Word: sierras
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...desperation to free its 347 peacekeeping troops held hostage in Sierra Leone may undermine the larger objective of ending that unhappy country's malaise. Even as the U.N. military commander on the ground was reportedly planning an offensive into the rebel heartland Tuesday, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's envoy in Freetown urged restraint in counterattacks against the rebels for fear of endangering the hostages. Liberia's President Charles Taylor, a longtime ally and patron of the Revolutionary United Front rebels, had over the weekend secured the release of some 139 peacekeepers after being urged to intercede...
...news was bad enough for Sierra Leone. But the untimely resumption of that conflict was a potent warning to the U.N. just as it was about to take on a much larger peacekeeping challenge in the Democratic Republic of Congo. U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, leading a Security Council delegation, secured reluctant agreement last week from Congo's warring parties to accept peacekeepers. But the spectacle of Secretary-General Kofi Annan scrambling to quell what he called Sankoh's "flagrant violation" of Sierra Leone's peace accord raised doubts about U.N. efforts anywhere in Africa...
Annan's immediate priority was to free the hostages in Sierra Leone. Although the Blue Helmets are empowered to use lethal force to protect themselves, they are not there to go to war. Annan begged a host of African leaders to intercede with Sankoh and called for the deployment of a rapid-reaction force to bolster the 8,400 U.N. troops already there. None of the countries capable of sending one were willing; Britain and the U.S. ruled out their own forces. The mercurial rebel chief variously denied that his men were holding anyone, suggested the U.N. soldiers "may have...
...will the U.N. do its job if it can't protect its own soldiers? Its peacekeepers entered Sierra Leone determined not to repeat embarrassing failures in Somalia, Rwanda and Angola. Even before last week's crisis, it announced plans to deploy an extra 5,000 troops, which would make the U.N. mission in Sierra Leone, or UNAMSIL, the largest peacekeeping force in the world. Yet last week Holbrooke acknowledged that Sierra Leone cast a "potential shadow" on all U.N. operations as he and a Security Council delegation met with Democratic Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila in Kinshasa to sign...
...MAIL It's almost Mother's Day. Got a card yet? Not to worry--in the computer age, filial devotion is easier than it used to be. Sierra Online and Hallmark have just released a new program called Hallmark Card Studio Deluxe ($49.99) with which you can print Hallmark Cards at home on your PC. Still too much work? Then drag your lazy self to a website called getacard.com where you can personalize, order and send actual paper Mother's Day cards without leaving your desk chair. And would it kill you to call once in a while...