LONDON (Reuters) - British troops and Sierra Leone rebels suffered
casualties on Sunday as British forces attacked a rebel base and freed six
of their soldiers who had been taken hostage, the chief of Britain's
defense staff said.
``There have been a few casualties on our side,'' Sir Charles Guthrie told
a news conference. He said there had also been a substantial number of
casualties on the side of the West Side Boys, renegade former Sierra Leone
soldiers who had taken the British soldiers hostage last month.
``The West Side boys were not a pushover. They fought very hard. Amongst
them they had women who were fighting and I think some of them may have
been among the casualties,'' Guthrie said.
This incident is mainly a warning to Britain about the limits of its power.
The raid was a sign of weakness:- it faced losing its troops still kept as
hostages, and public opinion growing doubtful again about this whole
expedition.
The exercise must have been very expensive. Even with the involvement of
the SAS it required a 90 minute battle. The West Side Boys were
sufficiently battle competent with sufficient morale, to regroup and
attack. British press reports are now emphasising that the released
hostages will be questioned as to why they were in a dangerous area anyway,
although this information is probably known from the batch of hostages who
were released earlier. Press releases are also stressing that Britain is in
Sierra Leone to train the local military, a favoured theme of British
involvement in Africa for over a decade.
British public opinion is less sensitive to its soldiers getting killed
than is that in the USA but one British soldier was killed and one severely
wounded in order to bring out six hostages - a debatable cost benefit ration.
This episode occurs at an interesting time when the UN summit has issued
statements about the formation of a rapid reaction force, and about the
need to give Africa more economic attention. Shortly before, a joint
committee of the British Labour Party and Liberal Democratic Party called
for UN reform with a rapid reaction force (perhaps conveniently for
Britain, to be located in Britain) and the enlargement of the Security Council.
Yes, Britain has a terrible colonial record in Africa, and like other
imperialist powers, has a moral debt to Africa for reparations amounting to
hundreds of billions of dollars, but the nature of Africa's oppression and
exploitation is shifting.
There is a sustained theme of globalizing governance. That is partly a
question of standardising government methods and respect for bourgeois
democratic rights, as in Zimbabwe, Rwanda or Burundi, and partly the whole
framework of stabilization of a society and economy. The single most
innovative thing this year has been the reorganisation of the diamond
trade, with the active cooperation of De Beers, to outlaw "blood diamonds".
None of this will stabilize Africa if it does not receive economic justice
in an imperialist globalized world. That requires positive transfers of
billions of dollars each year to this region which is on the periphery of
the world capitalist system.
Meanwhile Britain, far from ruling the waves, is struggling to retain any
influential position which will allow it to punch above its weight and
retain its place among the great powers.
Chris Burford
London
