[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 141 (Friday, October 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12187-S12188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  SENATE RESOLUTION 298--CONDEMNING THE TERROR, VENGEANCE, AND HUMAN 
     RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST THE CIVILIAN POPULATION OF SIERRA LEONE

  Mr. ABRAHAM submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 298

       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 and RUF violence against civilians 
     continues with at least 1,200 persons having hands or feet 
     amputated by rebels;
       Whereas the International Committee of the Red Cross 
     estimates that only 1 in 4 victims of mutilation actually 
     makes it to medical help;
       Whereas the AFRC and RUF continue to abduct children and 
     forcibly train them as combatants;
       Whereas UNICEF estimates the number of children forcibly 
     abducted since March 1998 exceeds 3,000;
       Whereas the 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 over 250,000 displaced 
     Sierra Leoneans 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 for $7,300,000 for emergency food, shelter, and 
     sanitation, and medical, educational, psychological, and 
     social services;

[[Page S12188]]

       Whereas starvation and hunger-related deaths have begun in 
     the north where more than 500 people have died 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 and 
     its peacekeeping arm, the Economic Community of West African 
     States Military Observer Group (ECOMOG), are doing their 
     best, but are still lacking in the logistic support needed to 
     either bring this AFRC and RUF rebel war to a conclusion or 
     force a negotiated settlement;
       Whereas arms and weapons continue to be supplied to the 
     AFRC and RUF in direct violation of a United Nations arms 
     embargo;
       Whereas the United Nations Under Secretary for Humanitarian 
     Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Amnesty 
     International, Human Rights Watch, and Refugees 
     International, following visits to Sierra Leone in May and 
     June 1998, condemned, in the strongest terms, the terrible 
     human rights violations done to civilians by the AFRC and RUF 
     rebels; and
       Whereas the Special Representative of the United Nations 
     Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, following 
     a May 1998 visit to Sierra Leone, called upon the United 
     Nations to make Sierra Leone one of the pilot projects for 
     the rehabilitation of child combatants: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (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 Department of State 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;
       (6) urges the President and the Secretary of State to work 
     with the Economic Community of West African States to ensure 
     there are sufficient African forces and arms provided to its 
     peacekeeping arm, ECOMOG;
       (7) urges the President and the Secretary of State to 
     support the United Nations High Commission for Refugees 
     appeal for aid to the Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea, 
     Liberia, and other countries;
       (8) urges the President and the Secretary of State 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 Secretary of State 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 the United Nations Special 
     Representative of the Secretary General for Children and 
     Armed Conflict, to continue in the efforts to work in Sierra 
     Leone to establish programs designed to rehabilitate child 
     combatants.

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