Amnesty International Report 2000 - Sierra Leone

Head of state and government: Ahmad Tejan Kabbah
Capital: Freetown
Population: 4.4 million
Official language: English
Death penalty: retentionist

The political and human rights crisis deepened as rebel forces attacked Freetown in January 1999. Thousands of unarmed civilians were deliberately and arbitrarily killed, mutilated, raped or abducted. Although conclusion of a peace agreement in July provided opportunities to end human rights abuses, the political and security situation remained precarious and human rights abuses against civilians continued. The peace agreement included a general amnesty which provided impunity for human rights abuses, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed during the conflict.

Background

Rebel forces of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) attacked Freetown on 6 January and committed large-scale atrocities against civilians. Extensive destruction of property made as many as 200,000 people homeless. Although rebel forces were forced to retreat by forces of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), fighting continued in other parts of the country and some towns, including Makeni in Northern Province, remained under rebel control. Liberia was widely accused of providing military support to rebel forces, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution.

A cease-fire was agreed in May, and a peace agreement – signed in Lomé, Togo, in July – provided for an immediate cessation of hostilities and disarmament and demobilization of former combatants. RUF and AFRC members were appointed to ministerial positions in a government of national unity in October and the RUF became a political party. RUF leader Foday Sankoh, with the status of vice-president, chaired a commission to manage mineral resources and post-conflict reconstruction, and Johnny Paul Koroma, leader of the AFRC, a commission to oversee implementation of the peace process.

Implementation of key provisions of the peace agreement, including disarmament and demobilization, release of captured civilians and unhindered humanitarian access, was, however, limited. Full deployment of a UN peace-keeping force to monitor the cease-fire and assist with disarmament and demobilization was delayed. By the end of 1999 only some 3,500 of an estimated 45,000 combatants had been disarmed and demobilized. Despite the appointment of their leaders to official positions, political rivalry between AFRC and RUF forces resulted in heavy fighting, in particular in Makeni and Lunsar in October. Rifts also emerged between Foday Sankoh and other rebel leaders who had yet to disarm, and doubts remained about the commitment of the RUF to the peace process. Parts of the north and east of the country, including strategic diamond-mining areas, remained inaccessible.

Abuses by rebel forces

RUF and AFRC forces committed gross human rights abuses on a large scale. AI repeatedly called for an end to abuses and to transfers of arms, ammunition and combatants to rebel forces.

Despite improvement after the signing of the peace agreement, there was a marked increase in attacks on civilians from October in areas west of the Occra Hills and in Northern Province, in particular around Makeni, Lunsar, Port Loko, Kambia and Kabala, and a pattern of deliberate intimidation and terrorizing of civilians re-emerged. From November such attacks, often during raids for food, money and other goods, occurred almost daily in Northern Province.

Deliberate and arbitrary killings

Although it was impossible to ascertain the exact number of deaths during the rebel incursion into Freetown, an estimated 5,000 people, at least 2,000 of them civilians, were killed. Medical authorities subsequently put the figure at over 6,000. Although most killings were arbitrary, some individuals and groups – including government officials, journalists, lawyers, human rights activists, prison officials and police officers – were deliberately targeted. For example, more than 200 police officers and eight journalists were reported to have been killed.

After being forced from Freetown, rebel forces continued to commit atrocities. In Masiaka, east of Freetown, civilians accused of sympathizing with government forces were killed or mutilated. In one incident in a village between Masiaka and Mile 38, several babies and young children were reported to have been killed. Deliberate and arbitrary killings of civilians continued after the peace agreement, particularly in Northern Province.

Torture, including mutilation and rape

As rebel forces retreated from Freetown, they mutilated civilians by cutting off limbs, most frequently hands and arms. In February reports indicated that some 500 victims of mutilation who required surgery were being treated in Freetown hospitals. Among the youngest recorded victims was a six-year-old girl whose left arm had been severed. It was probable that many other victims failed to reach medical help and died from their injuries.

Amputations and others forms of torture continued to be reported after rebel forces retreated from Freetown, although on a lesser scale. In May boys and young men in the area around Masiaka were seen with the letters RUF carved across their chests. In an attack on a village near Port Loko in October there were cases of attempted amputation of limbs, and burns inflicted by molten plastic.

