S Leone swears in new president

2007-11-15 14:28

Freetown - Thousands poured into Sierra Leone's main stadium on Thursday for the inauguration of President Ernest Bai Koroma, elected in polls seen to have turned a page on the west African nation's brutal past.

Dignitaries from Africa and further afield were also due to attend the ceremony, including President Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso and Yahya Jammeh of Gambia.

The United States would be represented by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer while France would be sending Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights Rama Yade.

Sierra Leone's former colonial power, Britain, would be represented by Valerie Amos, the European Union's envoy to the African Union and the first black woman to sit in the British cabinet.

120 000 people killed

Koroma, 53, a leader of the opposition All People's Congress, won a second round election against former vice-president Solomon Berewa in September.

Sierra Leone was ravaged by a decade-long civil war that ended in 2001 after claiming the lives about 120 000 people. Tens of thousands of others had their limbs amputated in one of the most brutal conflicts in modern times.

The September elections were the first to be held after the pullout of a giant United Nations peacekeeping force.

The former ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) was boycotting Thursday's event in protest at the alleged intimidation of its supporters by the new government.

SLPP secretary-general Jusu Saffa cited "political harassment, victimisation and selective dismissal" of its members from state institutions.

Koroma faced the mammoth task of rebuilding a ruined country as well as tackling endemic corruption and bad governance in the world's second poorest nation.

Senegal had loaned Sierra Leone a helicopter to transfer heads from states from the international airport across the bay, to the seaside capital Freetown, as well as 14 cars, according to Presidential Affairs spokesperson Alpha Kanu.

- AFP