The News Review:

- Rowan Williams visits Sierra Leone
- Liberia offers US troops unfamiliar combatants
- President returns to alma mater
- General News of Sunday, 27 July 2003
- Families die huddled in city church

Rowan Williams visits Sierra Leone
BBC News – Jul 27, 2003
Dr Rowan Williams is on a seven-day pastoral visit to Ghana, Sierra Leone and Gambia. The visit is taking place against a background of controversy within the worldwide Anglican communion over the issue of homosexual clergy. The row, which at one stage looked as if it would lead to a major schism in the Church, only ended when Canon Jeffrey John said he would not take up the post of Bishop of Reading. During the dispute, the Dean of West Africa, Dr Tilewa Johnson, who is also Bishop of Gambia, said he wanted to discuss the issue with Dr Williams when he visited the area.

Liberia offers US troops unfamiliar combatants
St. Petersburg Times – Jul 27, 2003
The war-ending solution was decisive armed action by the United Nations, former colonial ruler Britain and neighboring Guinea. Guinea, angry at seeing its stability repeatedly threatened by Taylor-fueled troubles, sent helicopter gunships across the border. Air attacks on Sierra Leone villages slaughtered countless innocents, but routed rebels as well. Britain, likewise, moved in forcefully. Deploying a contingent believed to be up to 2,000, Britain responded to the capture of some of its troops by killing dozens, if not hundreds, of rebels in a single sweep. It was a turning point. Among Sierra Leone’s people, meanwhile, the British gained respect for their restraint and discipline toward civilians.

President returns to alma mater
BBC News – Jul 27, 2003
“Aberystwyth is proud of its connection with Dr Kabbah and wishes Sierra Leone a peaceful, prosperous future,” he added. During his visit, President Kabbah, looked around the site of a proposed building for the international politics department, the Arts Centre and the Old College. Sierra Leone

During his time in office, the President has seen his country, the West African state of Sierra Leone, emerge from a decade of civil war which ended in early 2002, with the help of Britain, the former colonial power, and a large United Nations peacekeeping mission. More than 17,000 foreign troops disarmed tens of thousands of rebels and militia fighters in the biggest UN peacekeeping success in Africa for many years after debacles in the 1990s in Angola, Rwanda and Somalia. A lasting feature of the civil war was the atrocities committed by the rebels, whose trademark was to hack off the hands of their victims. President Kabbah won a new five-year term in elections in May 2002 and is credited with bringing in foreign assistance to rescue his country from itself. He first took office in March 1996 following war-time elections which brought a formal end to four years of army rule.

General News of Sunday, 27 July 2003
ghanaweb.com – Jul 27, 2003
The clinic named WAJIR DENTAL CLINIC was built by Ghana’s Engineering Regiment-Sappers, currently serving as Ghanbatt 7 on United Nation’s peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone. It was financed by Ghanabatt 7 and a donation from the DOLLAR A MONTH FOR GHANA Fund of the Ghana High Commission and Ghana The commissioning of the clinic coincided with a day’s working visit paid by the Ghanaian High Commisioner last Tuesday.
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Families die huddled in city church
Guardian Unlimited – Jul 27, 2003
‘People are dying here every day. The Americans must play a leading role in an immediate peacekeeping intervention,’ said Raymond Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. A nation founded by freed American slaves in 1847, Liberia’s conflict is widely held to be Washington’s responsibility, much in the way Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast calmed after British and French intervention. Nigeria has told the United Nations that a vanguard battalion can deploy by next Saturday, with a mission to separate the warring sides and enable humanitarian assistance. But there are signs that the months of dithering by west African states and the US could continue. Some UN officials privately say that squabbles over funding and reinforcements will force Monrovia to wait even longer. A decision by the Economic Community of West African States to send peacekeepers which was due last week is now scheduled for tomorrow.
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