On 22 October 1999, the UN Security Council authorised the establishment of UNAMSIL, a new and much larger mission with a maximum authorised strength of 6,000 military personnel, including 260 military observers, to assist the government and signatory parties in carrying out the provisions of the Lomé agreement.

According to Security Council resolution 1270 (1999) of 22 October 1999, UNAMSIL's mandate was to perform the following tasks:

to co-operate with the government of Sierra Leone and the other parties to the peace agreement in the implementation of the agreement;



to assist the government of Sierra Leone in the implementation of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration plan;



to that end, to establish a presence at key locations throughout the territory of Sierra Leone, including disarmament/reception centres and demobilisation centres;



to ensure the security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel;



to monitor adherence to the ceasefire in accordance with the ceasefire agreement of 18 May 1999 (S/1999/585, annex) through the structures provided for therein;



to encourage the parties to create confidence-building mechanisms and support their functioning;



to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance;

to support the operations of United Nations civilian officials, including the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and his staff, human rights officers and civil affairs officers; and



to provide support, as requested, to the elections, which were to be held in accordance with the present constitution of Sierra Leone.

In early December 1999, the first company of 133 Kenyan soldiers flew into Lungi International Airport as the advance unit of the first new UNAMSIL battalion, to join some 223 UN military observers from 30 countries already on the ground. Four ECOMOG battalions already in Sierra Leone (comprising troops from Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria) were 're-hatted' as UN peacekeepers. The latter was essential, in order to avoid a security vacuum during the period of mission build-up. The remaining units were to come from India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Zambia - with only a few military observers being volunteered by countries from the developed world.

Deployment of the remaining units was painfully slow, and the UN peacekeepers were often denied freedom of movement amidst frequent ceasefire violations (which included ambushes of both civilians and UN personnel), and the maintenance of illegal roadblocks by elements of the RUF and the CDF.18 In response to serious security concerns, the UN Security Council (UNSC) voted unanimously, on 7 February 2000 to approve the Secretary-General's plans for strengthening the UNAMSIL mission in Sierra Leone. This not only raised the maximum authorised strength from 6,000 to 11,000, but also granted the mission an expanded mandate under Chapter VII of the Charter.

According to Security Council resolution 1289 (2000) of 7 February 2000,
the mandate was revised to include the following tasks:

to provide security at key locations and government buildings, in particular in Freetown, and at important intersections and major airports, including Lungi airport;



to facilitate the free flow of people, goods and humanitarian assistance along specified thoroughfares;



to provide security in and at all sites of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme;



to co-ordinate with, and assist, the Sierra Leone law enforcement authorities in the discharge of their responsibilities; and



to guard weapons, ammunition and other military equipment collected from ex-combatants, and to assist in their subsequent disposal or destruction.

In particular, Council:19

"...authorises UNAMSIL to take the necessary action to fulfil ...[its] tasks... and affirms that, in the discharge of its mandate, UNAMSIL may take the necessary action to ensure the security and freedom of movement of its personnel and... to afford protection to civilians under imminent threat of physical violence..."

Although resolution 1289 provided the legal framework for coercive action by UNAMSIL in pursuit of its disarmament mandate, this could not be translated into assertive and credible action on the ground. Although the total number of disarmed combatants passing through five UNAMSIL-supervised camps stood at around 23,000 by mid-April 2000, the UN expressed concern over the low quality of surrendered weapons and the ratio of numbers of collected arms to the number of ex-combatants.20 As of April 15, according to the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (NCDDR), only some 5,000 weapons had been handed in by Sierra Leonean belligerents, who reportedly numbered about 45,000.21

On 17 April 2000, the NCDDR attempted to correct matters by opening four new camps - two of which were in the central RUF-held towns of Makeni and Magburaka. However, instead of speeding up the process, this move heralded the end of RUF disarmament for a period of one year. On 2 May 2000, RUF forces attacked the UNAMSIL positions at Makeni and Magburaka, killing four Kenyan soldiers. Three more Kenyans were wounded and about 50 other UNAMSIL personnel were captured. By 4 May, the number of reported UN hostages had increased to 92, and by 5 May to over 500. The Zambian contingent that was taken hostage also lost 13 armoured personnel carriers (APCs). Using the captured APCs, the RUF began advancing on Freetown.

