On The Verge Of Collapse

Von By Emma Bonino, Brussels

There is a real danger that the civil wars now raging in Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau · the most serious conflicts in Africa · will spread to the rest of the
West African economic community (ECOWAS).

Western nations, tired of sending soldiers to the region, are demanding that ECOWAS put an end to the crisis using its military arm, the intervention force known as ECOMOG.

However, the European Union has no instrument that could support such a peacekeeping activity.

In mid-February, leading an EU humanitarian mission to the region, I came to the conclusion that through prompt support of the local intervention forces, Europe could contribute to resolving or
containing the conflicts and reduce the suffering of entire populations. To do this, however, the EU would first have to formulate its own common foreign and security policy.

This experience leaves me more convinced than ever that, after the euro, formulating such a policy must be the priority of the Union.

What I witnessed on my mission was a tragedy of gigantic proportions. The anteroom of Sierra Leone · the so-called "hell'' · has nothing hellish about it. It is an extremity of Guinea-Conakry nestled
between Sierra Leone and Liberia, covered by a light, open, and luminous forest.

In recent years two civil wars, first in Liberia and then in Sierra Leone, have inundated this area with successive waves of refugees. The last, caused by the killings in Sierra Leone last December
and January, raised the number of refugees around Geckedou · a city of 150,000 inhabitants · to more than 400,000 people.

Nothing would please me more than to organise a visit to Geckedou of the intolerant Europeans who cannot stand the presence of "immigrants'', to put them face to face with the disarming and atavistic
sense of hospitality with which these peasant communities have received the "invaders'' with whom they share too much ill fortune and too little international aid.

This tiny pauper nation could teach much to us Europeans about how to deal with immigration. The camps that I visited were animated with a surprising serenity and great dignity. Thus far there has
been no tension between the local population and the refugees, though there is no shortage of problems.

Already there are no animals left in the jungle · elephants, hippopotamus, panthers, and monkeys · and now even trees are becoming scarce, cut down for wood or to clear arable land.

The environmental equilibrium is on the verge of collapse, which would destroy the fragile local economy. More serious yet, the proximity of the camps to the border with Sierra Leone exposes refugees
to the incursions of a new race of savage beasts: rebels hunting for food, clothes, and young people to draft into their forces.

To limit damage and prevent the involvement of the Guinean army in the war, Conakry and the humanitarian agencies are asking the EU for financing to relocate the most exposed camps to the interior of
the country. About 70,000 people would have to be moved to keep them safe.

In neighbouring Guinea-Bissau, a Portuguese colony until 1974, another civil war is raging. In June 1998, General Ansumane Manò, commander of the armed forces, ordered the president, Nino Vieira, to
step down. On the eve of the coup, Vieira was invited by the parliament to tender his resignation.

Instead, Vieira dismissed Manò, who in turn unleashed an uprising that set off a civil war. When I visited the region, President Vieira, backed by troops from Senegal and Guinea-Conakry, controlled
only the port area of the capital, Bissau, and the adjoining sections. The rebels of Manò, whom almost the entire population sides with, controlled the rest of the country.

The result is that more than 10 percent of the population ·- about 150,000 civilians - fled the urban centres and sought shelter in the rural areas. I went on to visit hell itself, Freetown, the
capital of Sierra Leone, where I met with the president Tejan Kabbah, ex-United Nations functionary elected by his fellow citizens, deposed in 1997 by rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
and reinstated by a interafrican, though largely Nigerian, peace force.

Abandoned by everyone but the ECOMOG force, Kabbah has one frigate and one detachment of British sailors working to prevent at any cost the RUF barbarians from toppling the president again.

With an escort we crossed what remains of Freetown and reached the Connaught hospital, which has become a symbol of one of the most massive atrocities of our century. The horrors I have witnessed in
recent years were eclipsed by what I saw here: the procession of bandaged stumps, mutilated people of every age, including children, whose looks bespeak the scenes of their torture.

What is happening here is not a case of irrational savagery but rather atrocities that were deliberately planned to make this war more intimidating and thus more efficient.

"Now go get yourself cured by Kabbah", the killers tell their victims after hacking off their limbs. If it is true that the motive behind this fratricidal war is the mines of Sierra Leone, we must
conclude that there are men who would order the hands and feet cut off of others.What is most troubling is that what we saw was but the tip of the iceberg. We will never know how many people just
bled to death because help arrived too late, or never came at all.