New York, July 7, 1999) — Human Rights Watch today called on the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to reject any peace agreement for Sierra Leone that includes a general amnesty. The organization also released fresh evidence of ongoing rebel atrocities in Sierra Leone.
In a letter to Annan written on the eve of his visit to Sierra
Leone on July 8, Human Rights Watch urges him to disassociate the U.N. from any general
amnesty for those who have committed atrocities during the eight-year civil war. Peace
talks are currently underway in Lome, Togo. They are being facilitated by the U.N., the
Organization of African Unity, and other organizations.
"The atrocities committed in Sierra Leone have shocked the world," said Peter
Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "The
United Nations must not sponsor a peace agreement that pretends they never happened."
The testimonies that Human Rights Watch released today describe abuses by the rebel forces
of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), including executions of civilians and gang rape
of children committed in violation of a ceasefire agreement which went into effect on May
24. A copy of several testimonies is attached, as well as the letter to Secretary-General
Annan.
Human Rights Watch welcomed Annan's brief visit to Freetown as a sign of high-level U.N.
concern for Sierra Leone. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, also
visited Sierra Leone on June 24-25.
Human Rights Watch urged all parties at the Togo peace talks to
insist that mechanisms of accountability, including trials and punishment for those who
have committed the worst atrocities, be included in any final peace accord.
Human Rights Watch also suggested that the U.N. Secretary-General use the opportunity of
his visit to Freetown to call for greater international support for the ECOMOG
peacekeeping effort of mostly Nigerian forces, which have been deployed in Freetown since
1997. The organization also called on ECOMOG forces to respect international humanitarian
law.
Sierra Leone Testimonies
Human Rights Watch has taken testimonies of survivors and witnesses from seven villages
around the towns of Port Loko and "Mile 91," who describe civilians being hacked
to death, shot as they tried to flee, and rounded up and executed in houses. Some women
were also abducted, forced to carry looted goods and later raped.
A farmer described being one of seventeen civilians rounded up by the rebels on June 23,
stripped and put in a room where ten people were later executed. One twelve year old girl
described being abducted on June 25, forced to carry looted rice, and later gang raped by
nine RUF rebels. The attacks took place during or after raids to obtain food, and were
accompanied by widespread destruction of property.
One man, interviewed in Port Loko on July 5, described how a group of fifty rebels
surrounded the village of Melikuru on June 23 and proceeded to round up seventeen men and
women who were stripped naked and placed in a room. Ten of these civilians were later
gunned down by a rebel who identified himself as the commander. The victim told Human
Rights Watch:
At around noon as I was riding my bike to my house, about fifty rebels entered the town
firing. We all started running but they caught those of us who couldn't get away. They
stripped me completely naked and walked me to Mr. Sadigie's house where they pushed me
into a room with fifteen other men and two women from our village. They were all naked
too. The rebels were going house to house; looting every grain of food we had from our
houses and even set many of them on fire.
A rebel calling himself the commander accused us of supporting the local militias and said
he was going to kill us all. Three other rebels stood by the door so we couldn't run and
we started to beg for our lives and recite prayers. A few minutes later the rebels took
seven of us out, and said we would be used to carry the looted goods to their camp. Then
the commander walked back into the house and opened fire on the ten men left inside. They
went around the room to make sure all of them were dead. Only one man was still alive so
another rebel set upon him with a machete until he died. I knew all of them: Abubakar Kanu
and his father Hassan were both killed, Pa Santigie Fallah and Pa Gbassay Bangura, Brima
Conteh, Pa Sullay and the others; all dead. They gave me a shirt, put a rope around my
waist like a goat and forced me to walk over ten hours with a bag of rice on my head until
we reached the rebel base at Lunsar.
A twelve year old girl and twenty-five year old woman interviewed on July 4 in the village
of Rosar, three miles from Port Loko, described being abducted by RUF rebels on June 25,
who forced them to carry looted goods and later gang-raped them. The twelve year old told
Human Rights Watch:
At around 8:00 p.m. we heard gunshots and started to run into the bush but what seemed
like about one hundred armed men came into our village from all directions. I was in my
house with my mom and dad. We all tried to run into the bush but I was caught. They
surrounded the village and went house to house taking everything; rice, palm oil, clothes.
They said they were the RUF and I recognized one of them from the last time they attacked
Port Loko. They shot Mabinty Kagbo and her husband right on their verandah; Mabinty died.
She was the mother of three children. They rounded up three of us to carry away what
they'd stolen and forced us to walk for over six hours. I carried a heavy bag of rice on
my head until we reached their base. After we'd arrived they put me alone in a room and
four of them raped me on the floor. They hit me with a stick and slapped me. They put a
knife to my throat and said if I resisted they'd kill me right there. In the morning three
more of them raped me. I was bleeding but they said they didn't care.
In the morning they made me and the two other women they'd taken from the village pound a
bushel of rice. They offered us food but we refused. A few hours later after the rebels
had eaten and played football, the commander told us to go back to our village. But on the
way three more rebels chased after us and a few miles from the rebel base, took us into
the bushes and raped me and my neighbor Fatmata. Two more of them raped me before they
finally let us go. I could barely walk back to my village. Even now I'm not right.
A twenty-eight year old woman from Ropolon village, interviewed on July 4 by Human Rights
Watch near Mile 91, described an attack around June 20, in which rebels hacked her uncle,
Pa Mohammed, and two other male villages to death.
A group of them dressed in full combats entered the town in the early morning. They
were the same rebels who'd attacked us at least five times over the last several months.
We knew them, they were always looking for food. This time they had machetes and knives
and as I was running I heard them say "just because it's a ceasefire it doesn't mean
'ceaseloot' or 'cease-cut-glass'" [ie. cut with machetes]. I hid in the bush with my
grandmother and new-born baby girl and when we came back several hours later we found my
uncle and two more young men hacked and stabbed to death outside their houses.
These atrocities are consistent with a long-standing pattern of gross and systematic
abuses by the RUF, including the widespread and indiscriminate murder, rape, abduction and
mutilation of the civilian population and constitute grave breaches of the laws of war and
crimes against humanity.