Word: sierras
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What always seems to wreck Africa's hopes is that so few of its strongmen are really interested in peace. Foday Sankoh and his Revolutionary United Front rampaged across Sierra Leone for nearly a decade, hacking the limbs off countless civilians in a blood-soaked quest for power. Sick of the slaughter, members of the international community brokered a peace pact that last July ultimately gave the rebels amnesty, a share in government power and a piece of the country's diamond wealth. It apparently wasn't enough, so violence has erupted again in poor, shattered Sierra Leone. And this...
...insurgency that would ensure continued access by the RUF - and its Liberian backers - to the diamond fields. But Sankoh's own commitment to peace was equally dubious. Despite having signed the agreement authorizing their peacekeeping role, Sankoh warned in January that the U.N. "has no business in Sierra Leone." Yet despite these warning signs and continuing rebel attacks, the U.N. continued to assemble a poorly equipped, poorly trained and poorly organized international force to keep a peace that the RUF treated as fictitious. That they became hostages by the hundreds should have been little surprise...
...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...
...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...
...spectacular recovery and a hefty proportion of its profits on a hugely successful sport utility vehicle line, seemed to be shooting itself in the accelerator foot by pointing an unequivocally accusatory finger at its own products. Could Thursday's announcement be the beginning of the end for the Sierra Club's nemesis...