From SAS to Blood Diamond Wars

by Ross, Hamish

  We are amazed that Sir John did not disclose, when making these comments that the practice of the Government was not to disseminate Orders in Council or summaries of them.34

  Indeed the committee itself, after concluding that the Permanent Under Secretary bore some responsibilities for lack of information to ministers, went on to allude to a Yes Minister flavour about practice in the Foreign Office.

  The way in which no-one with a right to put papers up to Ministers − Ms Grant, Mr Dales or Sir John Kerr − did in fact do so reveals at best political naivete, and at worst a Yes Minister–like contempt for civil servants’ duties towards their Ministers.35

  In the larger scheme of things, this report, like its predecessor, would soon sink into the sands; they had served their purpose. But Sir Thomas Legg hoped that his would close the chapter for officials. Robin Cook agreed with that; he said, ‘There will be no scapegoats, and this should be the end of the matter as far as individuals are concerned.’36 And he may have meant it too – at the time.

  But what if President Kabbah were to confer an honour on the British High Commissioner for his outstanding support to the country during the time of the coup, would the chapter still remain closed? For that is precisely what Kabbah informed Peter Penfold his government wished to do. Protocol, of course, demanded that he pass this proposal back to the Foreign Office for permission to accept; and given the recent background, with evidence of papers not being put up to ministers, it is reasonable to assume that this request was placed in a minister’s in-tray, or, at the very least, discussed. Permission to accept the honour was refused. No doubt reasoning would have been adduced along the lines that they could hardly let the chap who had been their fall-guy now be made a hero of the state of Sierra Leone. But to an outsider, it seems unnecessarily vindictive.

  However, justice was done and was seen to be done to Peter Penfold by a system that does not require bureaucratic assent: traditional authority − in this case the chieftaincy system with its own intricate arrangement of checks and balances, whose great strength is its closeness to the people. It happened as Peter Penfold returned from one of his visits to the UK. In those days, flights were from London to Conakry, Guinea, and it was here that he was met by Desmond Luke, Chief Justicee, and one of the ministers who were there to escort him back to Sierra Leone.

  I thought that’s strange, it doesn’t normally happen. Having said that, they said that they could only escort me back if I chartered a plane and I gave them seats on it. I said OK, and I was told that I had special permission to fly not to Lungi but into Hastings. So I said fine.

  When I got to Hastings, I saw all these crowds and crowds of people there. I stepped off the plane and was escorted into the hut of the airport, and King Naimbana was there and some of the chiefs. And he said that I was going to be made a chief. And they had a suit there ready to put on me, and then I came out from that and was driven into Freetown from Hastings, and all the roads were lined with people. It was a hell of a lot of people.

  Then I got into Freetown itself, and there was a whole convoy of about 30 vehicles, and the convoy stopped and I got out, and they put me in this hammock. It was a specially made hammock, an amazing thing. It had a big wooden awning − very heavy − with the Union Jack painted on the outside and the Sierra Leone flag on the inside and His Excellency Komrabai, Peter Penfold, and I was getting carried through the streets up Siaka Stevens Street. So I was carried about a mile. There were thousands of people. And one of the things that always endeared it to me, they were all waving Union Jacks. But the Union Jacks they were waving they had to make themselves. You couldn’t go into a store and buy them, so the night before they’d all got their pieces of paper − thousands of them.

  It was over thirty years after independence, and there’s this white guy being carried through the streets of this African capital − thirty years after independence −, with more British flags being waved than when Queen Victoria was on the throne. It was just unbelievable. And even after that I had another coronation when my wife came back, we had a proper coronation in the old municipal building. Again with King Naimbana, and what was interesting about that was that it was King Naimbana’s grandfather who had originally signed over the piece of land that Freetown was on to the colonial representative of Britain at the time which signalled the start of Freetown as a colony. And there’s his grandson now crowning me, the successor to this other person.37

  Honorary Paramount Chiefs are few and far between: in the twentieth century, the Queen and Prince Philip had the title conferred on them, and now Peter Penfold joined the ranks of a select number. At risk to his own life, he had responded to the country’s need at the time of the coup, and he sustained strong support over the months its government was in exile, and he did so (as it turned out) at a cost to his professional career. But not to his standing as a man.

