SOMETIMES words come back to haunt people. On June 4 last year Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, following a meeting in London with the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said that force night have to be used as a last resort to end the coup in Sierra Leone, led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma, which brought about the ousting of President Ahmed Teja Kabbah. So the thought of somebody sending in troops and arms had certainly crossed his mind and did not, at the time, seem to contravene an ethical foreign policy. It must also have been discussed when the Commonwealth Heads of Government met last October in Edinburgh. Nor in the conference chamber, perhaps, but certainly in the margins and over the odd late-night brandy since the ousted president was there as a guest, as a sign of the Commonwealth's backing for him.

Sierra Leone is on the coast of West Africa. To the north lies Guinea, to the south Liberia. It has a population of around four-and-a-half million. The Portuguese set up a trading post at what is now the capital, Freetown, in 1462. But it was not until the British slave trade abolitionist, Granville Sharpe, established a settlement in 1787 that any formal European settling took place. In 1807, the year slave trading was made illegal by Parliament, the Royal Navy set up a naval station at Freetown from which it could operate ships to intercept the slavers, and the following year it became a British colony. In 1896 it became a protectorate, and in 1961 was granted independence.

The years that followed were

chaotic, with a series of military coups and intermittent civil war. In 1978 it became a one-party state. The country's economy was in poor health and in the 1980s the demand for constitutional reform grew, culminating in a review commission in 1991 which recommended a return to a multi-party

system. That was endorsed in a referendum but, before it could be implemented, a coup of junior army officers led by Captain Valentine Strasser took control. Civil war with the rebel Revolutionary United Front was raging, with a little help from Liberian rebels, but Strasser seemed to be making progress. At the 1993 CHOGM in Cyprus he announced a scheduled return to civilian and democratic rule, and made his peace with the RUF, promising it participation in the electoral process. The RUF, however, stepped up its military activities until at one point the Government was only securely in control of Freetown. However, by the time of the New Zealand CHOGM in 1995 Strasser was able to promise elections early in 1996, a programme once again welcomed by the Commonwealth.

In January 1996 he, too, fell victim to a coup, a bloodless one led by his deputy, Julius Maada Bio. The elections went ahead in February, despite RUF attempts to disrupt them.

The Sierra Leone People's Party got 36% of the vote, the United People's Party 22%. Some 750,000 people voted. It was hailed as a triumph for democracy especially, since it required 55% of the vote for a presidential win, as there had to be a rerun the following month. On March 15, 1996, the SLPP candidate, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, won and on March 29 took office. The civil war had led to some two million people being turned into refugees, and the deaths of more than 10,000.

It looked as if the country had a hopeful future but, in May 1997, President Kabbah was ousted in a bloody coup by Major Koroma and went into exile in Guinea where he was joined by our High Commissioner, Peter Penfold, also a player in the current game. In July last year the Toronto Globe and Mail reported that there was a conspiracy to use mercenaries to overthrow the Koroma junta and, in February of this year, the counter-coup was launched which successfully restored President Kabbah, who returned in triumph to Freetown on March 10. Whatever help the mercenaries gave - it is questionable whether the 30 tonnes of arms supplied by Sandline played a part, although its advisers certainly did - aid also came from Nigeria. What has complicated the issue was that on October 8 last year the United Nations imposed an arms embargo on Sierra Leone and it is this resolution 1132 which has been breached.

The fact that it is the letter, not the spirit - it was passed against the Koroma regime, not against the Kabbah one - is beside the point.

Sierra Leone may be poor, its agriculture ruined by the fighting, but it is rich in minerals, ranging from diamonds to bauxite and rutile, which is used in non-stick kitchen ware, and high-quality engineering and construction. But it is the diamonds which are at the heart of the affair. They are among the finest in the world, and one of the first actions of the Koroma regime was to head for the mine at Koidu, among the country's most valuable. It is leased to Diamond Works, a British-controlled business, whose sister company is Sandline International. De Beers, the diamond company, also has interests in the restoration of the Kabbah regime. Big business wants stability. Without stability you cannot have a democratic regime. The people of Sierra Leone want peace. So do the multinationals with vested interests in exploiting its resources. If Robin Cook ever regrets any words he has uttered,

he may well wish he had not pledged to run an ethical foreign policy.

Paying the price - Page 17