Rape and other forms of sexual abuse of women and girls were systematic and widespread. During the rebel incursion into Freetown, women and girls were rounded up and gang-raped, often in public. More than 90 per cent of women and girls abducted and held captive were believed to have been raped: many were forced to submit to rape or be killed. Many girls subsequently released were pregnant, had given birth or had contracted sexually transmitted diseases. Rape of women and girls caught up in the fighting between AFRC and RUF forces in Makeni and Lunsar in October was common.

Abduction of civilians

Rebel forces abducted several thousand civilians, including children, from Freetown in January. Some of those abducted were subsequently killed. Some were selected for training as fighters, others used as porters to carry looted goods. Abducted women and girls were forced into sexual slavery and retained to cook and undertake other tasks. Up to 4,000 children were reported missing from Freetown, most of them abducted.

A small number of prominent Sierra Leoneans, including the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Freetown, and foreign nationals, including priests and nuns, were also abducted. At least eight were killed and two others seriously injured. Others, including the archbishop, either escaped or were released.

Although the peace agreement provided for the release of captured civilians, only some 1,000 adults and children, a comparatively small number, had been freed by December. Many of those released suffered from malnutrition and disease. The release of girls and young women was particularly difficult to secure. Some 2,400 children, most of them girls, abducted from Freetown remained missing.

As attacks against civilians increased from October, the number of civilians being abducted exceeded those released.

Hostage-taking

AFRC forces captured more than 30 UN military and civilian personnel who had gone to the Occra Hills in August with an ECOMOG escort to supervise the release of abducted civilians. Their captors claimed that Johnny Paul Koroma was held under duress by RUF forces and that the peace agreement disadvantaged AFRC forces. All were released after six days.

In December RUF forces captured two foreign nationals working for an international humanitarian organization, Médecins sans frontières (MSF-France), in Kailahun District, Eastern Province, and held them hostage for 10 days in protest against disarmament and demobilization being supervised by UN peace-keeping forces and ECOMOG troops.

ECOMOG and Civil Defence Forces

ECOMOG forces were commended by the international community for their role in Sierra Leone. They and the civilian militia supporting President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, the Civil Defence Forces (CDF), however, also committed human rights violations.

During the rebel incursion into Freetown, large numbers of captured or suspected rebels were extrajudicially executed by ECOMOG and the CDF, often without any real attempt to establish guilt or innocence. Children, including an eight-year-old boy caught in possession of a gun, were among the victims. Ill-treatment, including beatings, whippings and public humiliation, was common at ECOMOG and CDF checkpoints.

At least 10 Sierra Leonean staff of humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of the Red Cross were detained by ECOMOG forces in January; most were beaten. Although accused of cooperating with rebel forces, these allegations were unfounded.

Indiscriminate aerial bombardments on densely populated areas of Freetown during the rebel incursion resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties.

AI called for strict compliance by ECOMOG forces with international human rights and humanitarian law. In April the ECOWAS Executive Secretary called for an investigation into extrajudicial executions by ECOMOG forces but none took place. A committee subsequently established to monitor relations between ECOMOG forces and the civilian population failed to function effectively.

Reports of harassment and ill-treatment by ECOMOG forces continued in the months which followed. Detainees held by ECOMOG forces and the CDF were ill-treated, including by being beaten and having arms and hands tied extremely tightly. Civilians and humanitarian convoys travelling along major roads were frequently harassed.

Child combatants

Several thousand children under the age of 18 fought with rebel and CDF forces. An estimated 10 per cent of rebel forces who attacked Freetown were children, many of them previously abducted and frequently under the influence of drugs. Some were responsible for killings and mutilations.

Before the peace agreement, widespread recruitment of children by the CDF in Southern and Eastern Provinces continued. The peace agreement specified that particular attention be given to the issue of child combatants and the government made repeated commitments to end recruitment of children. Although the CDF subsequently demobilized some child combatants, it admitted in November that some 200 children aged between 15 and 18 were in its forces in the Kabala region and that there had been no effort to demobilize them.

In September the UN estimated that 5,400 child combatants were awaiting disarmament and demobilization; the real number, however, was likely to be much higher. Child combatants, including those who had been abducted, were still engaged in combat; in October a number of boys were among those injured in fighting between rebel forces.

AI called for priority to be given to disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers and for adequate resources for agencies, including UNICEF, specifically helping them.

