|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FREETOWN (News Agencies)-Once a moderately prosperous former British colony, Sierra Leone is now ranked by the United Nations, as the poorest country in the world. Yet it has among the world's richest diamond deposits. In recent years the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), has controlled the richest diamond fields. The massive turnout for Friday's funeral, attended by tens of thousands, for 19 people killed by a body guard of opposition leader Foday Sankoh, at which the victims were buried with full state honors, and the bitter invective directed at the leader of the RUF, are measures of the disgust and fatigue residents of this once-beautiful city feel toward the opposition. "No more Sankoh, no more Sankoh," the throng sang, clapping their hands. They continued, "Before we'll be his slave we'll be buried in our grave, and go up to our homes in the sky." Since Monday, when Sankoh's bodyguards gunned down unarmed civilian protesters in front of his house here and Sankoh himself vanished, the mood of the population has shifted dramatically against the RUF, who are perhaps best known abroad for their brutal tactic of dismembering their foes. Previously, many people here said they were willing to forgive past atrocities to see the country move toward peace after eight years of a vicious civil war. They had supported a controversial peace agreement signed in July 1999, which granted the RUF amnesty and a share of power in exchange for promises to disarm. Sankoh was named vice president. But the RUF did not disarm, and this month it kidnapped hundreds of U.N. peacekeeping troops sent to monitor the cease-fire. Then the protesters were shot Monday, and the mood of forgiveness was replaced by bitterness toward the former army corporal who considers himself one of the world's great revolutionaries. "This is a unique show of unity from all sectors of society," said Foreign Minister Samuel Banye. "Before we were divided, but this is almost a spontaneous movement to show Foday Sankoh enough is enough." Today, Attorney General Solomon Berewa fed the popular anger further. He held a nationally televised news conference to say that accounts from Sankoh associates, plus documents taken from Sankoh's home, show the RUF leader was planning a violent coup d'etat this week. Berewa also said the documents show that Sankoh, as a senior government official, had sold millions of dollars worth of diamonds to buy weapons, long after the peace agreement was signed. "It is clear that without diamonds there would be no war in Sierra Leone. Foday Sankoh had serious criminal tendencies and kept most of the wealth for himself," said Berewa, explaining that the government worked with him not because it was duped but because "we hoped that one day the devil in him would go away and the angel would come in." Berewa said "the papers supported what many had long insisted: that the war was about the nation's rich diamond fields, and not ideology," adding that Sankoh had offered lucrative diamond concessions to British and South African businesses. Even though, Sankoh had consistently denied that, and that his troops kidnapped children and turned them into opposition fighters, list of hundreds of children were found, ordered by name and "date captured." The documents were displayed at the news conference, but copies were not made available for careful examination. |
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
