assessing the numbers of people that die through secondary causes arising from conflict such as lack of food supplies, failure of medical services and disease," he added. Taylor said the IISS estimates were based on open source reports, talks with the respective governments, information from the International Committee of the Red Cross, and assessments by IISS staff. He acknowledged, however, the difficulty in assembling reliable figures. "Assessments are very hard as combatants exaggerate the casualties of their opponents, and understate those for their own side," he said. "Also some NGOs exaggerate casualties to draw attention to their mostly genuine concerns and objectives."

Nigeria's Federal Executive Council approved Wednesday 1.8 billion naira to purchase logistics items for Nigerian soldiers serving in United Nations peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Information Minister Jerry Gana said. Gana said the U.N. had promised to refund the amount spent in procuring the items, the Pan African News Agency (PANA) reported.

Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees encamped around the Guinean town of Gueckedou have gone without food for 45 days because poor security in the area has hampered delivery of relief supplies, the U.N. Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) reported on Wednesday. "The major problem is food," Chris Ache, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Conakry said Tuesday. Ache told IRIN that relief agencies would meet on Wednesday to coordinate deliveries to the neediest refugees around Gueckedou. He added that efforts were underway to secure a Guinean military escort. The UNHCR has carried out food distributions in Forecariah Prefecture and is conducting security assessment missions to determine whether it is safe to resume the agency's presence in areas outside of Conakry, Ache said.

17 October: Former AFRC junta leader and CCP chairman Johnny Paul Koroma told reporters Tuesday that plans to set up a Special Court to try those guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone should be put on hold until the warring groups had been disarmed. "The government and the U.N. must wait until all the guns have been collected from the combatants. Then the special court proceedings can start," Koroma said. The proposed court, which would incorporate both Sierra Leonean and international justices, would be charged with trying those deemed most responsible for abuses in the country's nine-year civil conflict.

A draft report prepared by the U.N. Security Council which visited West Africa this month concludes the Sierra Leone conflict having an "increasingly alarming" impact on the sub-region, and recommends that the U.N. peacekeeping force be strengthened "in terms of numbers, effectiveness and capability." U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed that the force's authorised size be increased from its current level of 13,000 troops to 20,500. "The complex of problems in Sierra Leone and its neighbours represents an extraordinary challenge, which requires extraordinary action," the report said. The delegation pointed to the role allegedly played by Liberian President Charles Taylor in backing Sierra Leone's RUF rebels, and said it warned Taylor that Liberia's instability and isolation could increase if its activities went beyond its legitimate security interests. "The view was firmly and frequently expressed within Sierra Leone that the cause of many of the country's problems lay in the support provided to Revolutionary United Front by President Taylor, motivated partly by his own political and security concerns and partly by his interest in profits from diamonds mined in Sierra Leone," the report said. "Most of the mission's interlocutors, including those at the most senior levels, had no doubt that President Taylor exercised strong influence, even direct control, over RUF. The delegation also heard varying views as to the strength and intentions of the RUF. "(The prevailing analysis is) RUF is divided into several groups," the report said. "Many interlocutors felt that a significant portion of the rank and file of the RUF would be willing to disarm, but were not allowed to do so by their commanders, who often used brutal methods, including execution, to prevent fighters, including children, from leaving." The report went on to say that only a "sustained and effective military instrument, with the capability to extend its reach throughout the country and following clear political and military objectives," could maintain pressure on the RUF and create incentives for dialogue and disarmament. "To meet these challenges, UNAMSIL must be strengthened in terms of numbers, effectiveness and capability...taking advantage of the offers of further troops from, inter alia, ECOWAS countries," the report added. The Security Council delegation also pointed to the need for a more coordinated and comprehensive strategy among the various groups involved in Sierra Leone. "It is clear that at a minimum the Security Council and the Secretariat, ECOWAS, UNAMSIL troop contributors and the government of Sierra Leone need to consult through some form of continuous structure rather than simply a series of meetings at regular intervals," the delegation stressed.

Schools have reopened in the government-held towns of Kabala and Bumbuna in Northern Province, the Rome-based Missionary Services News Agency (MISNA) reported on Tuesday, quoting Italian missionary priest Fr. Antonio Guiotto. Belgian workers with Medècins sans Frontiéres (Doctors without Borders) also reopened the government hospital in Kabala and the clinic at the Catholic Mission in Bumbuna, he added. Guiotto said that two Italian priests abducted by RUF rebels in the Guinean border town of Pamelap early last month were being held at the Catholic Mission compound at Madina. "(They) are relatively free to move around," he said. "We also know that they are in good health, though Father Mosele, who was involved in a serious car accident last June, will eventually need medical care."

