UN's credibility mission

Sierra Leone's inhabitants have been pressing for the British to stay

By Mark Doyle in Sierra Leone

This was more, much more than just another UN convoy lumbering around in another Third World war.

The long line of trucks and armoured personnel carriers heading along the main highway into the Sierra Leonean jungle was carrying 500 Indian peacekeepers. But it was also carrying the hope that UN peacekeeping can, perhaps, succeed in Africa.

The series of humiliations that the UN suffered here in May was only the latest setback to international peacekeeping on this continent.

Somalia, Rwanda and Angola have all seen UN forces collapse in recent years and until Friday it seemed possible that the very concept of peacekeeping by the world body was under threat.

What, after all, is the point of an UN force which can have hundreds of its soldiers taken hostage and has to make what is euphemistically called a 'tactical withdrawal' back to base.

Most of the professional soldiers I have spoken to here, even many of them inside the UN mission, talk of the operation in Sierra Leone with utter contempt, bordering on desperation.

Indian peacekeepers are now dug in at Rogberi

Certainly when the British task force arrived here a few weeks ago, the contrast with the UN could not have been more stark.

Highly motivated and superbly equipped, the British gave an immediate boost to morale - to the people of Sierra Leone, to the government forces and to the United Nations.

When it was announced here last week that the British were planning to leave soon, there were howls of complaint from the residents of Freetown.

It may sound politically incorrect in the world outside Sierra Leone but almost all of the local people I spoke to told me that they wanted their 'colonial masters' to stay on to save them from the much feared rebels.

A few days ago I accompanied the commander of the British task force, Brigadier David Richards, on a morning's tour of his men. We flew in helicopters, joined a British warship and landed on a beach in a speedboat.

Of course, soldiers love showing off these 'boys' toys' to journalists. Of course the British were not here for the long haul and were not exposed and isolated in the bush like some of the hapless UN troops. But the fact is that the British toys work and the British soldiers and officers are highly professional.

Foday Sankoh signs the now shattered Lome accord

Back in UN headquarters, a converted hotel in Freetown, officers from numerous national contingents told me that there was a woeful lack of military command and control in the international force and that some national units even disobeyed the orders of the UN commander.

There has also been open talk of UN officers plotting against each other for top positions not to mention serious practical problems like some troop units arriving here without food or other basic requirements.

The kidnapping of hundreds of the UN peacekeepers by the rebels was the last straw and just to twist the knife further, the UN had to negotiate for the release of its men with the President of neighbouring Liberia, Charles Taylor - the man who is the rebels' main international backer and effectively an opponent of the UN force.

Some of the 500 Indian peacekeepers who were heading for the front line on Friday said they wanted to reverse all of these setbacks.

Looting

Their confident demeanour and brisk professionalism may help them succeed. They are heading for positions near the front line where the rebels have been clashing with government forces in an extremely dirty war.

It is a conflict where civilians are regularly targeted in terror campaigns and where, to many of the combatants, looting is as important as winning military victories.

The heavily-armed Indian convoy heading out to the front line is intended to block the rebels route into Freetown. But the smart demeanour and confidence of the Indians on the convoy should not disguise the danger of their mission.

The rebels of the Revolutionary United Front are not to be underestimated. They have taken on and beaten conventional armies before.

It is now well known that they have committed widespread atrocities against civilians and are sometimes high on narcotics but that does not mean that they are not determined.

Some of them genuinely believe that they have a mission to fight the corruption that is rampant on the government side of the lines, and the decade of chaos that has engulfed Sierra Leone makes recruiting unemployed youth into their ranks a relatively easy task.

Five hundred UN peacekeepers will not win the war against the rebels and it is not even clear that they want to actually mount an offensive but the convoy that headed out of Freetown on Friday was the first sign for several weeks that the UN intends to do business.

Only time will tell if the Indian peacekeepers will now pluck success from the jaws of what was for the UN a humiliating defeat.