Allah is Not Obliged

by Ahmadou Kourouma

  At the camp, there was a celebration. Everyone danced. Johnson in his priest’s soutane and his kalash danced five times and ended up doing somersaults, doing the monkey dance. Walahé! Faforo!

  As a secret, the secret remained a secret for five days; by day six, the whole of Liberia from Monrovia to the back end of the country knew Johnson had signed a secret deal with the president of the plantation.

  The other factions didn’t stand for it. Not at all. Straight away, the leaders of all the factions showed up at the plantation to meet with the president. They handed him their ultimatums written out and in due form. (‘In due form’ means ‘written according to the laws and with all the appended formalities’.) To resolve the situation, the president decided to divide the security guards into three or four units, each one under the control of a different faction. The problem then was how to demarcate (to set the boundaries) between these sections. When he couldn’t get the factions to agree to any of his realistic proposals, the president ordered the factions to sort it out among themselves. It was like throwing one bone to three or four vicious guard dogs who were already pawing the ground in anticipation. All over the plantation it was all-out war.

  The ECOMOG peacekeeping forces arrived. They bombarded everyone with bombs and everyone ran away. We (we meaning Yacouba, the Muslim grigriman, the crippled crook, and me, the fearless, blameless street kid, the child-soldier) found ourselves in some shitty village on the borders of the plantation on account of our fitting sacrifices had been rejected (meaning by chance). Because Allah doesn’t have to be fair in all the things he does.

  In this bullshit village—surprise!—we found our friend Sekou. Yacouba’s friend Sekou who was a money multiplier like Yacouba. Sekou gave us news of my aunt. She had set off, foot to the road, to walk to Sierra Leone, to my uncle’s place in Sierra Leone. So we decided that, since we couldn’t go back to Johnson, we had to get to Sierra Leone, djogo-djogo, somehow or other.

  5

  Sierra Leone is a fucked-up mess, a big-time fucked-up mess. A country is a fucked-up mess when you get warlords dividing it up between them like in Liberia, but when you’ve got political parties and democrats on top of the warlords it’s a big-time fucked-up mess. In Sierra Leone, the Kamajors (the hunters’ militia) and Kabbah (the democrat) were embroiled in everything, along with warlords like Foday Sankoh, Johnny Koroma and some small-time bandits. That’s why people say Sierra Leone isn’t a mess, it’s a big-time fucked-up mess. In pidgin, the Kamajor are called ‘the respectable association of professional traditional hunters’. Faforo!

  In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful, Let’s start at the start.

  Sierra Leone is a small fucked-up African state between Guinea and Liberia. For a century and a half, from the start of the English colonisation in 1808 right up to independence on 27 April 1961, the country was a haven of peace, stability and security. Everything was simple back then. From an administrative point of view, there were two only types of people: first, British subjects including colonial English toubab colonists and the creos, or creoles; and, second, there was the ‘protected subjects’, Black Nigger Native savages out in the bush. The creoles were descended from freed slaves who came over from America. Walahé! The Black Nigger Natives worked as hard as wild beasts. The creoles got all the jobs as civil servants in the government and managers of the commercial businesses. And the colonial English colonists and the thieving double-crossing Lebanese pocketed all the money. The Lebanese didn’t show up until much later, between the two big wars. The creoles were rich intelligent Black Niggers who were a lot better than the Black Nigger Native Savages. A lot of them had law degrees and different kinds of diplomas like doctors.

  When independence came on 27 April 1961, the Black Nigger Native savages got the right to vote and ever since then Sierra Leone is nothing but coup d’états and assassinations and lynchings and executions and all sorts of trouble, a big-time fucked-up mess on account of Sierra Leone is rich in diamonds and gold and all sorts of corruption. Faforo!

  As soon as the Black Nigger Native savages got independence and the right to vote, they elected the only Black Nigger African Native with a university degree, the only one with a law degree. His name was Milton Margai and he married a white Englishwoman to prove to everyone that he’d completely broken with Black Nigger Native savage habits and traditions.

  Milton Margai was already old and a bit wise when they elected him. During his reign as Her Majesty’s prime minister, there was some tribal wars but the corruption was manageable. The Mendes, who were people from the same tribe as the prime minister, got favouritism. That was normal. You follow the elephant through the jungle so as not to get wet from the dew (that’s a Black Nigger African Native saying that means, when you’re close to someone important, you’re protected).

