World

Sierra Leone Hostages Freed

August 10, 1999 / 1:52 PM EDT / AP

Former junta soldiers freed their remaining prisoners Tuesday, ending a five-day hostage crisis, Sierra Leone's information minister said.

Julius Spencer said at a news conference that the rogue rebels had freed 15 West African intervention force soldiers, a U.N. military observer and some 200 civilians.

“All the hostages have been released,” Spencer said. “The hostage drama is over in Sierra Leone.”

His account was confirmed by Brig. Gen. Subhash Joshi, the United Nation's chief military observer in Sierra Leone.

The freed hostages were headed to Freetown and had radioed from a government-controlled checkpoint, Spencer and Joshi said.

A former junta official returned to his ex-colleagues' camp Monday night to negotiate the release of hostages. The kidnapping highlighted divisions among Sierra Leone's rebels, who fought an 8-year civil war for control of the West African nation.

Shortly after Idriss Kamara returned to the forest outside Freetown, the former junta soldiers freed four U.N. military observers and a Sierra Leonean journalist Monday night.

About 35 people were taken hostage Wednesday, sparking a crisis that has jeopardized Sierra Leone's fragile peace.

Kamara was captured by his former junta colleagues Friday after he tried to negotiate a hostage release. He was freed Sunday morning with five U.N. drivers, but returned that night to help negotiate the release of 13 more hostages.

“They treated us fine,” Chernor Bangura, a cameraman for Sierra Leone state television, said in a telephone interview. “We were given one meal a day and tea in the morning.”

The junta, led by Lt. Col. Johnny Paul Koroma, governed Sierra Leone for 10 months beginning in June 1997, ending when the military regime was ousted by the West African intervention force.

The kidnappings took place during what was to have been a handover of some 150 civilians abducted by gunmen during Sierra Leone's civil war. But after freeing a few hostages last week, the ex-junta soldiers instead seized the group that had come to receive the prisoners.

Solomon Rogers, the rebels' war council chairman, Tuesday lashed out at the kidnappings, saying the rebels “vehemently condemn the abduction incident.”

“The abduction incident will not derail the peace process,” said Rogers, who lead a small delegation that met with President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.

Kabbah, reaching out to men who were his sworn enemies a few months ago, said he “commended the efforts” by rebel leader Foday Sankoh, former junta leader Koroma and Liberian President Charles Taylor to secure the hostages' release.

Freed hostages say as many as 2,000 disenchanted members of the former junta may be living in the jungle hideaway where the prisoners were held.

A U.S. Embassy official, meanwhile, said team of staffers from the House Appropriations Committee and the International Relations Committee Tuesday flew to Sierra Leone's interior accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Joe Melrose. The nature of the trip to Kenema, a pro-government town not far from a key rebel base, was not immediately clear.