A bit more like it: after the war, national reconstruction is well under way. The country has even found oil in commercial quantities, and the smiles are...almost back. (Around Africa: Sierra Leone).

There were doubts on 18 January this year when President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah officially declared the country's debilitating 10-year civil war over. The doubts were naturally justified as several moves towards peace in the past had failed.

However, Kabbah's 18 January declaration was extraordinary because it was clear that the more than 70,000 rebels and government troops were all weary of the war and wanted to drop their guns and bombs. A symbolic destruction of arms surrendered by the rebels was done in the presence of the presidents of Nigeria, Ghana and Mali and international dignitaries, sending a positive message to the world that the war was truly over. The presence of 17,000 UN peacekeepers in the country, the world's largest, together with British troops during the past two years have also made a significant difference in consolidating the peace.

Having established what the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has described as "steady and remarkable progress", the UN will start reducing the size of its force to around 2,000 by 2004 depending on the prevailing situation.

Meanwhile, the British government through its overseas development programme has, over the past two years, produced a "new" Sierra Leone army and a police force to act as the backbone of national security. The British Army is providing training, equipment, ammunition, vehicles, uniforms, technical support and other logistics. Similarly, through the Commonwealth, the Sierra Leone Police Force is gradually cleaning up its bad image as a force for corruption and exploitation. It has gone through a major overhaul under the leadership of its British inspector general, Keith Biddle.

Although it would rake several years for the army and police to achieve the high level of excellence expected by a civilian population that had lost all faith in them, it is comforting, some people say, that at least some progress has been made. Elections were successfully held in May and Kabbah's ruling parry, the Sierra Leone Peoples Parry (SLPP), won a landslide victory with nearly 80% of the vote under a refined proportional representation system. While victory was expected for the SLPP, it was not to crush the 12 opposition parties resulting in the All Peoples Congress (APC) struggling to get 18% of the vote, and the former junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma's Peace and Liberation Parry (PLP) surprisingly becoming the second opposition parry, with two seats in parliament, The election results got many campaigners for good governance concerned that the country could slide into a one-parry rule with such an insignificant opposition presence in parliament. These fears are already manifesting with signs beginni ng to show what a ruling parry with such a huge majority can do when President Kabbah recently appointed board members for nearly 30 parastatals. Almost all of them came from his parry, some of whom were clearly being compensated for losing the election or not getting ministerial positions.

Except for the leader of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Osman Kamara, who was rejected as the chairman of the Guma Valley Water Company by the Parliamentary Select Committee for reasons not made public, all the other board members got their jobs laughing. Kabbah has often been accused of not fighting corruption enough, especially by top officials. There are so many instances when the president was expected to take action but Lied. Earlier this year, the deputy chairman of the anti corruption commission resigned in frustration.

Politics aside, every endeavour in the country at the moment focuses on reconstruction, rehabilitation and reintegration, though thousands of internally displaced people and returnees from neighbouring countries are still struggling to resettle. The task is enormous and the challenge overwhelming. It will rake many mote years for normalcy to return. However, schools, hospitals, markers, homes, water wells and other public places are being reconstructed by various organisations around the country. Britain is helping with the rebuilding of government offices, court houses, police stations and houses for all the 148 paramount chiefs in the country.

The main debate in the country, though, is about the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Borrowing from the South African experience, Sierra Leone's TRC will seek to heal the wounds of the war by encouraging perpetrators to confess their sins and ask for forgiveness from their victims.

The TRC has already starred work but it is faced with three problems: money; appreciation and co-operation by the public; and the issue of reparation. So far, it has received over US$1.20m from all donors, including $97,000 from the Sierra Leone government. According to Prof John Kamara, the TRC's commissioner for fund raising, "money will nor be given to victims yet". The issue of reparation for war damages is a major bone of contention, and amputees whose limbs were chopped off by the rebels are threatening to boycott the TRC unless it yielded to their demands for compensation.

Whatever happens, the cost of national reconstruction will be high, but with the country recently finding oil in commercial quantities offshore, things might not be bad after all.