  When Milton Margai died on 24 April 1964, he was succeeded by his brother Albert Margai known as ‘Big Albert’. With Big Albert, the tribal wars and the corruption got worse, got so bad that on 26 March 1967 there was a coup d’état and Albert was replaced by Brigadier Juxton-Smith, who was not from the Mende tribe.

  Under Brigadier Juxton-Smith corruption was still rife and something had to be done. On 19 April 1968, Brigadier Juxton-Smith was overthrown by a coup organised by the NCOs who founded the Anti-Corruption Revolutionary Movement—the ACRM. Anti-corruption! (Walahé! just for that.) But the corruption didn’t stop.

  On 26 April 1968, Siaka Stevens, who was a Limba, takes over and tries to put a stop to the corruption but he can’t do it. In May 1971 another coup d’état drives Siaka Stevens out of the palace, out of the capital, but he is brought back safely by Guinean paratroopers. With the protection of the Guinean paras, Siaka Stevens is safe.

  He sets up a dictatorship with a one-party system and lots of corruption. Siaka hangs, executes and tortures his opponents. In spite of the corruption, he manages to establish the impression of stability. Siaka Stevens is old, really old, and he makes the most of it to hand over the reins. He has himself replaced as the head of the one-party state by his general and chief of staff, Major General Joseph Saidu Momoh. The general lost the protection of the Guinean government. In August 1985, the general himself admitted that he ‘did not have the means to eliminate diamond trafficking’. He meant he couldn’t get rid of the corruption.

  While all this corruption was going on and all these coup d’états were happening one after another, on the sly, people were plotting a bite-that-has-no-teeth (among Black Africans a nasty surprise is known as ‘that which bites but has no teeth’) against the corrupt scheming regime of Sierra Leone. Walahé! Completely on the sly, completely in secret. Foday Sankoh, Corporal Foday Sankoh was about to bite Sierra Leone using no teeth. Corporal Foday Sankoh introduced a third partner to Sierra Leone’s dance. Up till then, everything had been simple, very simple: there were only two dancers, only two underhand partners, the government and the army. If the dictator in power got too corrupt and too rich, there was a coup d’état and he was replaced by a general. If he hadn’t already been assassinated, the dictator took the money and fled without further ado. When the guy who replaced him got too corrupt, too rich, there was another different coup and someone else replaced him and, if he hadn’t already been assassinated, he did a runner with the liriki, the cash. And so on. Foday Sankoh fucked up this private dance when he introduced another whore to the dance: the people, the poor people, the Black Nigger Native savage Sierra Leonean bushmen.

  First off, who is Foday Sankoh, Corporal Foday Sankoh? Gnamokodé!

  Foday Sankoh, a Temne, joins the army of Sierra Leone in 1956. In 1962 he gets his corporal’s stripes (in his long and extraordinary career he never gets any more stripes), and in 1963 he is sent with a contingent of soldiers from Sierra Leone on a peacekeeping mission to Congo. The absolutely outrageous way that Patrice Lumumba (Congo’s first prime minister) is assassinated sickens him, but makes him think. He comes to the conclusion that the vast machinery o
f the UN always serves the interests of European colonial toubab colonists and never the interests of the poor Black Nigger Native savages.

  When he gets back to Sierra Leone, he becomes aware of the suffering of his people and the appalling corruption that rules his country. That’s when he decides to go into politics.

  In 1965, Foday Sankoh is suspected of being involved in the military coup against Margai led by Colonel John Bangoura. Sankoh is arrested and released. In 1971, he is involved in the coup d’état mounted by Momoh against Siaka Stevens. He is arrested and banged up for six long years. While he’s in prison, he reads Mao Tse-Tung and other theorists of the popular revolution and he thinks. He thinks and thinks and he comes to a conclusion. A military coup that changes the people at the top won’t put an end to Sierra Leone’s corrupt bastard regime. It will take more than that, it will take a popular revolution. Foday Sankoh dedicates himself to the popular revolution.

