Entrapment in Kailahun

At the efficiently improvised army mess at Daru, the Gurkha battalion hea-dquarters in the east, near the Liberian border, Commanding Officer Col. Satish Kumar calls the party to attention around a rectangular dining table. It is Major Bhargava’s birthday. A chocolate cake has been baked by one of the Gu-rkhas. Just as everyone begins to sing "Happy birthday", I notice three British officers in the far corner.

It transpires that the three, having had some experience of Northern Ireland, are seen as experts in negotiating with militants. Major Mark Mckinney, a most amiable officer, has a legitimate presence in the mess because he is a military observer. But the other two British officers, in possession of smart communications equipment, are actually hatching schemes to somehow extricate Harrison from Kail-ahun. Since one of the rebel demands is the withdrawal of the British from Sierra Leone (the British are training the Sierra Leone army), in the rebels’ scheme of things Harrison as a bargaining chip acquires sinister significance.

The most important demand advanced by the rebels is to release Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader who has a mesmeric hold on cadres accused of unspeakable brutality. In fact UNAMSIL Force Commander Gen. Vijay Jetley, recently spoke to Brig. Is-sa Sesey, commander of the RUF in the eastern sector. Sesey repeated the demand with one significant modification. `Release Foday Sankoh or keep him in UNAMSIL custody’. Unless this demand is met, the 21 Indians in Pendembu and the 213 in Kailahun (plus eleven foreign military observers) will not be "released".

If negotiations on the ground in Sierra Leone are going on about the release of 21 in Pendembu and the 224 in Kailahun, why are Indian spokesmen only talking about 21 hostages. Why this shroud on the exact number of Indian troops detained? One argument is that the 224 in Kailahun are actually not "hostages". The two companies of Gurkhas in Kailahun are actually well fortified, armed and "in their area of deployment". The only restriction on them is that they may not move out of their area of deployment. In other words, they may not perform their duties as mandated by UNAMSIL. This state of affairs has lasted for nearly seven weeks. Why then is there a "cover up" on the fate of 224 in Kailahun?

No, no, the argument continues. “Our boys in Kailahun can shoot their way out; they are well equipped. There will be some losses too, but the lives of the 21 in Pendembu will be jeopardised.”

The implication is clear. By holding 21 hostages the rebels have, in effect, immobilised not only the two companies in Kailahun but all the 3,000 odd Indians in UNAMSIL throughout Sierra Leone. Will the Indians under any provocation respond with force anywhere if the rebels hold out the threat of eliminating the 21?

Moreover, publicity only to the 21 hostages does not square with the statement given by the Army Chief Gen. V.P. Malik to Worldview India on Saturday, June 10: "If the security Council is not able to prevail and have 21 Indian hostages released from Pendembu, and help end the encirclement of the 224 Indian officers and men (including eleven foreign military observers) the UNAMSIL Force Commander in Freetown may have to resort to military action to have UNAMSIL men released. This operation itself is not without risk to the UNAMSIL men, most of whom are Indians. Moreover, this action could even spell the end of UNAMSIL."

After six weeks of relative lull, Indian diplomacy has suddenly picked up. The Indian High Commissioner to Ghana was dispatched to Liberia to prevail on President Charles Taylor, who has considerable influence on the rebels in Sierra Leone. He met an official thrice removed from Taylor. No-thing happened. Now an ECOWAS (Economic Community of West Af-rican States) delegation is on its way to mediate and secure the release of the Indians.

But why would ECOWAS work sincerely towards this end when ECOWAS and its military incarnation ECOMOG and UNAMSIL ha-ve been at loggerheads from the very outset?

The Lome Peace accord of July 1999 called for ECOMOG and UNAMSIL to oversee the peace process in the first phase. Since ECOMOG was dominated by Nigeria, the regional power, the expectation among the Nigerians was that ECOMOG would form the major part of UN peacekeeping force and that this force would be headed by the ECOMOG Force Commander Maj. Gen. Kpamber, who went to the UN headquarters to influence this appointment. Since Kpamber and ECOMOG had played a partisan role in the Sierra Leone conflict, Indians were seen as ideal material for reconciliation, which Lome entailed.

To complicate matters further a Nigerian diplomat, Oluymi Adeneji, was appointed the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative in Sierra Leone, in hierarchy a notch above Gen. Jetley. The Deputy Force Commander, Mohammad Abdullah Garba, is also a Nigerian. Thus sandwiched between two Nigerians, Jetley has faced obstructions throughout.

It is hoped that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s telephonic conversation last week with President Obasanjo of Nigeria will have some effect on restoring a proper chain of command within UNAMSIL.

There seem to be only two options. Give Foday Sankoh another chance in the peace process as Lome envisages or the two companies in Kailahun will have to shoot their way out, placing a huge question mark on all future peacekeeping missions.