  One final ceremony was arranged for him, this time in the east of the country, where the eastern chiefs were gathered along with a huge assembly of people. A key figure on this occasion was Regent Chief Sam Hinga Norman, and his concise summing up of Peter Penfold’s contribution to his country was spoken − as no other assessment of it had been − in the name of the people of Sierra Leone. He said,

  something that really brought tears to my eyes, when he made this remark, in front of these thousands of people and local chiefs, ‘In Sierra Leone’s history, Britain has sent us two great Britons.’ He said, ‘In the last century they sent us Governor Clarkson, and Governor Clarkson gave us a prayer.’ (And indeed that’s right, it’s famous, and they used to read out Governor Clarkson’s prayer on the radio every morning, even when I was there – a beautiful prayer.) ‘In this century they sent us High Commissioner Penfold, and he gave us hope.’ And boy − was that powerful to me!38

  Chapter Eight

  Air Wing

  Their shoulders held the sky suspended;

  They stood, and earth’s foundations stay;

  What God abandoned, these defended,

  And saved the sum of things for pay.

  A. E. Housman, ‘Epitaph on an army of Mercenaries’

  Hope having been fulfilled and the country’s democratic government returned to power, the scope and scale of the air logistical support for ECOMOG increased, as the force took the battle to the rebels up-country. It became a new ball game for Juba Incorporated in terms of assets, intelligence, combat role and movement throughout the country; and they relocated their base from Lungi to Defence Headquarters at Cockerill Barracks in Freetown. A problem for the returning civilian government was that the rump of the loyal elements of the Sierra Leone military had to have leadership − its Chief of the Defence Staff was among those of the junta in prison awaiting trial for treason −, and so President Kabbah appointed Maxwell Khobe, the ECOMOG task force commander, and now Brigadier General, to be CDS for Sierra Leone, although he was a foreigner.

  Juba’s status with ECOMOG had been high, resupplying the force and acting as medicav during the period of the junta, and it rose higher. Throughout the period of the junta, Juba was the sole pilot keeping the air bridge open. This was known to the Liberian backers of insurgency in Sierra Leone, and Nigerian intelligence officers told him that that Charles Taylor had put a ransom of $80,000 on his head; they also warned the crew that there was a chance they could be ambushed in Liberia, travelling by road between Monrovia and Roberts International airfield; and they advised Juba, in particular, never to leave his glass unattended when he was drinking in any of the city’s bars in his off-duty hours. In the light of the Liberian security people’s attempts to entrap Chief Hinga Norman, Fred, Juba and Sendaba took these warnings to heart.

  However, from the beginning of the company’s contract, there should have been two pilots for the aircraft, and although, on his own, Juba had succeeded brilliantly, the company, Juba Incorporated, was now to take on the role of Air Wing of the Sierra Leone military. There was no Sierra Leonean fall-back they could rely on: Victor K
ing, the senior air officer and member of the junta, was among the military personnel awaiting trial. But Sandline, also with a presence in Freetown, stepped in, and in the third week of February, Neall Ellis, a South African pilot who had served in EO, ‘for a short period due to bad performance’,1 was flown to Sierra Leone to be Juba’s co-pilot.

  ECOMOG senior officers learned lessons from Juba’s tactics in flying Bokkie in ways not conceived of in the Nigerian military manual. The CAO, Tijjani Easterbrook, pointed out to his superiors that the Alpha jet was not suitable for counter insurgency/guerrilla warfare in forested areas due to its speed; and in May, he was able to convince the Force Commander to raise a letter with President Kabbah about the urgent need to repair and service the Mi-24 gunship.2 Consequently, on 27 May, Juba received a letter from ECOMOG headquarters to reactivate the Mi-24 gunship. Juba, it will be recalled, flew the gunship from Liberia to Lungi after Victor King’s foiled escape attempt in February, and he was not impressed by the level of maintenance it received at the hands of the junta, for it was flying on two different engines; so he ordered the Air Wing technicians to inspect it and draw up a list of spare parts that were required. When ECOMOG took control of the gunship, there was a document for the right engine, whose specification was TB3–117VM, but there was no document for the left engine, a TB3–117V, which had a lower power capacity. Therefore, on the list of spares to be acquired, the technicians added two according to the specification of the right engine. There was a lot of pressure to get the gunship airworthy; Neall was not qualified to fly it, and Sandline wanted Juba to give him the conversion to the Mi-24 as quickly as possible.

