Foday Sankoh has announced that all illegal diamond mining should stop and that anyone who contravenes this will be arrested.

What will he ask when he grows up?

Although the implementation of this order will undoubtedly prove difficult, the announcement goes to the heart of the issues which sparked the decade-long war.

The rebellion in Sierra Leone was financed by illegal diamond mining.

Millions of dollars worth of gemstones were smuggled out of the country every day - most of them to Liberia, which borders the rebel-held areas of Sierra Leone.

Before the war, corruption and mismanagement in the diamond sector was one of the main reasons why Sierra Leone became, on UN figures, the poorest country in the world.

Indeed, Foday Sankoh says fighting corruption was the motivation for his rebellion. He insists that he has not personally enriched himself with diamonds, and on a recent tour of the eastern region repeatedly said, in the Krio language: "No rebel no dig no diamond."

Mr Sankoh's public commitment to stop illegal diamond mining could show how serious he is about fighting corruption. It could also be a test of his authority over his men and the region they control.

A 5,000-strong UN force has already been deployed in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown and some other parts of the country to monitor the peace deal. But the UN has yet to send a significant number of troops to Foday Sankoh's stronghold.

Minerals chief

As part of the peace agreement signed by the government and rebels last year, Sankoh was appointed Chairman of the Strategic Minerals Commission.

Rebel leader Foday Sankoh: Denies responsibility for massacres

This is a key post which should oversee the rational exploitation of Sierra Leone's diamond wealth for the benefit of the population - rather than for benefit of smugglers and corrupt politicians as is the case now.

Government negotiators at the peace talks last year said Foday Sankoh was given the job in order to tempt him into signing the peace deal.

The government also agreed, in exchange for peace, to a controversial amnesty for rebels who committed atrocities against civilians.

Many Sierra Leoneans were outraged at the deal - they said the amnesty and Mr Sankoh's appointment as diamond overlord appeared to reward the rebels.

But others said any deal was preferable to a war which has displaced millions of people and seen some of the worst atrocities committed anywhere in the world.

Infant victim

Fourteen-month-old Abu Sesay is the youngest known victim of the rebel atrocities.

Tenneh Cole: Forced to flee orphanage

A year ago, when Abu was two months old, the rebels invaded Freetown and tried to overthrow the government. Thousands of innocent people were killed before Nigerian-led troops of the west African intervention army, Ecomog, expelled the rebels from the city.

Thousands of people were deliberately mutilated by the rebels - including Abu, then just two months old, who had his right foot hacked off.

The atrocities against civilians appear to have been committed as a warning to others not to support the elected government.

Another victim of the war was Tenneh Cole. She was born nine years ago when the war began. In 1996 Tenneh became a media celebrity when she was taken to Britain by charity workers to remove a bullet from her head.

Her life was successfully saved by surgeons at Norwich Hospital, but the bullet wound, and other medical complications, left Tenneh deaf and partially sighted.

Rare happy ending

Recently the BBC has met Tenneh again. In the last few years she was forced to flee her orphanage twice because of rebel attacks and take refuge in the bush.

A bullet lodged in Tenneh's skull has impaired her vision and hearing

But this is one Sierra Leonean story that, for now, has a happy ending. Tenneh is living with a loving foster family in Freetown and we found her excited by her first day at a school for the hearing impaired.

The deaf school was looted during the war and now manages without electricity or properly trained teachers. The school cannot afford a single hearing aid - although these only cost a few dollars each.

Many of the children at the school are deaf as a direct result of the war and the poverty it exacerbated. A large proportion of them contracted deafness through Lassa fever, a disease spread by rodents that thrive in unsanitary slums.

But the children are working hard despite their handicaps. When we visited the school they were learning a sign-language version of the Sierra Leonean national anthem.

Challenge to UN

While the promise by Foday Sankoh to bring illicit mining under control is a test for him, the United Nations is also facing a severe challenge in Sierra Leone.

Some 5,000 peacekeepers have already been deployed to monitor the peace deal. But UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wants the force to be doubled in size, which would make it the world's largest UN peacekeeping operation.

The UN plans to double its force to 11,000

In recent years the UN has been humiliated in Africa. Peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Rwanda and Angola failed to stop the wars there.

The experience in Rwanda in 1994, was the lowest point of all: a series of catastrophic errors and failures saw UN troops withdraw while genocide took place.

Kofi Annan takes some personal responsibility for this failure as he was Head of UN Peacekeeping at the time of the genocide.

As long as there is the political will among Sierra Leonean faction leaders - principally Foday Sankoh - to maintain the peace, the UN could succeed in its mission to bolster the peace agreement.

Enough soldiers?

But unless the troop strength is brought up to the full 10,000 that Mr Annan wants, the first signs of any military challenge to the UN could prove disastrous.

Thousands of people were mutilated by rebels

The UN force in Sierra Leone is mainly made up of Indian, Kenyan and Nigerian troops.

But the Nigerians - who are there as a follow-up to Ecomog - now want to go home. Without them, the UN force probably could not stand up to any military challenge the Sierra Leonean factions could mount in the event of them returning to war.

The United Kingdom's Minister for African Affairs, Peter Hain, who visited Sierra Leone this month, said it was essential that the spectre of UN failures in Africa be redressed.

Mr Hain conceded that the peace agreement which gave amnesty to the Sierra Leone rebels for atrocities they had committed "is not an agreement of which any of us can be immensely proud".

Compromises

But he said the agreement was the best available, and had to be made to work. He compared compromises made for peace in Sierra Leone with compromises the UK made with the IRA in Northern Ireland.

Sierra Leone has peace without justice. But since no major Western power wanted to intervene against the war crimes committed there - unlike in Bosnia or Kosovo - this appears to be the only peace it will get.

The key question now is whether the controversial peace deal and amnesty will create a cycle of impunity which could encourage new rebellions - or whether the compromise will hold.