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Britain Urges Isolation of Sankoh in Sierra Leone
Britain insisted Sunday that captured rebel leader Foday Sankoh must not be allowed back into Sierra Leone's Government.
Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said Sankoh was responsible for the recent upsurge in violence in Sierra Leone and should not be allowed to play any role in the future government of that western African nation.
Speaking to the BBC's Breakfast With Frost program, Hoon said that although British forces had helped move Sankoh after his arrest, his fate rested with Sierra Leone's Government.
Foday Sankoh, leader of the rebel Revolutionary United Front blamed for breaking a peace deal in Sierra Leone, was arrested last Tuesday.
"It's a matter for them to decide what should happen to him next. But obviously we would be concerned that he should no longer have any kind of an influence over Sierra Leone. He was the one who broke the peace accord, he's responsible for the recent upsurge in violence," Hoon said.
The defense secretary also confirmed that Britain was considering a request from Sierra Leone's government for ammunition supplies and that Britain's plan was to keep its troops in that country only until United Nations reinforcements arrive.
He said Britain had discussed a request for more ammunition with Sierra Leone's President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and was checking it "very carefully."
But he declined to specify exactly when British forces would leave Sierra Leone, where hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers remain rebel hostages.
However, he expressed confidence that the U.N. force "will be properly reinforced very quickly."
"We are not entering into the combat situation there. We have made it clear that our forces are there for a specific purpose -- to secure and make safe the airport both for evacuation and reinforcement by the United Nations," he said.
There are about 700 crack British paratroopers now in Sierra Leone, a former British colony, backing up 9,000 United Nations peacekeepers trying to disarm rebel fighters and implement the 1999 peace treaty.
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