Don't Abandon Sierra Leone

In Sierra Leone, the situation is getting worse. A country torn and ravaged by a nine-year civil war, Sierra Leone continues to be a quagmire of international peacekeeping. Fighting and human rights abuses abound, and the United Nation's effort to maintain peace has been largely unsuccessful due primarily to a lack of commitment from the West to support U.N. forces.

The current situation has the country divided into regions: the elected government controls Freetown, the capital, and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) controls large territories to the north and east. The RUF has repeatedly violated a U.N. peace accord which would have allowed peacekeepers to freely travel through the country.

This week RUF forces have killed 7 U.N. peacekeepers and kidnapped 500. The RUF is no stranger to violence, as they have become a group notorious for flagrant human rights abuse. To intervene in the growing conflict and human rights violations, the United Nations sent an envoy of peacekeepers to enforce a peace accord between the rebels and the government signed last year. But the effort has been largely unsuccessful and has cast further doubt on the efficacy of U.N. peacekeeping methods.

The biggest problem with the U.N.'s remedy is the force sent to mediate. The peacekeepers consist largely of untrained soldiers from other countries in Africa who are unequipped and outmanned in the fight with the rebels. Faced with a force far too strong to fight, the untrained peacekeepers were kidnapped, their supplies stolen by the rebels, who will become even stronger as a result. Now Nigeria has decided to pull out their troops, and the British are evacuating their citizens from the country. These actions are sending a clear message to the rebels of Sierra Leone--the West does not care about Africa and will not intervene.

This peacekeeping failure is yet another one in a long string caused by a lack of commitment by the United States and other Western countries to the United Nations. The current system of U.N. peacekeeping is clearly ineffective. Paying countries in the region to send untrained and unarmed troops to mediate can only result in disaster. These forces have neither the power nor the motivation to deal with patriotic guerilla armies.

If the West is truly intent on keeping peace in the world, they must support the creation of a rapid reaction force for the United Nations. Secretary General Kofi Annan has repeatedly requested that this type of standing army be created for the United Nations to be effective in maintaining international security. But the West, mostly the United States, has not supported this move.

Without doubt, troops should be used as a last resort to solve international conflicts, especially if the United States is not involved. However, whether we like it or not, the United States is part of a global community, and we therefore have a responsibility to participate in an international effort to maintain peace. It is a sad statement to the world when the only troops maintaining peace are from India or other African nations. We are sending a clear message to the world that we do not care about the welfare of the people of Africa.

The RUF has become infamous in the past year for recently revealed human rights abuses. Fueled by a diamond smuggling operation, the RUF has forced natives to hunt for diamonds. The RUF has stormed civilian villages and amputated legs and arms of civilian men who are prominent in the community.

This reluctance to participate in an international effort is just one in a trend of growing isolationism here. We have consistently shown the world that we do not care to live in a global community by shirking our duties to the United Nations. We owe a huge monetary debt to the U.N., we have recently rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and we have repeatedly refused to contribute troops to UN peacekeeping missions. Let's get over our vision of the U.S. as an island separated from the rest of the world; we should, and we must participate in these issues of global security.

Robert J. Fenster is a first-year in Matthews Hall.