PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OF SIERRA LEONE

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OF SIERRA LEONE

At a Headquarters press conference this morning, President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone called on the Security Council to provide concrete support for the efforts of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to restore his democratically elected Government to power.

President Kabbah told correspondents that there was an urgent need to give back to the people of Sierra Leone the democratic Government they had elected only 18 months ago. He called on the international community to help free Sierra Leoneans from the distress which the military junta had brought upon them.

Responding to recent calls for negotiations by the military regime, the President said he was sceptical about its sincerity due to its behaviour during a similar dialogue with ECOWAS Foreign Ministers Committee of Four last July. Nevertheless, dialogue could be resumed on the understanding that there would be absolutely no deviation from the three-point objective or agenda of the Committee and that such a dialogue should not be allowed to go on indefinitely.

Asked if he would participate personally in the negotiations, President Kabbah said he would prefer that the ECOWAS ministerial Committee deal with military regime within guidelines drawn up by him. He said he did not think that he should be directly involved at this particular time.

Asked if sanctions imposed on the military government by the international community had been effective, the President said they had, but that there was a need to really tighten up the noose on the regime. The Security Council was expected next week to decide whether or not to impose stiffer sanctions on the military regime. The restoration of the democratically elected Government would be non-negotiable.

Mr. Kabbah said the coup plot was not targeted at the Government or himself per se, but that a handful of people had made up their minds from the outset to remove whoever came to power through the democratic process. That tiny minority had resolved not to let the people of Sierra Leone ever have the right to choose their own leaders through a democratic process except through the barrel of the gun or with the aid of machetes.

The President accused that group of people of trying to use harassment, intimidation and violence to derail the democratic process before, during and after the elections of 1996.

Asked whether there was any parallel between the situation in Sierra Leone and that of Haiti before its negotiated settlement, the President said the overthrow of a democratically elected government by a military dictatorship, as well as human rights abuses, were at the heart of the two situations. But he refused to be drawn into arguments that the international community should also be preparing to use force to restore his Government to power as it had planned on doing in Haiti before the conflict was finally resolved peacefully.

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