  Starting in the east of the country, Foday Sankoh eventually settles in Bô, the second biggest city in Sierra Leone. Working undercover as a photographer, he circulates his ideas until 1990. At the beginning of 1991, he recruits an army of three hundred people, men he calls the freedom fighters of the Revolutionary United Front (the pidgin abbreviation is RUF). He trains his men to be genuine proper soldiers. The freedom fighters get their hands on modern weapons by staging a string of ambushes, the modern weapons replace their machetes. On 23 March 1991 Foday Sankoh starts a civil war on the Liberian border, supported by the Liberian warlord Taylor.

  The astonished president, Joseph Momoh, panics, protests Taylor’s involvement, and demands the support of the other members of CDEAO. Then he sends thousands of soldiers to the border to hold off the RUF rebels, to repel the ‘invaders’, but all the soldiers desert and join the RUF freedom fighters. There is nothing Joseph Momoh can do. Sierra Leone is on the brink of collapse. Joseph Momoh is ousted from power by a coup. He takes off gnona-gnona with the loot and is replaced by Captain Valentine Strasser.

  Captain Strasser has two policies. Number one: deal with the bane of corruption (‘bane’ means ‘a constant annoyance or danger’). Number two: deal with Foday Sankoh and the RUF. To fight Foday Sankoh, Strasser recruits fourteen thousand kids. These starving kids are sobels—soldiers by day and rebels (looting and thieving) by night. But they all desert and join the RUF freedom fighters, and on the morning of 15 April 1995 Foday Sankoh launches an offensive, heading west in the direction of the capital, Freetown. Foday Sankoh and his RUF, without firing a shot, take the strategic town of Mile-Thirty-Eight and the surrounding gold-rich, diamond-rich region with all the coffee plantations and the cocoa plantations and the palm oil plantations. From that day on, he doesn’t give a shit what happens next on account of he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone.

  Walahé! Valentine Strasser hasn’t got a penny to his name, nothing, not a red cent. He’s annoyed, really fucked off, and he decides to play the democracy game. He gives the go-ahead to multi-party politics, holds a National Conference (National Conferences were the big political meetings that every African country held in 1994 where everybody just said the first thing that came into their heads). With the support of the UN, Valentine Strasser decides to hold free and fair elections. Foday Sankoh isn’t duped by the democracy game. No sir. He doesn’t want anything to do with any of it. He doesn’t want a National Conference, he doesn’t want free and fair elections. He doesn’t want anything. He controls the part of the country with the diamonds; he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone. He doesn’t give a fuck. What he wants first of all is for the UN representative from the Congo, his bête noire, to be expelled from the country (‘bête noire’ is the person you hate most). Foday Sankoh has got no intention of giving up the gold and diamond mines for as long as the UN representative is stationed in Sierra Leone.

  Valentine Strasser is in trouble, he doesn’t know what to do, but the most important thing is to protect the capital and the little bit of land he still controls. First he appeals to Gurkhas from Nepal, then the South African mercenaries, the ‘executive outcomes’ of South African society, the Boers. He never gets to look any further on account of he is ousted by his aide Julius Mananda Bio, vice-president of the National Provisional Ruling Council. Captain Strasser hightails it out of there gnona-gnona with the loot, like a thief.

  The date is 16 January 1996 and there’s Mananda Bio in the palace, Lumley Beach Palace (that’s the name of the residence where the president, the leader of Sierra Leone, lives). The UN and the CDEAO put pressure on Mananda Bio, forcing him to stick to the plans Strasser had made to hold free and fair elections on February 26. On January 28, Mananda Bio starts negotiations with a delegation sent by Foday Sankoh. Foday Sankoh doesn’t want free and fair elections. He doesn’t want them, no sir. (He doesn’t give a fuck, he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone.)

  In spite of his protests, the first round of the presidential election goes ahead while negotiations between Mananda Bio and Foday Sankoh are still going on. Sankoh fulminates (to ‘fulminate’ is to explode in a thunderous rage and start threatening and insulting). Before negotiations are over, he has to stop the free and fair elections, he has to stop the second round. How can he stop the democratic elections? How can he stop the second round from going ahead? He considers the problem, and when Foday Sankoh puts his mind to something he gives up tobacco, alcohol and women. Walahé! He goes on the wagon and locks himself away for days and days.

