Hundreds of U.S. soldiers will train and equip West African battalions that will then be sent to Sierra Leone to support government troops and United Nations peacekeepers. A senior Clinton administration official stated that the U.S. had “gone through an agonizing reappraisal” of its policy toward Sierra Leone, where the Revolutionary United Front rebel forces have ravaged the country and in May kidnapped hundreds of United Nations peacekeepers. The RUF is notorious for gruesome practices such as chopping off the breasts of women, systematically raping women and children, and kidnapping children to use them as soldiers.
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