by Ross, Hamish
Fred had driven to Freetown on the Friday before the coup. He met Will Scully, another former member of the Regiment whom they had recently recruited, about midway, at Makeni, passed over to him the company’s permit to carry weapons, wished him good luck, and drove on to the office in Freetown. There he found a note for him from fellow director of Cape International, Murdo, saying that he was flying out that evening to the UK, and that Fred was to pick up Conrad Bronson, a Canadian investor, and show him round the concession. Fred went round to the Mammy Yoko Hotel to liaise with Conrad Bronson, whom he had met once or twice before, and to be briefed on their trip to Kono. The plan was for them to fly from the Mammy Yoko helipad to Lungi, then board a fixed-wing flight to Kono, where they would be met by Conrad’s people. They flew out on Saturday morning, and were taken to the mine site; they watched the operation for some time, and spent the night there.
On Sunday 25 May, Fred heard the radio broadcast announcing that the government had fallen. The initial leader of the mutineers turned out to be a Corporal Gborie, and it was he who made the broadcast. After that they broke into the prison where Maj Johnny Paul Koroma, who had been awaiting trial for allegedly planning a coup, was being held and released him. Corp Gborie then passed the baton to Koroma. But Koroma did not assume the title of President: he called himself Chairman of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), as the junta styled itself, after the model of Jerry Rawlings in Ghana.
Later in the day, the disaster that had overtaken the country was compounded when the junta leaders went on the air again and invited the RUF to come and join them, and become the People’s Army . Any semblance of military discipline on the part of the AFRC would break down as it absorbed the barbaric RUF. Few rebels had handed in their weapons, as they were required to under the terms of the Abidjan agreement, and they were now being urged to come out of the bush and join the AFRC. With no guiding rationale to follow other than spreading mayhem and death, rebels moving towards centres of population would find the mining site a prime target. As he moved around with Conrad Bronson, Fred spoke to Yara station very briefly and for security reasons did not tell them where they were.
The ex-professional soldiers working for Cape International knew that they would never be able to make a stand at Yara; they would be overrun. Some of them had their own priorities: Will Scully, who had already indicated that he was leaving the company, desperately required his passport, which was in the company’s office in Freetown, and so he left on his own; Duke MacKenzie, a New Zealander, who was suffering from malaria, wanted to get out of the country and into Guinea. Simbu, who was acknowledged locally to be the best hunter, led him by bush paths to the Guinean border. Simbu, Fred thought, was a true native of the land, ‘very attuned to his surroundings, people and animals, and life in general.’
When Fred returned to the station, the expats collectively decided that their best course was to join up with the private military security company, Lifeguard, at Kono. Lifeguard was a company of significant force; its personnel had served with Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone; and its role was to protect Branch Energy’s mining interests at Kono.
Systematically the expats went about preparations for their withdrawal. Local employees, many of them Tamaboro hunters, would stay and blend back in with their own way of life. But first they stripped vehicles of their starter motors, so that the rebels would find them unserviceable, and they removed the radios from them as well. (Months later, after the coup had been crushed, these components were all returned.)
The expats gave careful thought to the way they loaded their small Mitsubishi pick-up truck, because the drive to Kono could be dangerous, and they were bound to come across checkpoints – the overthrow of an elected government, and the invitation to the RUF would breed petty warlords, armed with AK-47s. So the company’s expats concealed all their weapons, ammunition and webbing under mattresses in the back, packed in their personal possessions, and piled in on top, and set off. The trip was not without incident, and they had very close calls with AFRC at some checkpoints.
From Fred’s point of view there was no question of trying to surprise the nearest armed men at a checkpoint by kicking open the doors and attempting to accelerate through – the tactic that he had briefed his driver on two years earlier when the only enemy was the RUF -: too many of the team were vulnerable in the back, and even if the surprise move worked for them once, there could be army personnel at the checkpoints, and they had a communication system between military posts. So when the pick-up truck was waved down by a rabble, some wearing uniform and some in jeans, but all armed with AK-47s, Cape International personnel showed no belligerence. Fred took the initiative with a disarmingly friendly greeting, calling them brother, offering cigarettes. It worked. At one checkpoint they even ended up giving some AFRC men a lift to the outskirts of the town.
