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Subject: Aid Worker Reported With Rebels; Sierra Leone Guerrilla Leader Says American
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 07:35:20 EST
Message-ID: <24.1992Nov21.073520@AmeriCast.com>

Aid Worker Reported With Rebels; Sierra Leone Guerrilla Leader
Says American

An American aid worker who disappeared in Sierra Leone late last
month is in territory held by anti-government guerrillas, the re-
bels' leader said.

Michael O'Neill, an employee of the Washington-based development
group Africare who vanished on Oct. 24, "is with me and all the
citizens that happen to be on my side," Foday Sankoh said Thurs-
day in a satellite telephone interview with the BBC.

O'Neill, 38, was coordinating Red Cross food relief efforts in
the diamond-mining town of Koidu when rebels of Sankoh's Revolu-
tionary United Front attacked it on Oct. 24, according to
witnesses quoted by news services.  O'Neill, his Red Cross driver
and a local businessman were abducted by the guerrillas in stolen
vehicles. No direct contact has been made with O'Neill since his
disappearance.

Sankoh made no reference to O'Neill's physical condition in the
BBC interview, but he said the American was not being held
against his will. Asked when O'Neill would be released, Sankoh
said, "It is not a matter of releasing. He is free to go. He is
not a captive. How can you release a man who is not a captive?"
He made no mention of the other two men in the interview.

Sankoh said he would have "no objection" if O'Neill were "col-
lected" by the Red Cross or the United Nations. In Washington
yesterday, Africare regional director Alan Alemian said Red Cross
officials in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, planned to travel
to rebel territory over the weekend in a bid to bring O'Neill and
others out.

O'Neill has worked in Sierra Leone for much of the past 10 years,
initially for the Peace Corps, Alemian said. He is married to a
Sierra Leonean and has two children.

A State Department official said that U.S. Ambassador Lauralee
Peters had discussed the case "with the highest levels" of the
Sierra Leonean government, which was working to secure O'Neill's
return.

The Revolutionary United Front has waged an 18-month insurgency
against two successive governments and controls portions of Sier-
ra Leone's mineral-rich northeast. The shadowy group is said to
be allied with Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Li-
beria, a guerrilla force that holds most of that neighboring
country.<02:18 11-21C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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