Missouri Governor Mel Carnehan, who died Monday night when his plane crashed in a heavily wooded area, was the son of former U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone A.S.J. Carnehan, who served in Freetown during the Kennedy administration, shortly after the country's independence. Mel Carnehan, who was finishing his second term as governor, was a candidate for the U.S. Senate and was on his way to a campaign appearance when the plane went down. His son and a campaign aide were also killed.

A five-day polio immunization campaign which began on Monday aims to vaccinate some 860,000 Sierra Leonean children against the disease, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation said on Tuesday. According to a ministry statement, inoculations are being conducted house-to-house in seven safe districts. In six districts which are deemed unsafe, health officials are conducting traditional National Immunization Days. The campaign is making use of 2,464 vaccination teams and 400 supervisors, and will administer 1.3 million doses of oral vaccine. Health officials said vaccinators were able to enter the RUF-held towns of Makeni and Magburaka for the first time after acting RUF leader General Issa Sesay agreed to cooperation with the programme. On Monday, Sierra Leonean and Liberian health officials cooperated to vaccinate some 2,000 children in the border area in an initiative organised by ECOWAS. Deputy Minister of Health Sidique Brima and Dr. William Aldis, the World Health Organisation's Country Representative in Sierra Leone were on hand, as well as Liberian health ministry officials and representatives from women's groups. The immunization campaign is being undertaken this week simultaneously in sixteen West African countries, and is part of a campaign by WHO, UNICEF, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and Rotary International to eradicate the disease worldwide by 2005.

A joint technical mission by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partners visited six refugees camps at Kissidougou and Gueckedou in Guinea over the weekend, where tens of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees have sought shelter. The mission found the situation to be relatively calm, but many of the refugees wanted to return home due to recent violence in the area, a spokesman said. Nutritional problems were noted, especially among young children, along with the increased need for clean water and a better sanitation infrastructure. Food distribution resumed last week at some of the refugee camps in Forecariah and Gueckedou, both located in border areas where the UNHCR and some non-governmental organisations had been forced suspend operations following last month's violence. "In Forecariah, the first distribution benefited the refugees who had fled attacks in the Farmoriah and Dakhagbe camps and sought shelter in Kaliah and Kalako," the spokesman said, adding that some refugees had not received food for two months. Some 2,000 persons were still present at Farmoriah Camp, which previously had housed 4,300 refugees. Another 1,800 had been transferred to Kaliah for safety. Many more refugees returned to Sierra Leone in recent weeks, the UNHCR spokesman said.

16 October: The United Nations Security Council met behind closed doors Monday to discuss a report submitted by the eleven-member Council delegation, which ended its week-long visit to West Africa on Sunday. Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock of Britain, who led the delegation, summarized the report by saying that if the RUF wanted a political solution to the crisis, the rebel group would need to rethink its future. He added there were indications the RUF was doing this. "As UNAMSIL establishes itself in the west of the country, they no longer have a power vacuum there that provides an incentive to continue the rebellion," Greenstock said. "In power terms they are left with the option of holding on to the diamond fields, as it were, partitioning the country while they steal the diamonds." Greenstock said the delegation concluded a cease-fire would be necessary before there could be any real discussion of a political route out of Sierra Leone's crisis. The cease-fire, he said, would "embrace some withdrawal, perhaps to the Lomé lines, perhaps under a different arrangement; access to humanitarian workers; return of U.N. weapons and various other things." He said there could be an arrangement whereby the RUF would accept UNAMSIL deployment in the diamond mining areas, while the rebel group would come back into the normal political and economic life in the country. "It's under those more benign arrangements, not under a war fighting arrangement, that we imagine UNAMSIL moving into the diamond areas," he said. Greenstock said Liberian President Charles Taylor, who has been accused of backing the RUF, "no longer can exploit the vacuum in Sierra Leone in one way or the other." He stressed that Taylor was more likely to bring stability to his own country and to obtain international assistance to end the rebellion in Liberia and attract help for his own economy if he ceased his support for Sierra Leone's rebels. "It's the judgment of the poacher that if he becomes a gamekeeper he might do better than if he remains a poacher. And that’s the calculation that we observed President Taylor is beginning to make," Greenstock said. In separate remarks, Greenstock said the peace process in Sierra Leone "has two tracks: one is military and the other is political," adding: "There must be military pressure on the RUF and those who back them." Greenstock stressed that imprisoned RUF leader Foday Sankoh would have no future role in the peace process. "Sankoh is recognized by everybody to be out of it," he said. 