  At the end of the fifth day of this draconian routine (‘draconian’ means ‘exceedingly harsh, very severe’), the solution spontaneously comes to his lips in a simple slogan: ‘no hands, no elections’. It was obvious: someone with no arms couldn’t vote. All Foday Sankoh had to do was cut off the arms of as many people, as many of the citizens of Sierra Leone, as possible. Every Sierra Leone prisoner had his hands cut off before being sent back into the territory occupied by government forces. Foday gave the orders and methods and the orders and the methods were enforced. The ‘long sleeve, short sleeve’ policy was put into action. ‘Short sleeve’ was when you cut off the whole forearm; ‘long sleeve’ was when you cut off both hands at the wrist.

  Amputations were rife, and they were carried out with no quarter, no mercy. If a woman showed up with a baby on her back, the woman’s hands were amputated and the baby’s hands too. It didn’t matter how old the baby was on account of how you might as well amputate baby citizens because they’ll be voters some day.

  Non-governmental organisations suddenly noticed the arrival of large numbers of long- and short-sleeved armless people. They panicked and started putting pressure on Mananda Bio. Mananda Bio panics, Mananda Bio wants to negotiate but he needs someone Foday Sankoh will trust, someone whose moral authority is universally recognised. He goes knocking on the door of the wise man of Africa in Yamoussoukro.

  The wise man’s name is Houphouët-Boigny. He is a dictator, a respectable old man, bleached and grizzled first by corruption, later by old age and too much wisdom. Houphouët takes the problem seriously: it’s urgent. Gnona-gnona, Houphouët sends Amara, his minister for foreign affairs, to fetch Foday Sankoh from his maquis deep in the wild, impenetrable forests (a maquis is a hard to find place where freedom fighters hang out).

  Amara brings Foday Sankoh back in one piece, in the flesh, to the old dictator of Yamoussoukro. The old dictator kisses him on the mouth and welcomes him with wanton extravagance (‘wanton’ means so astonishingly excessive it seems to go against the ordinary). He affords him every luxury, gives him stacks of money, and entertains him with the sort of style that only an old and true dictator can offer. Foday Sankoh who never set foot in a five-star hotel in his whole life; Foday Sankoh who had it tough, his whole life, is happy, jubilant. Foday has a surfeit (a lot) of everything and gets through a surfeit. He gets through a surfeit of cigarettes, alcohol, mobile phones, and he especially gets through an inordinate surfeit of women. Under these extraordinary conditions, he agrees to a ceasefire.r />
  The second round of the presidential election goes ahead. Despite all the amputations of lots of the citizens of Sierra Leone, the little people are excited about voting. They think the election will put an end to their martyrdom, to their suffering. It was an illusion. Everyone goes to the polling booths. Even the armless people, especially the armless people. The armless people get to vote anyway. They go into the voting booth with a friend or a brother who does the voting for them.

  On 17 March 1996, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah is elected with 60% of the vote. The democratically elected president moves into Lumley Beach palace. He immediately sends a delegation to Yamoussoukro to negotiate.

  Foday Sankoh refuses to recognise his authority. As far as he is concerned, there were no elections, there is no president. (He doesn’t give a fuck, he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone.)

  After a month of long negotiations, Foday Sankoh is persuaded to see sense. The details are hammered out in the final communiqué. The communiqué is published. Foday Sankoh agrees to everything and is allowed to go back to his hotel and his wanton luxury, his alcohol, his cigarettes, his women and his mobile phones.

  One month later, in a sensational declaration, Foday Sankoh reneges on everything, he fails to keep his word. He says that he never agreed to anything, never accepted the elections, never acknowledged Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. He’s going to call off the ceasefire.

  Negotiations start again. They are meticulous (precise, rigorous). In the end, they come to an end. The final communiqué is discussed, point by point, comma by comma, for a long, long time. Foday Sankoh enthusiastically agrees to the communiqué. Everyone congratulates Foday Sankoh. Houphouët-Boigny kisses him on the mouth. They send him back to his hotel, to his wanton luxury, his quirks and his vices (doing sex that deviates from morality). One month later—bang!—everyone is back at square one. Foday Sankoh says he never agreed to the elections, never accepted the results of the election, never acknowledged Ahmad Tejan Kabbah as president. Never! (He doesn’t give a fuck, he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone!)