Let me tell you a tale of two continents. A short time ago, I helped to negotiate a cease-fire in the worst civil conflict of a harsh decade. I was honored to receive President Clinton's appreciation for working with three international leaders to help bring about this vital step toward peace, while brokering the release of more than 2,000 prisoners. The conflict, which has continued for nearly eight years, has claimed more than 500,000 lives and displaced more than a million refugees. Peace, if it follows, will stop more needless suffering and end the potential destabilizing of a vital region.

Yet, even well-informed Americans have heard little about either the conflict or the cease-fire. That's because the war was in Sierra Leone in Western Africa, and was waged outside the glare of cameras and beyond the eyes of Western journalists. The horrors of the war in Sierra Leone have been worse than those in Kosovo, but the cameras were not there to bring it into our living rooms.

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