From SAS to Blood Diamond Wars

by Ross, Hamish

  The next moment waterspouts as high as the main rotor shot up into the air. The high explosive projectiles landed about 100metres short of Bokkie, and I eased away from where they were shooting for tactical reasons. They kept on shooting till we disappeared over the trees. On our route back we saw massive clouds of dust and water going up into the air as ECOMOG opened up with their artillery on the gunboat. ECOMOG knew the value of Bokkie and its crew. If they had to lose it, the outcome of the war might be the opposite from the way it was going at the time.23

  The junta knew they had to eliminate Bokkie, and they ordered their Mi-24 gunship into the air on two occasions to do it. The first time was on 5 February, when Juba and team were ferrying the Nigerian battalion to Kossoh. Juba had flown that Mi-24 in his EO days; it was old then, and he knew that it had not the speed of Bokkie. But the danger was increased because Kossoh is only 1.8 kilometres from Hastings airport, which was in rebel hands. Mountains surround Hastings airport, and Juba had narrow corridors in which to operate: at one point his route took them to about 800 metres from Hastings, and he had to fly very low and fast. His tactic was to spend as little time on the ground, because that was when Bokkie was vulnerable. On their last trip, carrying a cow for the Nigerian battalion feast, they were on the ground no more than three minutes. Unknown to them, the gunship was waiting behind a mountain to hit them on the ground, but its crew misjudged the length of time Bokkie’s crew needed for a turn-about. Nigerian officers later told Juba that a few minutes after they had left, the gunship came over the mountain; its pilot saw that they had gone and pulled out and went back to the other side.

  On 12 February, ECOMOG Task Force attacked State House, the symbolic centre of power. Both sides were at a critical stage. The junta had prepared itself for a defence of the capital with a huge arsenal of weaponry at its disposal. Perhaps for the first time in urban warfare, a powerful component came into play in the assault on Freetown: the British government-financed radio that Peter Penfold had arranged to be installed at Lungi kept people informed about the battle, as its presenter, Julius Spencer, accompanied the Task Force, mobile in hand, linked to the radio transmitter.

  Julius walked alongside Khobe with his mobile and was broadcasting to the people live on how the fight was going. ‘We are now coming up to Siaka Stevens street, so all civilians remain off the road now. Anybody seen on the road we will know is an enemy, and ECOMOG will shoot them.’ And also by being told where the Task Force was, people could get round the back and into safe places. The result of that … if you look at how we took Freetown, with such few lives lost, it’s remarkable. An urban war, but in terms of deaths, the deaths were minimal. I think it was about 100 at most. One major reason for that was that people listened to the radio.24

  Fred noted in his diary, ‘Col Maxwell Khobe led the assault to State House and was slightly wounded in the process.’ The wound was caused by a fragment of an RPG; and Bokkie’s crew evacuated him along with other wounded.

  Then sod’s law kicked in for Bokkie. Returning on the last flight of the day to Lungi, it suddenly became very vulnerable. Due to fatigue at the end of the long day, the helicopter sustained damage to one of its main rotors. And later that evening the junta sent their Mi-24 again, this time to Lungi, in preparation for the second attempt to ambush Bokkie, but this time it was flying very high. All the while it was in the air, the ECOMOG anti-aircraft guns simply monitored its movements. But Juba stressed to Nigerian officers that this was a reconnaissance flight to see where Bokkie was parked. He told them the gunship would be back and they should get all their systems on full alert to prevent it getting within striking range. Sure enough, next morning, 13 February, at 03.00 hours the junta’s Mi-24 returned to bomb Lungi airport. To the surprise of the gunship’s crew, the ECOMOG anti-aircraft guns’ radar was fully operational and had already tracked them at 10 kilometres out. The gun crews let them get to 8 kilometres from the airport before they opened up on the Mi-24. This seemed to unnerve its crew, and they decided to ‘drop their 250 kg bombs in the ocean and run back to Freetown.’25

