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Annan Hopes Efforts Can Be Directed to Resume Peace Process in Sierra Leone
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Monday said that he hopes that efforts can now be directed to resume the much-stalled peace process in Sierra Leone after more than 200 UN peacekeepers were rescued from more than two months of siege by the rebel Revolutionary United Front (FUR) in the West African country.
A statement, issued here by the spokesman of Annan, said, "The Secretary-General is gratified that the military operation to bring to safety the UNAMSIL (the UN Mission in Sierra Leone) peacekeepers, who had been surrounded for two and a half months by the RUF, has been completed successfully."
"Now that this episode is behind us, the Secretary-General hopes that all efforts can now be directed toward establishing conditions conducive to a resumption of the peace process in Sierra Leone and an early end to the prolonged suffering that the people of Sierra Leone have had to endure," the statement said.
Some 222 Indian peacekeepers were sprung from their camp in the eastern rebel stronghold of Kailahun in a dawn operation on Saturday, provoking rebels to attack the rescue convoy as it made its way to a UN base at Daru, 80 kilometers away. They killed one peacekeeper and wounded six others.
Indian, Ghanaian and Nigerian peacekeepers, who mounted the rescue had replied with full force, destroyed the key rebel base in the area at Pendembu on their route and inflicting heavy casualties on rebels.
The Indian unit had been surrounded since early May, as RUF rebels flouted a 1999 peace accord in a dispute over disarmament, taking more than 500 UN peacekeepers hostage and threatening the whole UN peace operation.
The force is now close to its authorized strength of 13,000, making it the world's biggest UN peacekeeping force, and no longer has any personnel immediately threatened by rebels.
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