One of the unhappy consequences of a hazardous way of life, away from home for long periods, is that it can lead to the breakdown of family life. That had happened in Fred’s case, and he now had a second family. His partner Hawah and their four-months old baby were in Freetown. All contact with the capital was cut off, even HF radio. Anarchy was being unleashed there; arson, killing, looting and raping would be rife. But for the drive to Kono, he had to play the affable expat.
In that fashion they arrived at Kono, and settled in with Lifeguard Security. Sleeping accommodation was arranged for them. There were several foreign nationals in the town, including Russians who worked in the mines, Lebanese who dealt in the diamond business and Canadians. Lifeguard was led by Jan Joubert; his second in command was Dino Coutinho, and they took on responsibility for securing not just the property of Branch Energy but the town as a whole. Lifeguard welcomed the presence of the Cape Internationals; they knew Fred from the days of Executive Outcomes, and Jan asked him if he would like to join them, but until he knew that his partner was safe, Fred could not commit himself.
That remained so until the evening of 29 May. He had already been in touch with Murdo in the UK, and that evening – it seemed just by chance – he phoned his friend Rab Wood in the UK to be told that Hawah and Maliaka had landed at Stansted. Hawah had called Rab, and told him that they were going to London to be put up by Sam Norman Jr, son of Chief Sam Hinga Norman. Hawah had been lucky: the British High Commission arranged for the charter of a Boeing 747 that took 395 passengers from Lungi to Stansted. Before that, though, she had been even more fortunate: she joined the queue of people at the British High Commission in Freetown, all of whom hoped to be evacuated. Fred was to learn the details later; they made a lasting impact on him. Hawah, when her turn came, was interviewed by an official.
I will owe, for the rest of my life, the wonderful and true gentleman, Dai Harris of Peter Penfold’s staff, who issued my daughter Maliaka with a British Passport to get her out of Sierra Leone. I was out in the bush and he exercised true humanity and mercy to get Hawah and Maliaka out. A lot of people would have used the official line to do nothing, but this gentleman stepped up to the blade and did what he thought was right! I will be forever grateful to him till my dying day.
Elated by the news that they were safe, Fred went to Jan Joubert and said, ‘If you still need an extra gun, I’m available.’ Jan’s response was, ‘You’re working for Branch Energy, and you’ll be well rewarded.’ But there was no discussion about rates of pay: Fred simply saw it as a job that had to be done, and he was well able to do it. Jan also oversaw the sites in Kono of the SSD (Special Security Division) who were a military arm of the police. Fred found that this branch of the nation’s security was generally very reliable. But it was the professionalism of Lifeguard that maintained law and order in Kono. There were rebels on the fringes of the town, some high on drugs, and indisciplined soldiers who would have joined them in what would have become escalating violence; but Lifeguard organized security patrols at night in support of the SSD to prevent the looting of shops and banks.
I admired the calm dedicatio
n, professionalism and bravery of the men of the Lifeguard. A truly remarkable group of men that I was very proud to know and serve with. It was like the old days back again. Jan and his command group at the mine site, Tshisukka Tukayula De Abreu and his group guarding the workshop, fuel dump and all the heavy plant, and at night, doing two hours patrolling all over the town, doing stags at the four locations that we held. The fourth location on the hill was where the Lebanese community slept at night until they were evacuated to Guinea – except three old couples who chose to stay behind.
