Getting Away with Murder, Mutilation, and Rape
HRW Report, June 1999 Letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
July 9, 1999 Letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
July 6, 1999 Letter to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson
June 24, 1999 Letter to President Clinton
June 29, 1999 Parties to Sierra Leone War Urged Not to Recruit Child Soldiers
HRW Press Release, May 4, 1999 Maputo Declaration on the Use of Children as Soldiers
(April 22, 1999) More Than 120,000 Child Soldiers Fighting in Africa
HRW Press Release, April 19, 1999 The Use of Children as Soldiers in Africa
A country analysis of child recruitment and participation in armed conflict
The report, released by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, April 19, 1999 New Regime, but Continued Human Rights Violations: Despite Promises, the Use and Abuse of Child Soldiers Continues in Sierra Leone
HRW Press Release, July 1998
SIERRA LEONE: SOWING TERROR
Atrocities against Civilians in Sierra Leone
HRW Report, July 1998
(Letter Sent to All Ambassadors to the Security Council)
Your Excellency,
The United Nations has disassociated itself from the amnesty provisions of the Sierra Leone peace accord, signed in Lome on July 7, 1999, by adding a disclaimer to the first original of the peace document. Human Rights Watch, while welcoming this renouncement, is deeply troubled that the United Nations allowed itself to facilitate an accord containing such provisions, which violate international law and the U.N.'s most fundamental human rights principles. That the U.N. would breach these principles in the case of one of the more ruthless rebels groups we have seen is all the more disturbing. We therefore urge the Security Council to take immediate and decisive steps to make this reservation more than a symbolic gesture.
Time and again, the United Nations' experience has shown that peace accords built on impunity are shaky and do not hold. In Angola, for example, six amnesties have been granted as part of the peace process, and each has served as little more than an invitation to further bloodshed and atrocities.
We therefore call on the Security Council that in the resolution on Sierra Leone that you will be adopting in the upcoming days, you include the following specific provisions that would reinforce the point made in the disclaimer:
Explicitly state in the resolution that the Sierra Leonean amnesty is only for crimes against the state and not for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law.
Immediately 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 tribunal for Sierra Leone.
Maintain all remaining sanctions against the RUF (as per Resolutions 1132 and 1171), at least until the moment when the Secretary-General can certify to the Council the full disarming of the RUF, its full compliance with the provisions of the Lome peace accord, and its full cooperation with efforts to investigate its extraordinarily abusive conduct.
Furthermore, we urge you to strengthen UNOMSIL with additional human rights monitors and to reinforce the present ECOMOG peacekeeping force with a U.N. peacekeeping component.
As a group that has monitored and documented the abuses in Sierra Leone on an on-going basis, we stand ready to assist you with documentation and analyses. Thank you for your kind attention to this urgent matter.
With kind regards,/s/
Peter Takirambudde
Executive Director, Africa Division
/s/
Joanna Weschler
U.N. Representative