  Juba first gave Neall his refresher on the Mi-17 that he hadn’t flown since he left EO. ‘It was not an easy task to get him up to the standard that was required to fly this helicopter single-pilot,’3 as Juba had been doing for the last 8 months. It was necessary, however, because Juba had to be on the ground much more to co-ordinate the operations and requirements of ECOMOG and the Sierra Leone Government, as these were becoming more involved. After flying with Neall for a month during the dry season, Juba decided that he should fly single pilot in future, because planning on the ground was now imperative as the war progressed. A French fixed-wing pilot, Jean Jacques Fuentes, joined them. He was usually known among them as JJ, and Juba allocated him to fly the Sierra Leone government’s Partenavia light aircraft to carry out reconnaissance.

  Fate, however, seemed determined to wipe out the Air Wing on the evening of Saturday 15 August, and it was only Fred’s sixth sense that saved Bokkie’s crew and the aircraft. Neall was the pilot and they had been tasked to carry resupplies and ammunition to the group from Lifeguard, the PMC that Fred worked for in June 1997, who were based at Kono. It was a very heavy load, but all went well, and they left Kono at 19.00 hours. Which turned out to be a mistake. The harmattan was blowing, carrying minute particles of sand on its way south from the Sahara, making visibility very difficult. By the time they arrived at Lungi the pick-up was hazardous, and then they had the last lap to cover from Lungi across to HQ at Cockerill. It was difficult to gauge the horizon and they were flying very low so that the sea was always visible. Fred is not given to overstatement and his diary entry reads: ‘en route to Cockerill nearly went into the sea – saved by my warning – not a second too soon. Very, very close call indeed.’

  I put my gun down on my normal seat, my feet were hanging out of the doorway, I was straining my eyes to make sure that we did not go in. Everything was going well until I had this horrible feeling and when I looked down, we were heading into the water as we went. I shouted on the intercom to pull up, and we just made it in time. I had visions of the front tyres hitting the water at high speed and the helicopter somersaulting or doing a back flip into the water. Should that happen, we would stand no chance at all.

  They celebrated their good luck that evening with two Russian pilots and some Americans from PAE, at a dinner paid for by Sandline.

  Even two pilots, however, and two helicopters would not be able to cope with ECOMOG’s logistical needs and at the same time provide a combat role, so the American company, PAE, that hitherto operated for the peace-keeping force only in Liberia, was assigned to work from Freetown. The company comprised three Americans, all former American Special Forces, and they flew two Mi-8 MTVs and an Mi-26, at times crewed by Russians. In charge was someone who, for this account, will simply be called Rick. Rick had served in the US Army Special Forces for 33 years and retired from active duty as Command Sergeant Major. He had extensive operational, medical, weapons and demolitions experience, and he served in a variety of combat zones. From now on, both Juba Incorporated and PAE assisted each other in combat missions, and socialized when off duty.

  However, one of their most important joint operations came from an unexpected incident, not in Sierra Leone but in Liberia, when the US embassy was besieged by Liberian government forces. Controversy still exists about whether the country’s ethnic Krahn leader, Roosevelt Johnson, and his followers were set up by Charles Taylor’s security forces so that they could be attacked. Rick outlines what happened.

  On 18 September, Liberian government forces fired on rebel Krahn leader Roosevelt Johnson and his entourage as they were talking to U.S. officials at the Embassy entrance. The attack wounded two U.S. personnel (one with a serious belly wound), a few local guards with minor wounds and killed four Krahn. The Americans returned fire, killing two policemen. The Americans and the Johnson party retreated into the embassy compound, setting the stage for an extended siege.