It was like the old days too in the way that comradeship, in some cases, developed into long-lasting friendship. So it became with Fred and Tshisukka Tukayula De Abreu – TT for short. Fred discovered that TT was an ardent fan of Liverpool football club. When he was young, TT had been a very good footballer, and he was offered what would have been a boy’s dream − to leave his own country, Angola, and play professional football in Portugal. It got to the stage where he was on his way to the airport, but his grandmother sabotaged his chances, by phoning the authorities and requesting that he be stopped. Whatever she told them, she succeeded in having them prevent her grandson from boarding the flight. Back home, when he asked her why she did it, his grandmother said that if he had gone to Portugal, she might never have seen him again. Shaking his head, TT said to Fred, ‘Braa [Brother], I missed an opportunity of a life time!’
Anecdotes like that emerged casually among men who were relaxed in their professional role, even although they were in a stressful environment. The calibre and military competence of Lifeguard’s personnel had an effect far in excess of the company’s numerical strength, and ensured that Kono, centre of the country’s diamond area, was spared what could have been a bloodbath.
Jan Joubert and his 2 i/c did a brilliant job in organizing and maintaining a very ‘dignified operation under great pressure’. Every day you were just like a show piece, being looked at by these AFRC and RUF scruffy gangs, whereas the Lifeguard personnel were in smart turn-out with pressed uniforms, discipline of old. I suppose that old habits die hard.
However, it was a very different story in Freetown.
The sudden breakdown in political and military structures had terrifying results for the populace. Within hours, soldiers took over the officers’ mess. The Chief of the Defence Staff, Brig Conteh and several officers took to their heels and went into hiding. As the High Commissioner, Peter Penfold put it:
Then once the shooting started, the senior officers went to ground because they realized they had provoked this revolt, and the rest of the army joined in. There was nobody to stop them other than Sam Norman, the one minister who tried to stand up to them.2
But as heavy firing continued throughout the day, and soldiers went on a looting spree, Peter Penfold saw what he felt to be his moral duty, and he prepared himself to take an extraordinary initiative.
Peter Penfold rightly judged that there was still residual regard in Sierra Leone for the benign face of colonialism − represented by the office of British High Commissioner. And so the following day, Monday 26 May, he invited the coup leaders to the British High Commission.
The remarkable thing is they came. And what this demonstrated was that in Sierra Leone the role of the British High Commissioner was by far the most important international position there was, far more than, say, the American ambassador or the UN ambassador or whatever. It is just the way it was.3
He invited them into his dining room, with its highly polished table, but asked them to leave their automatic weapons outside in case they scratched the table. This they did. He produced a tray of sandwiches, which they wolfed down, having fed on nothing more than their revolutionary fervour for the previous twenty-four hours. Then he began the meeting. His topic was the wellbeing and safety of foreign nationals, but he also had a deeper agenda; one he was to sustain over a few days with consummate skill.
First he hectored them: if they did not grant access to the airport, he would broadcast on the BBC World Service, announcing ‘a total evacuation of all the international community from Sierra Leone.’4 The leaders went into a huddle, and agreed to his request. Then he changed the approach to sweet reasonableness, asking the junta leaders why they had staged the coup. Grievances with Kabbah’s government, he was told. Listening closely to them, he realized that the AFRC had no plans or policies of their own worked out. He told them that they had put back the case for democracy by several years; and he slipped in the idea that it did not require a change to the country’s constitution to have grievances addressed: their grievances could be put to Kabbah as the country’s president and be resolved within the democratic framework. In the policy vacuum that the junta leaders found themselves in this was something to mull over. The meeting concluded with their agreeing to continue meeting to review the situation for evacuating foreign nationals.
That night in a surprise move, contingents of Nigerian and Guinean troops from ECOMOG landed at Lungi and Hastings airports and established control. All the while, conditions in Freetown were deteriorating. Electricity had been out since the morning of the coup; some areas were running low on water. Buildings were gutted by fire; looting was widespread, including the offices of the international relief agencies and the warehouse of the World Food Programme. Hundreds of prisoners were released from Pademba Road prison and issued with military uniforms. Koroma announced that the AFRC intended to disband the Kamajors. It was reported that soldiers arrested five government ministers.5 And people were being killed.
