Strangers grabbed them and hugged them hard as if to restrain their explosions of delirium."Foday Sankoh hates me God hates me Sankoh has taken both my sons," cried Mary Conteh "He killed Peter on 6 January last year He killed Abubakarr on 8 May. Sankoh is a beast," she screamed.Abubakarr Conteh, 16, and Ms Gassama were among peace demonstrators who marched last Monday to Colonel Sankoh's house in Freetown, demanding an end to the nine-year civil war in Sierra Leone, which has killed at least 10,000 people and left as many with stumps where they used to have limbs.Col Sankoh, a signatory to a peace agreement last July, had shown no intention of abiding by it, even though it put him in government.Now he has disappeared - some say back into the bush. Others, more optimistic, believe the Sierra Leone government army is secretly holding Col Sankoh in the belief that isolating him will demoralise his Revolutionary United Front men.Mrs Saccoh said: "We are traumatised We do not know what to do I have been on most of the demonstrations. But it is so, so hard to preach everlasting peace, and something called democracy, when these evil men are killing, burning and destroying everything.

The gun is much stronger than freedom."Many in the queue of mourners, thousands long, waiting to file past photographs of the dead - including three Sierra Leone Army soldiers, a journalist, a street trader and three unidentified victims - pledged to fight on. Thomas Beah, a student of agriculture, said: "We will be with these (dead) people until there is permanent peace in our country."Sierra Leone's parliamentary leader, Ahmed Ramadan Dumbuya, said: "Democracy can be sustained only if people are prepared to fight for it, or even to die."He believed the funeral was an expression of anger at Col Sankoh. "We are much more defiant, much more resolute than we have ever been. The people were are burying today were aged between 16 and 60. This shows that democracy as a value is imbued in the people. They will sustain their pressure for democracy and an end to terror."Nevertheless, Mr Dumbuya believed it was right in last July's peace agreement to have given Col Sankoh a government seat and a war crimes amnesty. "Democracy and stability are premised on the participation of all parties.

If we had left out the RUF there would have been no reason to sustain the drive to inclusive government. Now he has proved that he just used the agreement to buy time to rearm.". UN secretary general Kofi Annan has told Tony Blair that British forces in Sierra Leone are having a "critical impact" on the situation in the war-torn western African state, according to a letter released by Downing Street. UN secretary general Kofi Annan has told Tony Blair that British forces in Sierra Leone are having a "critical impact" on the situation in the war-torn western African state, according to a letter released by Downing Street. Mr Annan thanked the Prime Minister for Britain's action, saying he would "continue to rely on the resolve and readiness of the UK to support the UN at the political level as well as on the ground".But he did not request any further commitment from the UK to take on combat responsibilities as part of UNAMSIL, the UN peacekeeping force.Pro-Government forces in Sierra Leone were today reported to have driven rebel troops of the Revolutionary United Front away from the capital Freetown, in battles involving rocket attacks from helicopter gunships.But the Ministry of Defence denied reports that British troops had provided "logistical and co-ordination support" for the operation, saying that such support was being offered only to the UN peacekeepers.The Chief of Defence Staff General Sir Charles Guthrie was today starting a four-day visit to the region, which will include visits to British troops stationed in both Senegal and Sierra Leone.The MoD said his visit had been planned as a fact-finding mission before the current unrest began, but would now include visits to UK troops on active service.Meanwhile Sierra Leoneans living in Britain were today rallying at Downing Street to plead with the UK to increase its involvement in ridding their land of the RUF rebels, who have been implicated in thousands of atrocities in the decade-long civil war.But the UK Government insists that the 600-strong British contingent in Sierra Leone will not be sucked into the war, and is there only to help evacuate UK, EU and Commonwealth citizens and to provide logistical support to UNAMSIL.. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe met with white farmers and black war veterans yesterday to discuss the land crisis as pre-electoral violence centred on a new target - school teachers.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe met with white farmers and black war veterans yesterday to discuss the land crisis as pre-electoral violence centred on a new target - school teachers. Widely respected in rural Zimbabwe, teachers this week became the latest casualties in the increasingly violent, methodical campaign by Zimbabwe's ruling party to intimidate anyone opposing the 20-year reign of Zanu-PF and its autocratic leader, Mr Mugabe.On Wednesday 15 teachers were abducted and beaten by war veterans in Mudzi, about 100 miles north-east of Harare. One, who escaped with nine colleagues from the secluded area where they were taken, said that five others accused of being opposition supporters were still being held.On Tuesday at Mapfeni Primary School, about 20 miles east of the capital, a truck arrived full of young men armed with sticks and axes and dressed in T-shirts bearing the Zanu-PF logo. Their mission: find and beat teachers supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Without need of explanation, the pupils began screaming and running. The teachers, who were in a meeting, saw the panicking pupils andfled "We heard they had a list of teachers supporting MDC. I cannot go back there," one of the teachers said.The director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association, Munyaradzi Bidi, said: "The violence is twisting. They are now targeting each and every person and institution who has a conscience against Zanu-PF." The association has deployed hundreds of human rights activists across the country, including many teachers.The crisis in Zimbabwe started in February when war veterans began occupying white-owned farms, ostensibly to fulfil a long-standing hunger for land.

But those veterans, along with legions of paid Zanu-PF supporters, have become an army of political shock troops who are spending their time not preparing the land, but beating opponents, hunting for MDC organisers and conducting violent "re-education" sessions in which suspected opponents are beaten, made to chant party slogans and beat other suspected MDC supporters.According to Mr Bidi, the campaign of violence has moved beyond farm workers to other key groups supporting MDC as well as human rights monitors. Dozens of schools have been closed after teachers, some of whom have been active MDC organisers, were attacked in recent weeks.North-east of Harare, United Methodist Church congregations have been attacked because they are believed to be supporting the United Party, led by Bishop Abel Muzarewa "They are even targeting the clergy This has nothing to do with the land issue. The land issue is not an issue but a political gimmick," Mr Bidi said.Mr Mugabe's meeting yesterday with the farmers and the war veterans was his second since squatters moved on to the commercial farms.The white farmers are increasingly put under pressure to bring their workers and themselves to Zanu-PF rallies at which they are paraded and made to chant slogans for the ruling party and denounce MDC. State television and newspapers cover the denunciations as news of growing support for Zanu-PF.. Hoping to contain Africa's newest war, the United Nations Security Council demanded that Eritrea and Ethiopia immediately stop fighting and hinted at a possible arms embargo if the conflict doesn't die down over the weekend. Hoping to contain Africa's newest war, the United Nations Security Council demanded that Eritrea and Ethiopia immediately stop fighting and hinted at a possible arms embargo if the conflict doesn't die down over the weekend. In a resolution unanimously adopted Friday just hours after fighting along the Eritrean-Ethiopian border flared, the council demanded the Horn of Africa neighbors restart stalled peace talks that broke down last week.The resolution said the council would meet again on Monday "to take immediate steps to ensure compliance with this resolution" if fighting continues.British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, who drafted the resolution, said that was a clear threat of an arms embargo. He attributed the vague wording in the resolution more to bureaucratic problems than any lack of substance or resolve on the part of the council to actually impose the measures."I think that if the international community can show its displeasure with these developments by saying that it should not be so easy for these two countries to get arms, then we might have taken a step forward," he said.France, Russia and China had blocked British attempts to make the threat of an arms embargo more specific in Friday's resolution, diplomats said, but Greenstock said he hoped the council would be able to make a unanimous decision on Monday."This war everybody believes is unnecessary and senseless," Greenstock said.Two days after a U.N.