The rift in Sierra Leone's largest opposition party widened Monday when exiled United National People's Party leader Dr. John Karefa-Smart denied the UNPP had joined the "Grand Alliance" of opposition political parties announced in Freetown in August. "While I feel that the proposal for an alliance of opposition parties has much merit so that the folly of fielding too many parties at the next elections will not be repeated, neither I as the party's national leader, nor any one else, can commit the party until the matter had been widely discussed by the party," Karefa-Smart told the Sierra Leone Web. "UNPP...cannot be associated with any movement which sends a massage that it is a regional or ethnic, or tribal, related movement. Our opposition to the SLPP is not based on anything but its failure to treat all parts of the country equally." Karefa-Smart denounced the UNPP's parliamentary representatives who, he said, "took it upon themselves to sign a memorandum of agreement about the Alliance without consulting the Executive of the UNPP in Sierra Leone." Karefa-Smart acknowledged, however, that he had authorised People's Progressive Party leader Abass Bundu to include the UNPP on his Salone Paddy website, which he described last week as "the international mouthpiece" of the Grand Alliance. "(John Karefa-Smart), the acknowledged leader, approved, and the rival leadership in Freetown has raised no objection," Bundu told the Sierra Leone Web. But Karefa-Smart said he regarded the website as a way for opposition political parties to reach the public, and not as "an Alliance undertaking." 

President Kabbah has ordered the immediate release of Abdul Kuyateh, editor of the Wisdom newspaper, the Concord Times reported on Monday. "The SLAJ (Sierra Leone Association of Journalists) Executive met with President Kabbah today and pleaded with him to release Abdul Kuyateh," Concord Times publisher Kingsley Lington told the Sierra Leone Web. Kuyateh was detained on May 11 after documents found in Foday Sankoh's ransacked house allegedly linked him to covert dealings with the rebel leader. Kuyateh has been held without charge under Sierra Leone's emergency regulations.

About 250 West Side Boys, 137 AFRC ex-combatants, 16 former RUF fighters and 74 ex-combatants of the SLA are currently going through the DDR process at Lungi, a UNAMSIL spokesperson said on Monday.

15 October: A series of cross-border attacks on Guinean territory from Sierra Leone and Liberia represents an armed invasion of Guinea by Liberia and Burkina Faso using RUF rebel fighters as mercenaries, Guinean Interior and Security Minister Moussa Solano claimed over the weekend. According to the BBC, Solano told journalists that mercenaries captured by Guinean government troops had confessed to this, and said his country found itself effectively in a state of war. The acting commander of UNAMSIL, Brigadier-General Mohammed A. Garba, has blamed the attacks on Guinean dissidents using RUF fighters as surrogates, but Solano rejected this notion, referring to the the spokesman of the so-called Rally of Democratic Forces as a man "living in obscurity." Meanwhile, thousands of Sierra Leoneans are still attempting to leave Guinea, more than a month after a speech by President Lansana Conte set off a wave of attacks against foreigners, BBC correspondent Elizabeth Blunt reported from Conakry. At the weekend the Mahera, a ferry boat owned by the Sierra Leone government, returned to the Guinean capital to take on another load of refugees to Freetown. The Mahera has shuttled between Freetown and Conakry since the crisis began, loading about 1,000 people at a time, plus children, plus baggage, Blunt said. While many of those leaving had been living in the capital, others travelled two days or more from refugee camps in the east of the country. "On some parts of the journey there are checkpoints every two kilometres with soldiers or armed local youths checking papers and baggage and asking for money," Blunt said. "Some men report being stripped naked to check for tattoos. The vigilantes apparently believe that there are marks which identify a rebel." Blunt noted that the refugees faced an uncertain future when they arrived in Sierra Leone. "Their home areas in the north are occupied by RUF rebels, so when they arrive in Freetown they will be stuck, dependant on the charity of friends and relatives or in displaced people's camps," she said. "These are already very crowded, and the number who have returned so far is tiny compared with those still wanting to go."