The UN Secretary-General called for a 'rapid-reaction force' to be deployed immediately, to stabilise the precarious situation and bolster the UNAMSIL forces. Bemoaning the poor state of training and equipment of the existing UNAMSIL force, Annan was looking particularly to the UK and the US to provide combat-ready forces. Both countries made it quite clear that they would not send troops for UN service. However, on 7 May, the British Ministry of Defence announced that it was sending a battalion of paratroops and five warships to protect British nationals.22

While senior British officers maintained that their primary mission was to safeguard their citizens, the troops defended parts of Freetown and Lungi international airport, and set up patrols on the streets of Freetown and the main highway leading out of the capital. Moreover, British officers, despite being outside the UN chain of command, sat in on UN military planning sessions and assigned a full-time advisor to the Sierra Leonean military in order to bring some organisational cohesion to the irregular units fighting on the government side.23 Britain was, according to UK Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon, "to all intents and purposes running the day-to-day operation of UN forces".24 Hoon's overstatement of the situation on the ground could only have lent fuel to an intense internal debate within the British parliament on the appropriate limits of British military engagement in Sierra Leone.

The UN appealed to the SLA to exercise restraint and to cease military attacks on RUF, out of concern for the safety of the UN hostages in RUF hands.25 Though most of the Sierra Leone hostages were released after a few weeks of intense negotiations involving the UN, President Taylor, and the RUF,26 UNAMSIL still lacked direction and was largely concentrated in Freetown, awaiting more troop contributions. Sadly lacking in troop strength, the UN Force was unable to venture into at least half the territory of Sierra Leone, as the RUF remained in control of the north and east of the country, while the GoSL and UNAMSIL enjoyed partial control in the west and south.

The UN mission (costing about $1.5 million a day) was still the largest in the world at the end of the year 2000, at 12,500 members. However, its strength was to decline considerably, as two of the largest participants (India and Jordan, with a combined total of 4,800 troops) began withdrawing their contingents in protest against the continuing lack of Western troop contributions to UNAMSIL.

The UNAMSIL Force Commander, Major-General Vijay Jetley, left the mission in August 2000, after a disastrous political confrontation with his Nigerian lieutenants. In addition to alleging that Nigeria was attempting to sabotage the UNAMSIL mission through collusion with the RUF, Jetley complained of serious logistic problems experienced by UNAMSIL forces, and was forthright in his criticism of the various national contingents that had been placed under his command.

Also in August, 11 British soldiers and a SLA officer were ambushed and taken hostage by the West Side Boys, a breakaway faction of the RUF.27 UNAMSIL stepped up its patrolling activities along the main highway, and by early September a number of the dissidents had surrendered to the Jordanian and Nigerian contingents. On 10 September 2000, the West Side Boys suffered a conclusive military defeat when the UK forces launched a daring assault (Operation BARRAS) to free the six remaining British hostages and their SLA liaison officer.

Exacerbating the tense situation were the announcements, in September and October 2000 respectively, by India and Jordan that they would be withdrawing their contingents from the mission. At this stage, the conflict had begun to take on a regional dimension, following an attack on Guinean soil by a group of dissidents supported by the RUF on 8 September 2000. These attacks persisted in the Forecariah area and Forest region, and subsequently spread to Guékédou, Macenta and Kissidougou.28 By January 2001, the Guinea Armed Forces were attacking dissidents and RUF with artillery fire directed into Liberia, eliciting threats of retaliation from Charles Taylor. ECOWAS was so concerned about the risk of starting a regional conflagration that it had decided to deploy a force of 1,796 peacekeepers at the convergence of the borders of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.29

On the domestic political front, President Kabbah formally requested Parliament, on 31 January 2001, to delay the presidential and parliamentary elections that had been scheduled for February and March, citing security, funding and logistical factors that made the timetable unrealistic.

While UNAMSIL continued to seek a negotiated settlement that would bring the RUF back into the peace process and into the political fold, both the government of Sierra Leone and the UK viewed the military defeat and unconditional disarmament of the RUF as the only solution. British officers were attached to the SLA, to help not only with training, but also with intelligence, logistics and communications. According to a senior diplomat,30 "We have two missions with fundamentally incompatible goals, but they are supposed to be working together. One wants to fight, the other wants to continue to treat the RUF as a force that can be dealt with rationally and brought to the table, despite the numerous setbacks."

UNAMSIL deployment remained painfully slow, due to constant troop rotations, the uneven quality of the various national contingents, ubiquitous logistical challenges, and co-ordination problems associated with the sheer massiveness of the UNAMSIL presence. The latter involved regular briefings of the Troop Contributing Countries (TCC)s in New York, and the establishment of a Sierra Leone Contact Group, which also included representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the P5) and regional powers such as Nigeria. The aim was to try to reconcile the multiple interests involved in the Sierra Leone peace process, and to allow UNAMSIL to move ahead with the pursuit of its mandate without offending anyone. Ironically, the greater the much-needed involvement of the international community in Sierra Leone, the more numerous the external policy conflicts UNAMSIL ultimately had to deal with.31