On 7 July 1999, a peace agreement was signed between the Sierra Leonean government and the rebel forces of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Human Rights Watch hopes that this agreement will indeed bring an end to the suffering inflicted on the Sierra Leonean people by the eight years of civil war in that country.

We are, however, deeply concerned that the peace agreement requires the government of Sierra Leone to "grant absolute and free pardon and reprieve to all combatants and collaborators in respect of anything done by them in pursuit of their objectives." Human Rights Watch and other organisations have documented horrific atrocities committed in Sierra Leone during the course of the civil war, including grave breaches of the laws of war and crimes against humanity. While all parties to the conflict have committed abuses, the RUF, which according to the peace agreement will now have four cabinet positions, has been guilty of the most systematic and serious atrocities. Grave breaches of laws of war and crimes against humanity are crimes of universal jurisdiction: they are so universally recognized as abhorrent and in the interests of the entire international community to suppress that any nation may prosecute the perpetrators, regardless of their nationality, the nationality of victims or where the crime took place. We question whether a peace agreement that does not address issues of accountability for these crimes can last.

Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General Francis Okelo, signing the agreement on behalf of the U.N., added a reservation to the agreement, stating that the U.N. would not recognise any amnesty insofar as it was stated to apply to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Human Rights Watch welcomed this effort to distance the U.N. from an illegal amnesty, and has called on the U.N. to take immediate steps to ensure that the reservation is more than a symbolic gesture. In particular, Human Rights Watch is calling on the U.N. Security Council to establish an international commission to investigate atrocities committed during the conflict and to study the possibilities for bringing their authors to justice before the courts of other countries or before an international criminal tribunal for Sierra Leone.

Welcoming the peace accord in Sierra Leone, you stated that "the agreement finally offers the people of Sierra Leone the real prospect of a sustainable peace." You continued: "Britain has played a leading role in the pursuit of lasting peace and security in Sierra Leone, such as the provision of a £10 million package of assistance. This package will continue to be used to bring about, and support, a lasting peace for all of the people of Sierra Leone. We will continue to encourage all parties to implement in good faith the agreement which they have signed." We were disappointed to see, however, that the U.K. government made no mention of the importance of accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone, nor of the other needs of the Sierra Leonean people to make this peace agreement last.

By contrast, in your statement in the House of Commons on Kosovo on 14 June 1999, you laid out four immediate priorities for the international community: ensuring the security and safety of all the people of Kosovo; providing urgent relief to the hundreds of thousands of displaced; managing the return of refugees; and recording the evidence of war crimes. You noted that "there would have been no turning point for the countries of the region if the international community had not demonstrated that we would not tolerate the brutality and the ethnic cleansing which Milosevic visited upon Kosovo." The NATO bombing of Kosovo and Serbia cost £62 million a day, or £4,800 million in all, of which Britain's contribution was about 12 percent, or £576 million. By mid-July it is intended that there will be 40,000 NATO troops in Kosovo, assisting to secure the peace.

Human Rights Watch believes that the priorities you noted in relation to Kosovo apply also to Sierra Leone. In Sierra Leone, too, there could be a turning point if the international community shows that it will not tolerate the brutality and atrocities inflicted upon Sierra Leone by all parties to the conflict, and especially the RUF.

We call on the U.K. government to support the creation of an international commission of inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone since 1991, the start of the civil war. We also call on the U.K. to support the creation of a strong U.N. peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone to supplement the Nigerian-led ECOMOG troops currently in the country and the substantial strengthening of the human rights component of UNOMSIL, the U.N. Observer Mission to Sierra Leone, by increasing the numbers of monitors deployed in the country and by clarifying lines of reporting within the U.N.