And by that we prevented them from launching the genocide that they had planned from the hills of Sierra Leone. We now know that the material damage from the fighting is not as great as we had feared. The serious damages occurred in the last two days of the fighting and this was done by the retreating junta forces when they were burning houses in and around Freetown. Ambassador Jonah says there's also evidence that the junta deliberately mounted guns on the parliament building and used two gun boats to fire on civilian targets. On the ground in Sierra Leone, United Nations staff are reporting that the capital Freetown is calmer and slowly returning to normal.
Officials say the city is quiet and phone service is beginning to return.
However, the situation elsewhere is improving at a slower pace. The newly-arriving refugees say there's a lack of medicine in Freetown. They also speak of reprisals against those who supported the junta. Pakistan's representative to the Conference on Disarmament says there's an entirely new theory emerging on the use of nuclear weapons. Ambassador Munair Akram told United Nations Radio in Geneva that the nuclear weapon states led in particular by the United States appear to be evolving a new rationale for the retention of nuclear weapons indefinitely.