Sierra Leone set to give Blair hero’s welcome

FREETOWN – British Prime Minister Tony Blair was set to receive a hero’s welcome yesterday in the impoverished west African country of Sierra Leone where he helped end a decade-long brutal civil war.

A Sierra Leone foreign ministry official said President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah will give Blair, on a three-nation African farewell tour before leaving office at the end of June, a red carpet welcome at Lungi international airport. He is then set to travel to Mahera, a small maritime town south of Lungi where traditional rulers will crown him “honourary paramount chief” for the role he played in helping to bring lasting peace after the 10-year civil war.Blair sent hundreds of British troops to stem a rebel advance after the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) took some 500 United Nations peacekeeping forces hostage in 2000.The 1991-2001 Sierra Leone civil war was marked by massacres, rapes and the mutilation of civilians.Many of the atrocitices were carried out by child soldiers who were forcibly recruited and then brutalised by their superiors.Blair is also scheduled to hold separate talks with Kabbah and Liberian President Ellen Johson Sirleaf, who is in Sierra Leone to meet the outgoing British leader.Discussions with the two African leaders will focus on development, poverty alleviation, education, health and employment, according to the foreign ministry official.Foreign Minister Momodu Koroma described Blair’s visit to Sierra Leone as ‘an endorsement of the amicable relationship…a relationship of equals, quite different from colonial days of master and servant’.”It signifies the special category in which Mr Blair has put Sierra Leone and this is a very, very positive development,” he told AFP Wednesday.During the nine-hour visit, after flying in from Libya and before heading off to South Africa, Blair will inspect a guard of honour mounted by a battalion of the Sierra Leone army stationed near the airport.The former colonial power helped train Sierra Leone’s new post-war army and police force.The visit will climax with the award of an honorary doctorate degree to Blair by the University of Sierra Leone, which has enjoyed long-standing educational links with Britain’s University of Durham.Nampa-AFPHe is then set to travel to Mahera, a small maritime town south of Lungi where traditional rulers will crown him “honourary paramount chief” for the role he played in helping to bring lasting peace after the 10-year civil war.Blair sent hundreds of British troops to stem a rebel advance after the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) took some 500 United Nations peacekeeping forces hostage in 2000.The 1991-2001 Sierra Leone civil war was marked by massacres, rapes and the mutilation of civilians.Many of the atrocitices were carried out by child soldiers who were forcibly recruited and then brutalised by their superiors.Blair is also scheduled to hold separate talks with Kabbah and Liberian President Ellen Johson Sirleaf, who is in Sierra Leone to meet the outgoing British leader.Discussions with the two African leaders will focus on development, poverty alleviation, education, health and employment, according to the foreign ministry official.Foreign Minister Momodu Koroma described Blair’s visit to Sierra Leone as ‘an endorsement of the amicable relationship…a relationship of equals, quite different from colonial days of master and servant’.”It signifies the special category in which Mr Blair has put Sierra Leone and this is a very, very positive development,” he told AFP Wednesday.During the nine-hour visit, after flying in from Libya and before heading off to South Africa, Blair will inspect a guard of honour mounted by a battalion of the Sierra Leone army stationed near the airport.The former colonial power helped train Sierra Leone’s new post-war army and police force.The visit will climax with the award of an honorary doctorate degree to Blair by the University of Sierra Leone, which has enjoyed long-standing educational links with Britain’s University of Durham.Nampa-AFP