Refugees and internally displaced people

More than a million people were internally displaced and half a million were refugees, most of them in Guinea. Often still at risk of human rights abuses, they also suffered acute hardship including shortage of food and basic health care. In some areas up to 80 per cent of internally displaced people were reported to be children, many unaccompanied.

Delays in disarmament and demobilization, continuing insecurity and lack of access to parts of the country limited the return of internally displaced people and refugees.

Intergovernmental organizations

Human rights abuses and violations of the peace agreement by rebel forces were repeatedly condemned by the international community which took major initiatives to establish peace and security. An international contact group bringing together intergovernmental organizations and key governments met in April and July. AI called on the international community, including the UN and the World Bank, for protection and respect of human rights to be at the centre of efforts to resolve the political crisis and during post-conflict reconstruction.

A Human Rights Manifesto for Sierra Leone was adopted during a visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in June. It included commitments to promote children's rights and to raising the age of military recruitment to 18 years. It also pledged UN support for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a National Human Rights Commission, both subsequently included in the peace agreement.

In September, after visiting Sierra Leone, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict proposed specific measures to meet the needs of children affected by the conflict.

In October the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of an international peace-keeping force of 6,000 troops as part of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL). The force, to include a substantial number of troops from ECOWAS countries, was to be deployed for an initial period of six months to help implement the peace agreement, in particular monitoring the cease-fire and the disarmament and demobilization of former combatants. The full complement of troops, however, had not been deployed by the end of 1999. A reduced ECOMOG force was to remain to maintain security and help implement the peace agreement with UNAMSIL. Subsequent plans to withdraw ECOMOG troops, however, prompted a recommendation by the UN Secretary-General in late December for a substantial increase in UNAMSIL troops. The UN peace-keeping force was mandated to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence, within its capabilities and areas of deployment.

Following the peace agreement, the UN Security Council agreed to expand the human rights section of UNAMSIL, including by appointing advisers on child protection. The human rights section monitored and reported abuses and promoted respect and protection of human rights. It was actively involved in securing the release of prisoners and captured civilians and in assisting in the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Human Rights Commission. It also provided human rights training for police and UN military observers and support for Sierra Leonean human rights groups. AI called for the human rights section to receive full political support and adequate resources.

In November the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights decided to send a delegation to Sierra Leone in early 2000.

Impunity

The peace agreement provided for a general amnesty for all acts undertaken in pursuit of the conflict. The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sierra Leone, signing the peace agreement as a moral guarantor, added a disclaimer that the UN did not recognize the amnesty as applying to genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. It remained unclear, however, how impunity for such abuses would be addressed. While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided by the peace agreement could examine human rights abuses committed during the conflict, it could not alone establish full accountability because of the amnesty.

Shortly after the peace agreement was signed, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for an international investigation into human rights abuses during the conflict and the UN Secretary-General acknowledged that the amnesty was difficult to reconcile with the goal of ending impunity. He suggested to the UN Security Council that it consider measures to ensure accountability for serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law, including the establishment of an international commission of inquiry. While noting the views of the Secretary-General, the Security Council neither explicitly supported nor endorsed such a commission, judging that insistence on accountability for human rights abuses at that stage would undermine the peace process.

In a letter to the Security Council in July, AI urged that it recommend an effective international mechanism for investigating human rights abuses and for bringing those responsible to justice. Although the High Commissioner's Office established a study on the possible relationship between the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and an international commission of inquiry, no recommendations were known to have been made by the end of the year.

AI country reports

• Sierra Leone: Escalating human rights crisis requires urgent action (AI Index: AFR 51/001/99)
• Sierra Leone: UN human rights presence reduced as abuses worsen (AI Index: AFR 51/003/99)
• Sierra Leone: Recommendations to the international contact group on Sierra Leone, New York, 19 April 1999 (AI Index: AFR 51/005/99)
• Sierra Leone: Mary Robinson's visit to Freetown – placing human rights centre stage (AI Index: AFR 51/006/99)
• Sierra Leone: A peace agreement but no justice (AI Index: AFR 51/007/99)
• Sierra Leone: The Security Council should clarify the United Nations' position on impunity (AI Index: AFR 51/010/99)
• Sierra Leone: Amnesty International's recommendations to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Durban, South Africa, 12–15 November 1999 (AI Index: AFR 51/011/99)
• Sierra Leone: Escalating human rights abuses against civilians (AI Index: AFR 51/013/99)