  The only American Forces in Liberia were the US Marines guarding the US Embassy and they were very busy protecting the US Embassy and personnel from attacks by Charles Taylor’s forces. PAE-Freetown received a message from PAE-Monrovia that the US Embassy in Monrovia was under siege and two Americans were wounded and a 100% evacuation required immediately.4

  Rick contacted Fred who went to Juba and asked if they could assist. Juba immediately agreed. PAE had two helicopters, and Juba, because of his experience during the time of the coup, briefed the Russian pilots on the approach paths to the embassy at Mamba Point in Monrovia. He co-ordinated the whole operation from Freetown, with HF radio communication to the aircraft and telephone communication to different points. He held Bokkie in reserve as medivac at Kenema. If one of the PAE helicopters went down, it would go in. Rick picks up the narrative from there.

  I only had the three other Americans working with me (all former Special Forces) and needed assistance. Some former Executive Outcomes South Africans and Fred volunteered. Our staging area was in Kenema, Sierra Leone. I divided the team between our two helicopters, Fred with me in the first helicopter and Neall Ellis and the Mi-17 (Bokkie) crew in reserve as a medivac.

  We took off from Kenema with the intent to fly directly to the US Embassy but were diverted to the Nigerian ECOMOG Base in Monrovia. While we were at ECOMOG base, Fred and the other GPMG gunners set up an inner security for the helicopters. There were two outer security perimeters set up by the Nigerians. When Charles Taylor’s SSS [Special Security Service] thugs breached the ECOMOG Base outer perimeter we loaded the helicopters and flew 10 km out to sea and out of range of anti-aircraft threats.

  We flew a pattern for 30 minutes until the Embassy cleared us to land. Fred and I landed in the first aircraft and loaded the wounded American and 15 Embassy Personnel. That helicopter immediately flew off to Freetown where there was a medivac plane waiting for the wounded American and flew him to Europe for medical treatment. He made a full recovery.

  Fred and I stayed on the ground with the Security Officer, who was also shot in the arm, and he told us that he and the remainder of the Embassy personnel were going to stay. We soon called in the second helicopter and Fred and I boarded and flew back to Kenema to pick up some ECOMOG personnel who were wounded in Sierra Leone and took them back to the ECOMOG hospital in Freetown.

  This operation expanded when EUCOM [United States European Command] responde
d by directing SOCEUR [Special Operations Command Europe] to dispatch a 12-man survey and assessment team (ESAT) a couple of days later. Fred assisted with every mission inserting and re-supplying the US Embassy, the ESAT, US Navy Seals, and later the evacuation of Roosevelt Johnson and 22 Krahn from the US Embassy in Monrovia.

  On every mission Fred carried a 7.62 GPMG with 200 round belt chambered and had an Alice backpack with another 2,000 rounds of 7.62 belt. He sat with me in the door of the aircraft and wherever we landed he hopped off the helicopter with me and pointed the GPMG at any direction that I looked at. Fred is so fucking strong; I’ve never seen anyone hold a weapon, let alone a GPMG, in a standing position and carrying that load on his back. We couldn’t have supported the American Forces without Fred’s assistance.5

  What if the US had followed the UK government’s song and dance about no contact with private military companies except through formal channels, would their embassy officials have been unable to summon the most effective means available to counter force with force and evacuate the wounded without first seeking permission from Washington? What if, indeed, the UK’s quickly cobbled together guidelines had been in place a year earlier, at the time of the siege of the Mammy Yoko hotel in Freetown, would Peter Penfold have been prevented from including an operative of a private military company (who was decorated for this action) in the team that saved lives until he had gone through the palaver of obtaining permission from the Foreign Office?

  ECOMOG commanders, of course, had no such hang-ups about private military companies either during the period of the coup in Sierra Leone or after the fall of the junta, and they wanted the Mi-24 in action as soon as possible. On 7 October, Juba test-flew it and found its weapons in good working order. Then three days later, he took off in the gunship on an armed reconnaissance because of an emergency that had arisen. He had JJ as one of the crew.