Freetown, Sierra Leone — After a remarkably trouble free run-up to Tuesday's election in Sierra Leone, the last day of campaigning was marred by clashes between rival political parties in the capital, Freetown, Saturday.
At least a dozen people, including two children, were injured after stone throwing turned to violence between hundreds of supporters of the governing Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and former rebels of the Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP).
United Nations peacekeepers intervened to back up the newly trained Sierra Leone police and help them maintain control and keep the two camps apart.
Driving armored personnel carriers and firing into the air, the UN troops managed to separate the stone throwers, stop the street fighting and disperse the angry crowds, easing the stand-off in central Freetown. But the situation remained tense late into the afternoon.
Blockades, manned by riot police, were set up to prevent rival party followers from coming into contact with one another, thereby reducing the temptation to renew the fight.
The wounded were taken to Connaught Hospital in the capital, the main medical center in Freetown, and were treated for a variety of injuries, including a fractured wrist, stab wounds and a torn upper ear lobe.
Former RUF combatants complained to allAfrica.com that they had been set upon by Kabbah supporters. Witnesses to the clashes said it was difficult to ascertain who provoked whom. But both sides traded sticks and stones and insults.Other political party supporters, as well as innocent bystanders, were also among the injured seen at the hospital by this reporter.
The clashes were concentrated outside the district headquarters of the RUFP in downtown Freetown. Angry RUFP supporters and officials told journalists that SLPP supporters had trashed the premises and claimed they had stolen equipment, including phones, computers and televisions, as well as files related to Tuesday's election.
The former rebels warned that if the provocation continued, they would leave the capital and "go back to the bush," from where they launched their insurgency a decade ago. A spokeswoman for the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (Unasil) later confirmed that there had been another incident in Kissy, in the east of the capital.
Campaigning has generally been peaceful and held in a carnival-like atmosphere in most of the country, which recently emerged from a brutal ten-year civil war.
On Saturday, the last day of campaigning before the voting, President Kabbah, who is standing against eight other candidates in Tuesday's poll, held a final rally at the national stadium in the capital. He spoke briefly to tens of thousands of his supporters, who had spent the whole day parading up and down the streets of Freetown on foot and in gaily decorated vehicles. Party supporters had improvised their outfits, using green-leaved palm fronds and branches and almost anything in green and white -- the governing SLPP colours.
They chanted "Wu Teh Teh, Wu Teh Teh," meaning '(vote) in your millions'. Kabbah's fans far outnumbered the supporters in Freetown of rival parties, including the RUFP, leading to observations that their overwhelming presence may have intimidated the others.
Kabbah appealed to SLPP supporters of all ages from doctors to street traders, teenagers and children -- to exercise restraint and avoid all violence, saying that this was what their party stood for. He gave assurances that elections would be free, fair, transparent and credible.
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Sierra Leoneons will be going to the polls in landmark presidential and parliamentary elections, which they hope will end the most violent chapter in their history since independence.
Between 100,000 and 200,000 people are said to have lost their lives in the fighting that was started by the RUF in 1991 and blossomed to a devastating war. A feature of the strife was widespread atrocities committed against civilians. What stands out most is what Sierra Leoneons colloquially call "cut arms" or "short sleeve, long sleeve" -- referring to the chopping of limbs by the rebels.
That legacy, which has left hundreds of amputees, including many children, is a constant reminder of the depths to which the country descended. Many Sierra Leoneons hope that, when they go to vote on Tuesday, they will be able to put that bitter past behind them and look forward to lasting peace and reconciliation.