14 October: Sierra Leonean refugees at camps in Guinea's Forecariah Prefecture are living in a state of fear, BBC correspondent Elizabeth Blunt said Saturday after visiting the area. Blunt said physical conditions in the camps were normal, except for those refugees who had been relocated from camps which were attacked and destroyed last month, notably Farmoriah Camp, where some 4,000 Sierra Leoneans were displaced. Many are still sleeping on the ground or in schools and temporary shelters, she said. But with cross-border clashes contributing to poor security in the area, Blunt stressed that the refugees were frightened. "Every night they say they can hear gunfire," she said. "There’ve been occasions where the Guinean attack helicopter has actually hovered over the camp and been firing. They have on occasion had a multi-barreled rocket launcher parked right next to it, and when those are fired they go off with the most tremendous din." Blunt said the refugees were confined to the camps by Guinean security forces. "They’re arrested if they go out," she said. "And they say they feel trapped. They were refugees and now they feel like prisoners." Despite recent  cross-border fighting, Blunt said there didn't seem to be a heavy Guinean military presence in the area, although she noted military training exercises taking place at Forecariah. "But we’ve also seen the local village committees that have been armed all the way up the road, manning roadblocks and checkpoints with shotguns that the government has given them," she added.

12 October: Sierra Leone is expected to resume legal diamond exports Thursday, three months after the United Nations Security Council imposed a global ban on the sale of rough Sierra Leonean diamonds, in an effort to cut off funding to the country's RUF rebel movement. Exports will be controlled by the use of certificates of origin, and by electronic monitoring of tamper-proof parcels each step of the way. In a letter to the World Diamond Council, Mineral Resources Minister Mohamed Swarray Deen said the Sierra Leone government had selected diamond companies from bourses within the trading centres of Belgium, Israel, India, the United States and South Africa as government diamond export agents, a diplomatic source told the Sierra Leone Web. In an interview with BBC correspondent Elizabeth Blunt, Deen explained that the certificates would give the weight of the diamond in carats and its value in dollars, would verify that the the exporter was a legal license holder, and would identify the purchaser, who would have to be a member of the World Diamond Council. "We are taking advantage of the resolution that was passed in Belgium, in Antwerp, in July 2000, which says that they will expel any of their members who violate, knowingly or unknowingly, this resolution," Deen said. In order to prevent illicitly-mined diamonds from reaching the market, the minister noted that the government had a monitoring system in the provinces, but he said the government had asked diamond-mining giant De Beers for assistance in identifying diamonds mined in the RUF-held areas of Kono and Tongo -- a task diamond experts have stressed could prove extremely difficult. "If a man brings a parcel where there are clear indications of identification (that the gems were mined in rebel-held areas), they will advise government and government will seize those diamonds," he said. He added that such diamonds would be sold on the tender market in Freetown, with the proceeds going to the government. "We think that the whole solution lies in removing the rebels from these two mining areas, from Kono and Tongo," Deen said. "And I am aware that government, with the help of the United Nations, are doing everything to do that."

The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, has defended a recommendation made last week by Secretary-General Kofi Annan that child combatants guilty of atrocities in Sierra Leone should face trial, as they have in Rwanda. Otunnu's stance has put him at odds with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and with human rights groups, who argue that the child soldiers are in many cases themselves the victims of abusive commanders, and often were abducted, drugged and forced to kill. But Otunnu told reporters Thursday it was important for deterrence and reconciliation in Sierra Leone that young people above the age of 15 should be held responsible for their actions if they hadn't been forced to commit atrocities, because they were old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. Otunnu said that while he had worked hard to protect children under the age of 18 from abuse and exploitation, young people must realise that this didn't give them the license to kill.

A United Nations Security Council delegation will return to New York with a "renewed, two-fold commitment" to helping Sierra Leoneans rebuild their future and to backing U.N. peacekeeping efforts, Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock of Britain told reporters Thursday as the diplomats prepared to depart Sierra Leone. "The Security Council has some important decisions coming up on the future shape, mandate and structure of UNAMSIL, and our determination to make this operation as effective, capable and robust as possible has been reinforced by this visit," Greenstock said. He added that the Security Council would like to see Sierra Leoneans, under their government, "increasingly taking the lead in stabilizing and regenerating their country." The delegation left Freetown for Conakry, where they were scheduled to meet with Guinean President Lansana Conte, and later proceeded on to Bamako for talks with Malian President Alpha Oumar Konare, the current chairman of ECOWAS. The diplomats are scheduled to visit the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Friday for talks with Nigerian leaders and ECOWAS officials, and will also stop in Monrovia, Liberia before returning to New York on Sunday. 

