To broaden the discussion beyond Angola, I offer the following from
yesterday's AP newswire on the continuing human rights abuses in Sierra
Leone-which is in part what I was referring to when I said earlier that what
was happening in Africa made the goings-on in Kosovo seem like a summer
picnic . . . albeit a summer picnic in hell. (For a quite thoughtful mass
media piece on the lessons of Kosovo in terms of other crises, see Michael
Elliott's "The Lessons of a 'War of Values'" in this week's Newsweek;
electronic version available at
http://www.newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/in/in0626_1.htm.
<http://www.newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/in/in0626_1.htm.> ) 

Becky

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Becky Kennison			
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-----Original Message-----

Rights Groups Accuse African Rebels
.c The Associated Press
By WILLIAM J. KOLE

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - Sierra Leone's rebels have systematically
murdered, mutilated and raped civilians while world attention has been
focused on Kosovo, human rights groups charged Thursday.
The bloodshed was at its worst in January, when rebels of the Revolutionary
United Front rampaged in the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown, gunning
down fleeing families in the street and using machetes to lop off their
limbs, New York-based Human Rights Watch said.
U.N. and government officials estimate more than 5,000 people died during
the fighting in the capital in December and January.
"This is not a war in which civilians are accidental victims. This is a war
in which civilians are the targets," said Peter Takirambudde, head of the
Africa office of Human Rights Watch.
"The crimes against humanity ... are unspeakably brutal, and the world must
not simply avert its attention from the crisis," he said. "The United
Nations and its member states must show that the rights of all human beings
are of equal value."
Representatives of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah's government and the rebels
are in Lome, Togo, trying to negotiate an end to eight years of civil war
that have killed and maimed tens of thousands of people.
But the war could flare up again as it has in the past, bringing a new wave
of killings, mutilations, rapes and abductions, Amnesty International warned
Thursday.
It also said justice for victims must play a key part in any peace pact. "We
are concerned that the peace agreement under negotiation in Lome may prevent
those who have been overwhelmingly responsible for gross human rights abuses
from being brought to justice," it said.
The groups issued their statements as the U.N. High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Mary Robinson, arrived for a two-day visit in Sierra Leone.
The 60-page Human Rights Watch report also says young girls and women were
taken to rebel bases where they were sexually abused with sticks of
firewood.  Virgins were singled out and many were gang-raped, it charges.
The report includes testimony from survivors who described numerous
massacres of civilians, including the Jan. 22 slaughter of at least 66
people hiding in a mosque.
One woman told of escaping from a burning house after rebels set her
daughter and mother on fire. Others had hands, arms, legs and even breasts
sliced off by the rebels, who also allegedly used civilians as human shields
against troops of a West African military force backing Kabbah.
The rebels reportedly often told their victims they were being punished for
the mass civilian support of Sierra Leone's democratically elected
government.
"When they were cutting me, I heard one of them say, 'Now you will know the
rebels - now you will know the bitterness of the war,"" said Lucia, a
10-year-old girl whose arms were chopped off.
Urging the same crusade for justice in war crimes investigations now under
way in Kosovo, the report said "those responsible for torture and
mutilations should not walk away scot-free." Up to now, it said, there has
been "a stark contrast in the lack of international response" to abuses in
Sierra Leone.
AP-NY-06-24-99 1328EDT




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