The bloody resurgence of the war in Sierra Leone has left hundreds dead and a shattered capital. The rebels have been repulsed but there will be no long-term solution until real peace negotiations are held leading to a final agreement. Alan Rake reports.

As the last rebels are being driven out of the eastern fringes of Freetown, the Sierra Leone nation is counting the cost. The fierce fighting in the heart of the capital between the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the Nigerian ECOMOG forces left hundreds dead and a nation writhing in another convulsion of agony.

Hundreds were killed. Bodies littered the streets. The corridors of the Connaught hospital were filled to overflowing with the wounded. There was no room in the mortuary. The corpses lay in piles around the hospital where they were ravaged by vultures. Bloated bodies lay rotting in the streets.

Outside lay a city in ruins. Buildings were shattered and burnt, still smoking as the sound of gunfire was heard in the distant suburbs.

Part of the State House, the proud symbol of decades of peaceful, democratic rule was burnt down. As the rebels were forced into retreat they also fired the parliament building, central post office, the high court and the Nigerian High Commission.

The retreating rebels seized private buildings by attacking the residents, slashing them with pangas, chopping off limbs, demanding food, using them as human shields.

Dozens of dead lay in the streets because no one felt safe enough to go out and bury them. The prisoners released from Pandemba prison did not know which way to turn. The radio told them to give themselves up or they would be lynched by distraught civilians.

The rebels had gained access to Freetown by a clever strategem. As thousands of refugees fled the ravaged countryside towards the safety of the capital, the rebels joined them. They hid their weapons in their untidy refugee bundles and simply walked past the complacent ECOMOG soldiers. Then they met at various rendezvous points in the city, unwrapped their weapons and within hours had taken over the centre of the city. Within days they were driving trucks in the streets and occupying strategic points.

How did this bloody chaos come about? Why had the government been so complacent as to allow the rebels into the centre of the capital?

The warning signs had been apparent for some time. The deputy defence minister and godfather of the Kamajor militias, Hinga Norman, claimed, as far back as November, that the war "was over". The rebels had been reduced to isolated pockets of resistance in the north and east.

But the ECOMOG troops were demoralised, fed up with fighting another country's war, complaining about their conditions and their commanders. Raymond Kanu, the second in command of the northern Kamajors said in December, "the government is not serious about prosecuting the war in the north and ECOMOG is betraying us."

The war had rumbled on long after President Kabbah's return to power in March 1998. The RUF, bolstered by the forces of the old military junta which had seized power in 1997, remained powerful in the north and east. Though they were taking heavy losses, they were thinking up new strategies and preparing for another push.

The campaign started with the dry season in November and intensified in December. After Christmas, the rebels took Makeni the northern provincial capital and fighting started around Port Loko, Waterloo and Hastings close to the capital. But as late as 4 January, the government continued to say that Freetown was secure and that they would not negotiate with the rebels.

Yet even as they spoke rebel troops were infiltrating the suburbs.

The Sierra Leone army had been partly demobilised by the Kabbah government because of its disloyalty in bringing the junta to power in 1997. Many soldiers had been deported to the limbo of Banana island. The loyalists who remained were untrained and few in number. When the rebel attack came, they seemed to vanish into thin air. And the 15,000-strong ECOMOG army proved themselves incapable of holding off the rag tag rebel army estimated at no more than 5,000.

The government was also politically responsible for the debacle. Since his return to power, Kabbah had flatly refused to negotiate and bring peace to his war-torn country. He acted tough and refused to negotiate with "terrorists". Kabbah had also ordered the executions of 24 soldiers, threatening dozens of civilians with the same fate despite pleas for clemency by the international community. Until he was forced to do so, Kabbah refused to release Foday Sankoh, the original RUF leader sentenced to death in October, or even talk to the rebel leaders.

And the rebels had won no friends. Their atrocities against innocent civilians -the mutilations, rapes, shootings and torture won no hearts and minds. Though they had some support among the politically alienated peoples of the north, the majority of the people hated them. They were accused of being the agents of the Liberian government or a northern tribal group only interested in siezing power. And they seemed to have no more idea of how to achieve a lasting settlement than the government.

Yet until the international peace makers force both sides into meaningful negotiations, there will be no lasting peace for Sierra Leone. There always comes a time when you have to talk, even to terrorists.