The July 7 agreement between the Sierra Leonean government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) appears to have ended a war characterized by widespread and systematic atrocities against civilians. During this eight-year long conflict, thousands of innocent people have been not the accidental victims of violence but instead the deliberately-chosen targets of murder, rape (including gang rape), amputation of limbs and forced abduction. All parties have committed such abuses, but the RUF has clearly been guilty of the greatest number and most egregious crimes.

Human Rights Watch shares the hopes of the people of Sierra Leone and of the international community that the agreement will end this brutal war, but we deplore "the absolute and free pardon and reprieve to all combatants and collaborators" granted by the government of Sierra Leone as part of the agreement. We regret that the United Nations, the United States government, and other international actors helped to facilitate an accord containing this provision which violates international law and the most fundamental principles of justice and human rights.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General sought to lessen the responsibility of the United Nations on this issue by adding a last-minute caveat next to his signature. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice has nuanced U.S. acceptance of the amnesty by stressing support for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and by declaring that the provision of a domestic amnesty does not "obviate the interest of the international community in seeing that crimes against humanity are dealt with in an appropriate fashion."

Truth commissions developed as a form of accountability in countries where abusive forces had gone to great lengths to cover up their crimes, such as in Argentina, El Salvador and South Africa. But in Sierra Leone, where RUF members and others committed atrocities in full view and even publicized them as a tool of terror, a truth commission will contribute little to ending impunity for crimes against humanity. What is needed is not revealing the horrors but rather prosecuting those who committed them. . Although a Truth and Reconciliation Commission appears to offer little prospect for ending impunity for massive violations of human rights, Human Rights Watch urges you to direct the Ambassador for War Crimes and the U.S. representative in Sierra Leone to use their influence to promote the broadest possible investigative and reporting mandate for such a commission.

Given that the U.N., the U.S., and other international actors have acquiesced in removing the possibility of domestic prosecution, they bear an even greater responsibility for insisting upon international justice for the crimes perpetrated in Sierra Leone. Human Rights Watch calls upon the U.S. to take the lead in promoting an international commission under the auspices of the Security Council to investigate crimes against humanity committed during the Sierra Leone war. We urge that the U.S. also commit itself fully to implementing measures recommended by this commission for sanctioning these crimes, including establishing an international tribunal.

By its vigorous support of the pursuit of war criminals in Kosovo, the U.S. has demonstrated its commitment to international justice in Europe. Speaking of Sierra Leone on July 15, Assistant Secretary Rice declared that the U.S. is similarly committed to "the pursuit of accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian law everywhere in the world." To be convincing, these words must be moved from the platform of rhetoric to a program for action.

Failure to actively pursue justice for the atrocities in Sierra Leone would suggest that the U.S. takes crimes against humanity more seriously when the victims are European than when they are African. It would demonstrate to the killers, rapists and other abusers in Sierra Leone and elsewhere in Africa that there would be no consequences for their crimes and that they could continue without risk targeting innocent civilians in their struggles to win or hold on to power.

The much-desired success of the peace agreement requires not only justice but adequate peacekeeping forces on the ground. Human Rights Watch urges the U.S. government to support the creation of a strong U.N. peacekeeping force to assist the ECOMOG troops now serving in Sierra Leone and we call for the creation of an effective human rights component in that peacekeeping force. In the interim, we urge that the division responsible for monitoring human rights in the U.N. Observer Mission to Sierra Leone be increased and strengthened.