"An explosive mix of problems"

 The outbreak of fighting along Guinea’s border with Sierra Leone and Liberia threatens to drag Guinea directly into the civil conflicts, which have devastated the neighbouring countries. Top UN-officials are concerned that the conflict could spread over the whole region and descend to an uncontrollable situation. "There are so many tensions in the area: rebels, militias and the economic interests in diamonds, says the assistant UNHCR High Commissioner Søren Jessen-Petersen, adding: "This is an explosive mix of problems. The situation could easily deteriorate".

Since the beginning of September Guinea has been attacked by armed groups coming out of neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia. Some 400 people have been killed by the fighting and tens of thousends of people forced out of their homes along the border. In Guinea alone, the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) is now estimated at 50,000. Across the border in Sierra Leone more than 15,000 people were forced to leave their homes, because Guinean troops have been shelling their villages over the last couple of weeks targeting suspected rebels there. Thousands had to flee Lofa county in the north of Liberia.

Guineans fear for their safety as there have been attacks on military targets in the south east only about 100 kilometer from the capital Conakry. The situation in the country is tense. Security forces and civilians have been attacking some of the 500,000 Sierra Leonian and Liberian refugees living near the border. The refugees are suspected of helping the rebels and subsequently regarded as enemies. Fearing for their lives, some 22,000 Sierra Leonians have fled Guinea.

The Guinean government sees the rebels from the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone (RUF) and the Liberian government as the aggressors. Liberian troops are targeting dissidents, active in the north of the country. They are suspected to have their rear bases in Guinea. And there are forces in Guinea who want to destabelize the country. Fugitives, who took part in the mutiny against president Lansana Conte, seem to have joined forces with the RUF aiming at overthrowing Conte. Arnold Vercken, regional manager for the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) expects the fighting to intensify with the end of the rainy season.

Although the Sierra Leonian government and the RUF have agreed to a ceasefire, there is widespread mistrust of the rebels, who also agreed to resume a disarmament process under which rebels soldiers would be demobilised or reintegrated into the armed forces. The RUF broke the last peace accord signed in 1999 when they resumed fighting in May this year. Despite the intervention of the biggest ever UN peacekeeping mission (13,000 troops) the rebels, said to be backed by Liberia, still occupy half of Sierra Leone, particularly the diamond producing areas. In Sierra Leone there are still about 1,2 million IDPs living in camps.

Diamond trafficking is one of the main causes of the conflict in the region. Diamonds have been linked not only to the civil war in Sierra Leone but also in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The United Nations has imposed embargoes on diamonds from Angola and Sierra Leone aimed at preventing rebels from selling gems to buy weapons. Such stones have become known as "blood diamonds" because of atrocities carried out against civilians as strategy to terrorize people in the rebel’s quest for the diamonds. Sierra Leone has resumed diamond exports recently after a group of international diamond experts handed over export certificates to ensure that no diamonds going to the international market come from mines controlled by rebels. But diamond traders in the country are sceptical about the new measures taken. They say that rebel gems can easily be smuggled with the help of corrupt Sierra Leonean officials and through neighbouring states such as Liberia.

Although the country is rich in minerals (particularly diamonds, but also gold, rutile and bauxite) and has large areas of fertile land suitable for farming, the nine year conflict brought nearly all industrial and agricultural activities to a standstill. Sierra Leone is an extremely poor country. Only an estimated one-fifth of adults are literate.

ACT members in Sierra Leone are responding to the emergency situation: the Christian Council of Sierra Leone working together with Christian Aid and four member churches: Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in collaboration with the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCSL), the Baptist Convention, the Wesleyan Church and the United Methodist Church. Although there are massive humanitarian needs for the victims of the civil war targeting mainly innocent civilians, the ACT appeal for about US $5,8 million, issued in March 2000, has been poorly funded at only 11% of the target.