  On the streets, forced out of one position after another, the junta/RUF went into full retreat. But Col Khobe had decided not to seal off Waterloo completely, and this allowed the enemy an escape channel from Freetown to the country. His reasoning for this at the time was that sealing it up would put too much pressure on his battalion at Kossoh. As a soldier, Fred thought this was flimsy; he was in a position to know, having been involved in the troop build up at Kossoh: the battalion had been reinforced and was equipped with heavy and medium mortars. But an alternative explanation for the decision was adduced later: it was done deliberately so as not to bottle up the junta in Freetown and thus avoid a fight to the finish in the capital, causing greater damage and more loss of life. Whether or not this was later rationalization, militarily the decision was a serious error of judgment; the channel became an inverted funnel that spewed out into the country the spawn of a new guerrilla war that ECOMOG could not hope to win. For ECOMOG was no Executive Outcomes; it was a cumbersome machine designed to fight other armies; it could have destroyed the junta forces contained in the peninsula; but it was unable to move swiftly into the bush after a guerrilla enemy and follow through with overwhelming momentum.

  Fortune’s wheel then turned again, and this time to the advantage of ECOMOG’s air capability. The air wing of the junta was under the command of Major Victor King, who was also a member of the AFRC government, and he and some colleagues tried a different escape route that would take them by air to Liberia to Roberts Field airport, which was not controlled by ECOMOG, and from thence into the welcoming arms of Liberia’s president, Charles Taylor. At around 04.30 hours, after refueling and packing both their Mi-24 and the Mi-17, they were airborne, but they were spotted by a Nigerian Air Force officer at Spriggs airfield, and he alerted the Alpha jet commander that they were on their way to Roberts International. At that very moment, two Alpha jets had just taken off for a mission to Sierra Leone, and they were ordered to intercept and escort the helicopters to Spriggs airfield, which ECOMOG controlled. There the junta airmen were arrested and taken into custody. President Charles Taylor retaliated by threatening to attack the airfield. The ECOMOG response was to buzz his state mansion with an Alpha jet every half hour.

  Although Bokkie was slightly damaged, ECOMOG now had in its control at Spriggs airfield one Mi-24 and one Mi-17; its airmen were unfamiliar with the Soviet-built machines; however, Juba was an acknowledged ace pilot of both aircraft. And at Lungi airport there was a Cessna 337 that had been used for reconnaissance by Executive Outcomes when they were in Sierra Leone; it had been handed over to Sandline and was available to be flown to Monrovia by their operator, Bernie McCabe, who was ex-Delta Force. Bernie McCabe took Juba, Fred and Sendaba on what was the start of a shuttle, flying them in the Cessna to Spriggs from Lungi. When they arrived at Spriggs, they found that tension was high between ECOMOG and Charles Taylor’s forces. Taylor presented ECOMOG with an ultimatum, giving them 3 hours to release the helicopters and crew to him; if not his men would attack. Senior ECOMOG officers were not cowed by the threat, and they put on a maximum show of force.

  Juba inspected the Mi-24 and realized its battery was no good. He told Sendaba to bring the Mi-17’s and connect it, so that they could get both helicopters as quickly as possible to ECOMOG HQ. Then Juba climbed into the cockpit of the Mi-24 and started her up; 3 minutes later they were airborne with Alpha Jets giving top-cover in case they were fired on by Liberian anti-aircraft guns. After landing at ECOMOG HQ they were driven back to Spriggs, through the streets of Monrovia in a Nigerian armoured car. Next, with Fred carrying his GMPG, they boarded the Mi-17, and flew it to ECOMOG HQ , where Juba was briefed and planned his routes. Once airborne with the Mi-17, they flew it to Roberts International to refuel and then on to Lungi, with the intention of having a replacement helicopter for the damaged Bokkie. For the final shuttle, Bernie McCabe flew them again to Monrovia in the Ce
ssna, and they took the Mi-24 gunship back to Lungi. This shuttling, which they were aware of but were powerless to stop, goaded Charles Taylor’s forces: there had to be revenge for the loss of both aircraft, and so the bounty on Juba’s head increased.26

  Good luck continued with them a bit longer: they did not have to replace Bokkie with their newly acquired Mi-17. At Hastings Airport was a set of blades that were slightly damaged by an airstrike and suitable to get Bokkie serviceable again. Its crew carried out the replacement: they used a forklift truck, did a blade track, using chalk marks and a pole, carried out a test – and so Bokkie flew again.

