After eight years of a crippling civil war which left more than 50,000 people dead and a million civilians displaced, peace may finally come to Sierra Leone. According to news reports, Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel leader Foday Sankoh and Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) leader Johnny Paul Koroma have been criss-crossing the country calling on their fighters to lay down their weapons.

Reuters news reported that on a recent visit to Makeni, a town still controlled by the RUF, Sankoh, accompanied by United Nations military personnel and peacekeeping forces from West Africa, was given a "rousing welcome" by his fighters. He told them to stop fighting and embrace democracy. His counterpart, Johnny Paul Koroma, also told his rebels that they must end their armed campaign and hand in their weapons to peacekeeping troops.

The Sierra Leone conflict started in 1991 when Foday Sankoh, an associate of Charles Taylor (the former Liberian rebel leader turned president of Liberia), took up arms to overthrow the government of Sierra Leone. At first Sankoh's campaign was not taken seriously, because it was seen by many as a spillover from the Liberian civil war.

Foday Sankoh and his RUF rebels took their armed campaign into Sierra Leone's countryside, killing , maiming, raping, and terrorizing the civilian population. Unable to stop the RUF's dreadful campaign of terror, the government was forced, in November 1996, to negotiate peace with the rebels. An accord was signed in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, to end the war and legalize the RUF as a political party. However, neither side implemented the agreement. Fighting continued until a Sierra Leone military junta, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), overthrew the democratically elected government of Ahmed Kabbah in May 1997.

The AFRC formed an alliance with the RUF, and together they ran the country. Regional economic sanctions imposed on the junta to return power to the elected government did not produce the intended results. In March 1998, Nigerian- led ECOMOG West African intervention forces overthrew the junta and re-instated President Kabbah.

After being chased out of Freetown, both the AFRC and the RUF renewed their military campaign in the countryside, killing and maiming people who refused to collaborate with them. In January the rebels assaulted Freetown, burning 80 percent of the city, killing more than 5,000 people, and displacing thousands more, including Bishop Joseph Humper of the Sierra Leone Annual Conference. "Entire families were gunned down in the street, children and adults had their limbs cut off with machetes, and girls and young women were taken to rebel bases and sexually abused," according to a report by Human Rights Watch. The rebels' assault on Freetown was halted by the Nigerian-led ECOMOG forces.

Despite public sentiment against the rebels, the Interreligious Council of Sierra Leone, a multifaith organization, which includes the United Methodist Church, encouraged both the government and the rebels to engage in constructive dialogue to end the fighting.

In July, a deal to end the war between the rebels and the government was brokered by the government of Togo. The ceasefire agreement calls for power- sharing between the elected government and the rebels. Many of the rebels received ministerial positions. Foday Sankoh, the RUF leader, was given the post of vice- president, while his counterpart Johnny Paul Koroma of the AFRC was made head of the governmental Commission for the Consolidation of Peace. "We hope that they will use their new positions to bring an end to atrocities committed by their forces," says a Sierra Leonean woman living in Arlington, Virginia.

The peace deal signed in Togo also calls for the rebels to disarm by December 15. However, according to Sierra Leonean analysts, the rebel army-- estimated at 45,000--has been slow to disarm. There are also reports of fighting between the RUF and the AFRC.

As part of the agreement, the United Nations is scheduled to deploy troops to Sierra Leone for a peacekeeping role. According to Reuters news, preparations are now underway for the United Nations to start deploying 6,000 soldiers to Sierra Leone.

November 21, 1999