Artillery Fire Pounds Sierra Leone
By Ian Stewart
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, January 9, 1999; 7:45 a.m. EST
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) -- Artillery fire pounded Sierra Leone's
capital through the night and heavy fighting was reported today around
one of the city's main military bases while rebels battled government
soldiers and their allies for the city.
It remained unclear how much of the city the rebel Revolutionary United
Front controls, but residents said that one of the city's main military bases,
the Wilberforce Barracks, was under attack today.
Those reports, however, could not be independently confirmed.
The latest fighting comes a day after a top rebel commander rejected a
proclaimed cease-fire, warning that his forces would intensify their assault
on the capital if he is not allowed to meet soon with his imprisoned leader.
Gen. Sam Bockarie, the Revolutionary United Front's top field
commander, said Friday that he was gearing up to attack western parts of
the capital controlled by loyalist troops as well as the international airport
in the nearby town of Lungi, an important military base.
The cease-fire was announced Thursday by President Ahmed Tejan
Kabbah, who said he had reached the accord with the imprisoned rebel
leader, Foday Sankoh.
Recordings of the two men announcing the agreement were broadcast
early Friday on state-controlled radio, but Bockarie suggested that
Sankoh had not really agreed to the cease-fire and refused to call off his
attack.
Although outgunned and outfinanced, the rebels have baffled the
Nigerian-led coalition of West African troops, known as ECOMOG,
which is protecting Sierra Leone's elected government.
The rebels battled their way Wednesday into the capital, the most
populous city in this nation of 4.5 million people.
The rebels, hidden in among civilians, are using the very people they
purport to be liberating as shields to fend off a counterstrike.
That rebel ploy has so far stymied a full-scale military response and forced
the government to consider releasing Sankoh, the shadowy rebel leader.
Sankoh, in prison in an undisclosed location, was convicted by a Sierra
Leone court of high treason and sentenced to death. Among his crimes is
the creation of the RUF and its years-long murderous rampage through
villages and towns.
Kabbah was deposed in a coup in May 1997 by a military junta allied
with the rebels, but soldiers from the West African coalition force restored
him to power 10 months ago.
Since then, the insurgents have been rebuilding, strengthened by defections
from Sierra Leone's military and by mercenaries from Liberia.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook recently said there was ''credible
evidence'' that Liberia is supporting the Sierra Leonean rebels.
The British Royal Navy is sending the frigate HMS Norfolk to waters near
Sierra Leone to monitor developments in the civil strife, the British
Ministry of Defense said today. The ship will arrive some time next week,
the ministry said.
Liberian President Charles Taylor -- once tightly allied with Sankoh -- has
denied sending soldiers into Sierra Leone, although he concedes that
Liberian mercenaries are helping the rebels.
People who have spent time with the rebels say they fiercely believe in
their cause -- a vague mixture of agrarian democracy and revolutionary
socialism.
But their only stated goals are the ouster of Kabbah -- whom they accuse
of corruption -- and freedom for Sankoh, a former photographer who
claims supernatural powers.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
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