[Congressional Bills 105th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 559 Engrossed in House (EH)]


                 In the House of Representatives, U.S.,

                                                      October 10, 1998.
Whereas the ousted Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) military junta and 
        the rebel fighters of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) have mounted 
        a campaign of terror, vengeance, and human rights abuses on the civilian 
        population of Sierra Leone;
Whereas the AFRC/RUF violence against civilians continues with at least 1,200 
        persons having hands or feet amputated by rebels (and the International 
        Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates that every victim who makes 
        it to medical help is only 1 of 4 who have been mutilated);
Whereas the AFRC/RUF continues to abduct children and forcibly train them as 
        combatants, in numbers estimated by UNICEF to exceed 3,000 since March 
        1998;
Whereas the humanitarian consequences of this campaign have been the flight of 
        more than 250,000 refugees to Guinea and Liberia in the last 6 months 
        and the increase of internally displaced Sierra Leoneans to over 250,000 
        in camps and towns in the north and east;
Whereas the governments of Guinea and Liberia are having great difficulty caring 
        for the huge number of refugees, now totaling 600,000 in Guinea and 
        Liberia, and emergency appeals have been issued by the United Nations 
        High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) for $7,300,000 for emergency food, 
        shelter, sanitation, medical, educational, psychological, and social 
        services;
Whereas starvation and hunger-related deaths have begun in the north with more 
        than 500 people dying since August 1, 1998, a situation that will only 
        get worse in the next months;
Whereas the humanitarian community is unable, because of continuing security 
        concerns, to deliver food and medicine to the vulnerable groups within 
        the north and east of Sierra Leone;
Whereas the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its military 
        peacekeeping arm called ECOMOG are doing their best, but require 
        additional logistic support to either bring this AFRC/RUF rebel war to a 
        conclusion or force a negotiated settlement;
Whereas arms and weapons continue to be supplied to the AFRC/RUF in direct 
        violation of a United Nations arms embargo;
Whereas United Nations Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency 
        Relief Coordinator Sergio Viera de Melo, Amnesty International, Human 
        Rights Watch, and Refugees International, following May through June 
        1998 visits to Sierra Leone, have condemned, in the strongest terms, the 
        terrible human rights violations done by the AFRC/RUF rebels to 
        civilians; and
Whereas the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for 
        Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunu, following a May 1998 visit to 
        Sierra Leone, called upon the United Nations to make Sierra Leone one of 
        the pilot projects in the rehabilitation of child combatants: Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) urges the President and the Secretary of State to give high 
        priority to solving the conflict in Sierra Leone and to bring stability 
        to West Africa in general;
            (2) urges the State Department to give the needed logistical support 
        to ECOMOG and the Government of Sierra Leone to bring this conflict to a 
        rapid conclusion;
            (3) condemns the use of children as combatants in the conflict in 
        Sierra Leone;
            (4) urges the establishment of a secure humanitarian corridor to 
        strategic areas in the north and east of Sierra Leone for the safe 
        delivery of food and medicines by the Government of Sierra Leone and 
        humanitarian agencies already in the country mandated to deliver this 
        aid;
            (5) urges the President and the Secretary of State to strictly 
        enforce the United Nations arms embargo on the Armed Forces 
        Revolutionary Council and Revolutionary United Front (AFRC/RUF) rebel 
        forces;
            (6) urges the President and the Secretary of State to work with the 
        Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) nations to ensure 
        there are sufficient African forces and arms provided to its military 
        peacekeeping arm ECOMOG;
            (7) urges the President and the Secretary of State to support the 
        United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) appeal for aid to 
        the Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea, Liberia, and other countries;
            (8) urges the President and the State Department to support the 
        United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations working in 
        Sierra Leone to bring humanitarian relief and peace to the country;
            (9) urges the President and the State Department to support the 
        Government of Sierra Leone in its demobilization, disarmament, and 
        reconstruction plan for the country as peace becomes a reality; and
            (10) encourages and supports, Olara Otunu, United Nations Special 
        Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, 
        to continue in his efforts to work in Sierra Leone in the establishment 
        of programs designed to rehabilitate child combatants.
            Attest:

                                                                          Clerk.