  In the final retreat from Freetown, elements of the junta set a wave of barbarism into motion, and went on a killing spree. In defeat their level of cruelty was even worse than when they were in the ascendant. To cite one case alone is sickening enough: retreating rebels found a Nigerian civilian, tied him one arm and leg to one vehicle, the other arm and leg to a second vehicle, and so pulled him apart alive.27 But there was also a spate of revenge killings – the same pattern that frequently occurred in European wars of the twentieth century after a country was liberated from an occupying force. For an occupying force is what people considered the junta to be. A gauge of the depth of public feeling after the coup may be taken with one example: all schools in Sierra Leone had remained closed since May when the main teachers’ union called a strike; this was acceded to by families who were prepared to accept this interruption of their children’s education. As recently as January, AFRC soldiers had beaten up teachers at Collegiate College School on Wilkinson Road in Freetown for refusing to hold classes. So antipathy to the junta was very strong. Of course, there were collaborators, and when they were found, there were reprisals. On 15 February, Col Khobe ordered that anyone caught looting or taking part in revenge killing would be shot on sight.

  That same day, the BBC reported that over 10,000 Kamajors captured Bo, entering it from three points, singing war songs and looking for junta soldiers; they found around eight of them and handed them over to local youths for execution. This act on the part of the local youths may have been less a surge of blood lust than calculated eye-for-an-eye retribution, for shortly afterwards, when the necessary health safeguards were able to be put in place, the decomposing bodies of 102 men and boys, slaughtered by junta soldiers and rebels, were exhumed from a shallow mass grave.28

  Although no longer in meaningful control, having been dislodged from the capital city, the AFRC/RUF were still strong in number in certain areas. One of those areas was Kono. It was eight months since Fred had been airlifted out of Kono, suffering from malaria, leaving his comrades of Lifeguard guarding the mining works. The company was still there because the junta not only tolerated its presence, but wanted to encourage an impression abroad of business as usual. Now that the junta forces were the rump of a movement without a head, the RUF component in its mix rose in the ascendancy; as diamonds were a means of acquiring arms, in Kono they forced Lifeguard to work for them. This uneasy coexistence lasted a short time until the rebels were informed through their own contacts that Lifeguard’s executives at Lungi were working hand in glove with ECOMOG.

  After the coup, a small number of the Sierra Leone military remained loyal to the democratic government and attached themselves to the ECOMOG force. However, the species known as sobel could turn up in any number of places. And in this case, one of the apparently loyal troops, a junior officer, was sympathetic to the junta and was spying for them; he reported to the Kono contingent of rebels that he had seen Bert Sachse, a senior executive of Lifeguard, working alongside ECOMOG officers at Lungi. The rebels retaliated by putting the South African nationals under house arrest, but not Fred’s buddy, TT De Abrea: they used him as a radio operator on Lifeguard’s HF communication system for their own needs, calling friends and family abroad, in Ghana, the USA and the UK. However, TT felt that it would only be a question of time until he and his comrades were executed. And so from the 14 to 18 February, 29 he planned a method for Lifeguard’s escape, and did the ground work for it.

  A well-disciplined, experienced soldier, he decided to capitalize on the rebels’ sloppiness, indiscipline and lack of systematic routine, and exploit these weaknesses. While not operating the HF radio for their whimsical calls abroad, TT offered to drive a bulldozer for them, whenever they wanted to use it for their illegal mining. But while he did this he recced every checkpoint, and, as he drove around, he gave himself a high profile, smiling, waving and talking to them at every opportunity. At night, back at base, he bought them drinks and drank with them. When he was an aspiring young footballer in Angola, he had to be abstemious, but over his years as a soldier he had developed a phenomenal capacity for alcohol tolerance, and he now used it like a weapon for a few nights running: many of their captors were already high on drugs, and he made sure they were topped up with booze until they were well and truly sozzled, while he stayed clear-headed. Then, on 18 February, when he judged the time was right, he told his Lifeguard comrades that this was the night they would try and break out; he went over the details with them; and he used the HF communication system to contact Lifeguard in South Africa to arrange for the final element: to be airlifted out of Kono.