The initial impact of the coup shocked the populace; but then a spontaneous reaction was set off − mass, passive resistance to the usurpers of the democratic government. Internationally, the coup leaders received no backing from any country. Britain laid its plans to evacuated its nationals; the United States sent a warship, the Kearsarge, which was equipped with helicopters.
Each day that week, the junta leaders met the British High Commissioner; and as he drove to those meetings, people lined the streets, hoping that a solution would restore order to their lives, for the word had got around that he was trying to negotiate a settlement. Psychologically there was pressure on the AFRC, because they had failed to win the support of the people. By his skilful handling of these daily meetings, Peter Penfold was on the point of achieving a breakthrough.
So they had a face-saver that all that they had done had not been in vain. So they agreed to stand down and say that Kabbah could come back. We even drafted the statement that would be issued on the radio announcing their decision.6
But nothing happened. Higher echelons of the RUF arrived, and, finding the AFRC about to hand power back to Kabbah’s government, and give up what their five years of terrorist warfare had failed to achieve, they prevailed against them, and had the decision overturned.
Every morning that first week, talks with Peter Penfold and the junta leaders continued; he kept the pressure on them, to the extent that, on an occasion, his own safety was in danger – a tight corner he got out of with amazing sang-froid. It happened towards the end of a fraught week in which he had tried every tactic. Koroma was ill at ease dealing with officials, and he delegated the task to a senior officer among the junta hierarchy, Colonel Anderson. By the end of the week, Peter Penfold could see they were getting nowhere with the idea of bringing back Kabbah and standing down. Across the table, he told Col Anderson that if the AFRC did not go ahead with the declaration on radio, he would no longer come to the residence.
At that Anderson, fingered the gun he had on his belt, looked at me and said, ‘Well, perhaps we had better not let you leave the residence.’ It was a tense moment but I broke the ice by saying, ‘You’ll have to let me go because they are waiting lunch on me back at the office. They can’t eat their lunch until the High Commissioner gets back.’ And that broke the tension.7
It did not, however, achieve a breakthrough in the talks, and Peter Penfold continued with his contingency plans for evacuating foreign nationals and some Sierra Leoneans
.
He advised foreign nationals that if they did not feel safe in their homes, they should make their way to the Mammy Yoko Hotel. Already based at the Mammy Yoko, and assuming more and more responsibility for the security of the building and its residents, were Major Lincoln Jopp, a British military adviser to Sierra Leone and Will Scully, who had recently left Cape International, and who had expected to be out of Freetown by now. Increasing numbers of people were moving into the hotel, in the expectation of being air-lifted out of the country – the figure reached about eight hundred, both foreign nationals and Sierra Leoneans. The USS Kearsarge arrived, and positioned itself about twenty miles off-shore. Then the evacuation got under way; and on 30 May, among those taken aboard by one of its helicopters was Hinga Norman.8
Whether or not the air-lifting of so many people in efficient fashion piled frustration on the mindless AFRC/RUF rabble confronting the Nigerian soldiers guarding the perimeter of the hotel, they opened fire. It quickly became an all-out assault. The Nigerians at times were in some disarray, and showed their lack of experience, and Will Scully and Maj Lincoln Jopp took charge of the defence of the Mammy Yoko Hotel. Both of them were subsequently decorated for their actions: in Will Scully’s case, he was awarded Queen’s Gallantry Medal for saving lives during a coup. The siege of the Mammy Yoko is graphically described in his book, Once a Pilgrim.
In the early days after the coup, Peter Penfold had asked around to find out if there was any resistance being organized.
Yes Sam Norman is trying to organize some resistance here and there – I picked that up second hand. Then I heard through the Americans that they’d helped Sam go into hiding in the Mammy Yoko. And then I sent messages to him through Lincoln Jopp, and then the Americans, John Hirsch [American Ambassador], who was not in the country at the time, had got Sam on board the ship; he’d arranged to get him on to the Kearsarge. And he was out. So Sam got out, and Sam actually left the country before I did.