U.S. intervenes in Sierra Leone
West scrambles for Africa's diamonds
By Johnnie Stevens
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas
Pickering announced Aug. 9 that the United States will send
several hundred Special Forces troops from Ft. Bragg, N.C.,
to Nigeria. Their mission is to train and equip 4,000
Nigerian soldiers to fight against an insurgent movement in
Sierra Leone. The U.S. forces will also train smaller numbers
of troops from Ghana, and possibly from Mali and Senegal.
The U.S. bill will be $20 million. It is the biggest
commitment of U.S. troops to Africa since Pentagon forces
were routed from Somalia in 1993.
Then, the United States claimed to be helping Somalia
avert a famine. But the U.S. troops' real role--as an
interventionist force--was exposed and they were finally
driven out after fierce resistance in the capital city of
Mogadishu.
Pickering said that Washington has "gone through an
agonizing reappraisal" of its policy toward Sierra Leone.
Trying to justify U.S. military involvement, he reiterated
charges that the Revolutionary United Front, the force
fighting the government, had chopped off the limbs of
civilians.
Pickering said nothing about the casualties inflicted by
British troops, who carried out an offensive last month in
their former colony. Nor did he remind world public opinion
of the Nigerian naval blockade and aerial bombardment of the
capital, Freetown, in 1997, after the government favored by
Britain and the United States had been overthrown in a
military coup.
For over a century, the imperialist powers have used
charges of atrocities to corral public support for their own
bloody, interventionist schemes.
British rule left poverty
amid riches
Sierra Leone, a West African nation of 4.8 million people,
was an outright colony of Britain until 1961. The country's
natural resources include bauxite, cocoa, coffee, palm
kernel, corn--and, most notably, diamonds. Yet for all this
wealth, 75 percent of the people live in extreme poverty. The
country's gross domestic product averages $159 per person per
year--one of the lowest in the world.
A civil war has raged there since 1991. During that time
military factions have carried out several coups.
In 1998 President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was returned to power
by troops of the Economic Community of West Africa (Ecowas),
a 19-country force led by Nigeria under United Nations
direction.
In July 1999 Kabbah's government signed a peace accord
with two rebel armies, the RUF and the Armed Forces
Revolutionary Council. The accord, signed in Togo, brought
RUF and AFRC into a coalition government.
The peace accord broke down after RUF leader Foday Sankoh
charged Kabbah with violating the agreement. A UN
"peacekeeping force" of 8,700 troops from Nigeria, Kenya,
Ghana, India, Guinea, Jordan and Zambia was sent in to
replace the Togo Lome coalition government.
The major imperialist powers in Africa--the United States,
Britain and France--supported Kabbah and the UN troops even
as they maneuvered to keep Nigeria from getting too much
power.
In April of this year, RUF forces captured 500 UN troops.
There was heavy fighting in northern Sierra Leone, driving
350,000 refugees into neighboring Guinea.
In May the RUF seized several diamond mines.
Britain, the former colonial power in Sierra Leone, sent
several hundred paratroopers into the capital of Freetown,
accompanied by an aircraft carrier and other ships,
supposedly to evacuate British nationals. A U.S. Navy warship
was also sent to the area.
Liberian President Charles Taylor negotiated the release
of the UN troops from the RUF. In May the combined forces of
Britain, AFRC and the United States captured RUF leader
Sankoh.
Sankoh is now in a Freetown jail. If U.S. Ambassador to
the UN Richard Holbrooke gets his way, Sankoh will be tried
by a UN War Crimes Tribunal. The U.S.-dominated UN Security
Council voted 15 to zero to set up a war crimes body for
Sierra Leone.
Holbrooke, it should be remembered, is the U.S. diplomat
who set the stage for the U.S./NATO war in Kosovo.
In addition, the UN Security Council has voted to ban
diamond sales from Sierra Leone until a certification system
is put in place by the government. Holbrooke charged that the
diamonds were fueling the RUF in the civil war and enriching
officials from neighboring Liberia.
U.S. diamond interests
Holbrooke says not a word about the diamonds having
enriched foreign imperialists for years. One such company is
America Mineral Fields--which used to be based in Bill
Clinton's hometown of Hope, Ark. AMF "has a majority stake in
Nord Resources, a major [diamond] mining house in Sierra
Leone," according to the Web site of Africa Confidential.
Earlier the Security Council voted to "strengthen the
peacekeeping force." Holbrooke says this gives the UN troops
authority to "take down the RUF."
Gov. George W. Bush and his foreign policy advisor
Condoleeza Rice have given public support to the Clinton-Gore
moves to deepen U.S. intervention in Sierra Leone's civil
war.
Many stories have appeared in the Western media alleging
atrocities by the Nigerian troops. When heavily armed British
soldiers carried out an offensive in Sierra Leone last month,
however, the wire services said only that they had "no
reports" on casualties.
Nigeria has begun to face problems at home over its
multi-billion-dollar war budget; there are cries to bring the
youthful troops home. Nigeria also faces an external debt of
$31 billion, with yearly debt servicing of $3.5 billion.
Oil-rich Nigeria faces deep poverty. In August, 169 Shell
Oil employees were held hostage by Nigerian youths demanding
jobs. All the hostages were released unharmed.
Ivory Coast, a member of the Nigeria-led military force,
was rocked by a coup in December 1999, staged by soldiers
demanding back pay for fighting in Liberia and Sierra
Leone.
The United States owes the UN millions of dollars for
these operations. Nigeria was left holding the bag for the
Ecowas campaign, politically and economically.
It's clear the Nigerian-led campaign in Sierra Leone has
failed. The Ivory Coast coup and the determination of the RUF
to keep fighting have the imperialists worried.
Capitalists at the helm of firms like Shell Oil, De Beers
and Oppenheimer have had many restless nights. De Beers,
whose interest is diamonds, is deeply involved in Sierra
Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Clinton's visit to Nigeria in September will be another
great unequal exchange. Nigeria will go back to war. The
United States will train its troops. In exchange, Washington
will assist in rescheduling about 80 percent of Nigeria's
debt, according to InterPress Service.
In Lagos, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Business and
Agricultural Affairs Alan Larson said the United States would
like Nigeria to use "only" $1.5 billion annually for debt
service.
This is Clinton's Africa Growth and Opportunity Act in
living color. The U.S. working class should show the African
people solidarity by demanding: U.S. out of Africa and hands
off Sierra Leone.
This article is copyright under a Creative
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