  That night, like the preceding two, he supervised the heavy drinking session while his comrades loaded two Land Rovers, and then boarded them − the white South Africans out of sight, lying down in the back, their black comrades sitting up in front. TT left the rebel carousers in their drunken stupor and joined his comrades. At 02.30 hours, the two vehicles moved forward at a sedate pace, one behind the other, with TT sitting in the front of the leading Land Rover. They drove to the checkpoint he had selected, through which they would have to pass, where, of course, the guard on duty waved them down, before he saw it was TT. With a friendly wave, TT simply called to him to open the gate. Immediately, and without any questions, the man obeyed. The first vehicle moved through, the second at its bumper.

  The rendezvous where Bokkie’s crew had been tasked to land and extract the Lifeguard team was the playground of a village school in the hills. All went well for the Lifeguard operatives until one of their vehicles got bogged down. They abandoned both, camouflaged them, and continued on foot for the RV. Meanwhile, as arranged, Bokkie was on stand-by for the operation.

  We got the signal and Juba and myself flew to pick the guys up. At the RV point we did not see them at first, so Juba called TT on the radio. And they asked Juba to go on the same heading just a bit further. Juba asked me on the intercom to keep a sharp look out because the lads were in the area. Trees made detection very difficult, but as we passed an opening, I saw a figure running out of the trees, waving his hands and I told Juba to orbit, which he did, and immediately we saw the rest of the group coming out into the open. Relief was an understatement of our feelings, because we knew for sure that they were OK. The pick-up was very quick indeed, and when I saw TT and the rest of the group, we were overwhelmed with joy. Arriving safely at Lungi Airport and meeting the headshed of Lifeguard was a true scene of joy and relief.

  Later, at Lungi, through a chance encounter that Fred had with him, the suspected spy was unmasked. Because the rebels at the mining site at Kono, wanted to show private military company operatives that they too had an intelligence network, they ingenuously told them that the Lifeguard executive’s activities had been betrayed by one of their own men working alongside ECOMOG at Lungi. As a result of the increased military action, Sandline operatives quite often mixed with the Nigerian troops and Sierra Leone contingent at Lungi, and on one occasion Fred was very surprised to bump into a young Sierra Leonean officer, who, before the coup, was involved in underhand dealings and had used Hinga Norman’s name as a shibboleth to get some advantage. As a result he had been banned from access to Hinga Norman’s office and prohibited from using his name. When Fred saw him at Lungi with a friend, he expressed surprise at his being there.

  They quickly disappeared after our chance meeting. I saw
one of our senior Nigerian officers and told him about those two guys, and they were shortly arrested. And what happened to them, I don’t know. But whatever they got, they deserved it in my view.

  By the end of the month, the situation in Freetown was stable, and the government in exile prepared to resume its rightful role. Apart from imposing sanctions on the junta, the UN had adopted a supine position with regard to restoring the democratic government to Sierra Leone; even at the height of the fighting to retake Freetown, some members of the Security Council were pointing out that ECOWAS had no UN authority to carry out military action. That was true, but it was also an implicit self-criticism of the international body.

  Peter Penfold returned to the capital as the British High Commissioner. With Britain giving a lead, several countries began giving humanitarian aid. The British warship, HMS Cornwall, docked at Freetown. Within days its aviators and engineers were looking over the Mi-17 that had supplied the ECOMOG force and the CDF. Juba offered to land Bokkie on the flight deck, an idea that was taken up with alacrity by the ship’s officers. Shortly after, the crew flew the Mi-24 gunship on to the ship so that the crew could see it at close range. In the three weeks that the ship was docked at Freetown there were times when Juba and his crew flew the Mi-24 up-country; on their way back they were always picked up by the ship’s radar and its weapons locked on to the helicopter. The gunship’s intercom registered this contact and Fred imagined, ‘It must be a horrible feeling, knowing that weapon systems are locked on to you and you could be vaporized within seconds.’ Interestingly, a few months later, a newspaper in the UK published photographs of Bokkie on Freetown dock with its crew pointing out some of the helicopter’s features to Royal Navy engineers, purporting them as proof that Britain was aiding mercenaries.30