Human Rights Watch today called on the chief of United Nations peacekeeping to strengthen the resolve and capacity of troops under U.N. command to fully protect civilians in Sierra Leone. The U.N. official, Bernard Miyet, is expected to arrive in Freetown today.
Miyet is concerned about the safety of the peacekeepers, but the peacekeepers must be concerned about the safety of the people of Sierra Leone," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. "Given the many atrocities suffered by the Sierra Leonean people, the international community should not put all its efforts simply into evacuating its own nationals from Freetown."
Takirambudde supported the statement of the U.N. Secretary General on sending a rapid-reaction force to Sierra Leone, but stressed that any such force should have protection of local civilians at the heart of its mission. "The people of Sierra Leone must not be abandoned," said Takirambudde. "The U.N. should respond rapidly to their crisis, as well as its own."
Human Rights Watch also suggested that it is time to start drawing lessons from the misguided 1999 amnesty for grave human rights abuses in Sierra Leone. The Lomé Accord, signed in July 1999, included a blanket amnesty for atrocities-including summary executions, amputations, rapes, abductions, and looting-committed during Sierra Leone's nine-year civil war. Most of the abuses were committed by the Revolutionary United Front under the command of Foday Sankoh.
Human Rights Watch strongly opposed the amnesty at the time. In a historic move, the U.N. did state, at the time of the pact's signing, that it did not consider itself bound by the pact's amnesty, but the international community took no steps to establish a mechanism for bringing the perpetrators to justice. Even within Sierra Leone the amnesty also does not cover atrocities committed since July 7, 1999-the date the accord was signed.
"The amnesty was a terrible mistake from the very beginning," said Takirambudde. "It was adopted in the hopes that somehow the atrocities would end as a result. They have not. The international community must now ensure that there are consequences for the criminal acts committed by Sankoh and his henchmen."
Human Rights Watch noted that grave breaches of the laws of war and crimes against humanity committed during the civil war are crimes of "universal jurisdiction," for which any nation may prosecute the perpetrators, regardless of their nationality, the nationality of the victims, or the place of the crime.
Human Rights Watch called on the Security Council to strengthen UNAMSIL's mandate, to give the commanders on the ground the clear duty and means to protect civilians and to ensure the investigation of gross human rights violations with a view to the eventual apprehension and prosecution of those found responsible.
The organization also called on the member states of the U.N. to ensure that the full complement of troops authorized for UNAMSIL is rapidly deployed, and that these troops are of the quality- provided with the means-needed to fulfill the difficult task of maintaining peace in the Sierra Leonean context. Human Rights Watch noted that the member states of the Security Council, in particular the Permanent Five, have shown significantly greater willingness to commit their own troops on the borders of Europe than in Africa-except when it comes to evacuating their own nationals.
"The strong international response to abuses in Bosnia and Kosovo stands in stark contrast to the way in which the appalling atrocities committed in Sierra Leone have largely been ignored," said Takirambudde. "Those countries with the resources to do so should provide troops, equipment, financial backing, and logistical support to allow the U.N. to fulfill the international community's responsibilities to Sierra Leone. The idea of ‘African solutions to African problems' is just a way to pass the buck. That buck should stop with those who have the ability to take the urgent action that is needed."