The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF - Reporters Without Borders) condemned this week what it described as an attack against a blind radio broadcaster, Mustapha Bai Atilla, by members of Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Transport and Communications. "It is unacceptable that officials from your ministry beat a journalist because of his remarks on the radio," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said Tuesday in an open letter to the minister, Momoh Pujeh. Last week Pujeh filed a letter of complaint with the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) alleging Atilla had slandered him in an October 3 broadcast on Voice of the Handicap, 96.2 FM. The allegations were referred to SLAJ’s disciplinary committee for investigation. According to the RSF account, ministry officials attacked Atilla in the streets of Freetown on Friday. "They forcefully separated the journalist's two guides and beat him up. They told him to ‘keep his mouth shut’," Ménard said. He linked the attack to efforts by Atilla to expose corruption at the state-owned Sierra Leone Telecommunications Company (SierraTel). But journalists in Freetown say RSF got the story wrong. "By his own account, the blind journalist Atilla said on his radio today that it was a quarrel he had with somebody in a bar for sitting on an unauthorised seat," one newspaper publisher told the Sierra Leone Web on Wednesday. This account was seconded by SLAJ President Ibrahim El-Tayyib Bah, who told the Sierra Leone Web Thursday that the Association had yet to receive any complaint from Atila over the incident. "But from my own investigations, it was an ordinary bar brawl," Bah said. "According to the radio narrative, this blind guy and his two guards were denied sitting places in a local bar, after which an argument ensued which ended in some fracas. After hearing this radio account, I immediately contacted the bar proprietor who corroborated the above story." Bah said SLAJ was proceeding with disciplinary action against Pasco Temple, the only SLAJ member at the radio station, for "abuse of our code of conduct and refusing to make available materials necessary to conduct investigations" into the allegations. For its part, RSF is standing behind its report. "We got this information from our correspondent in Freetown and I spoke personally to the blind journalist on the phone. We still believe it is a true story," Jean-François Julliard of RSF's Africa Desk told the Sierra Leone Web. Julliard added that RSF had contacted Sierra Leone's Information Minister, Dr. Julius Spencer. "He contested the fact that the journalist exposed corruption of Sierratel and advised us to get in touch with the official anti-corruption commission," he said. "But he never contested the facts. He just said his ministry has never been seized about this story." But Spencer denied Julliard's account. "They did not contact me, and the Minister of Transport and Communication whose ministry officials were alleged to have been involved in the attack had strongly refuted the allegation," Spencer said.  

While infant mortality rates have declined globally in recent decades to a current average of 67 deaths per 1,000 live births, a number of countries continue to lag far behind according to a new study by the United Nations World Health Organisation. In Sierra Leone, 312 children die for every 1,000 born; in Niger the figure is 335. Afghanistan records an infant mortality rate of 264, compared to 219 for Malawi, 205 for Guinea and Liberia, 202 for Guinea-Bissau and 201 for Somalia.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday that American support for the peace process in Sierra Leone has been "hands on and continuous." Rice told the African Subcommittee that the U.S. had "played an important role" in bringing about last year's Lomé Peace Accord because, she said, "the killing had to cease." But Rice said U.S. involvement in the Lomé talks was limited to participation in a facilitating committee set up by the government of Togo, which included representatives of international organisations, governments and civil society groups asked to make recommendations to be used in the negotiations. She added that the U.S. also had played an important part in establishing the United Nations peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone. But Rice stressed that while it was important to maintain UNAMSIL's troop strength, an increase in the force's size without a strengthening of its mandate would not produce results. "Thus, we will continue to work for a new UNAMSIL resolution that provides a mandate to support the Sierra Leone Army in compelling RUF compliance with its obligation to disarm, demobilise, and reintegrate into society," she told lawmakers. "UNAMSIL's U.S.-trained and equipped West African battalions, once deployed, will form a key component of the enhanced UNAMSIL, and we expect will play an assertive role in countering the RUF. The United States is committed to the success of this mission." Rice also pledged U.S. support for British efforts to train the Sierra Leone Army, which she called "critical to stabilising the situation in that country."