by Ross, Hamish
This is about the third allusion to the government of Sierra Leone – if not the actual gatekeeper for access to Hinga Norman − having, perhaps through informal and unofficial channels, knowledge of who was visiting him. If that was the case, there was one visitor who had too high a profile to risk inhibiting: Paramount Chief Komrabai, the retired former British High Commissioner, Peter Penfold. He was a staunch friend throughout to Hinga Norman, and had written articles supporting him. For example, after Charles Taylor was arrested and detained, Peter Penfold wrote that,
it does nothing to negate the injustice of the continued detention of Chief Hinga Norman. The trial of Norman and his two fellow CDF indictees continues at a snail’s pace with a number of high level witnesses being called, such as the former Vice-President, Joe Demby and Lt Gen David Richards, the British soldier now commanding the NATO forces in Afghanistan. Other witnesses to be called include President Kabbah himself, for whose restoration the CDF were fighting. At present Kabbah is refusing to appear, ironically on the ground that he is a head of state, the same reason why Taylor had initially refused to accept the Court’s indictment. The Court over-ruled Taylor’s objection; it has yet to rule on Kabbah’s.57
Dr Joe Demby and Peter Penfold appeared at the Special Court and spoke in defence of Hinga Norman. So did Gen Sir David Richards, currently Chief of the General Staff of the UK, whose testimony appears as Appendix 3. Considering the responsibilities and pressures on Gen David Richards, Commanding Officer of NATO forces in Afghanistan, who was prepared to travel to Sierra Leone and give evidence that he saw Hinga Norman obeying the rules of war regarding treatment of captured enemy at the time of the rebel incursion into Freetown in 1999, and witnessed him later dissuade a CDF group from using boy soldiers, it should not have over-taxed even a weak president’s frail sense of moral duty to say something in the court on behalf of the man to whom he owed his position. Even although he seems to have spoken bold words in the beginning, in the end he would have had to be dragged there against his will.
Oh yes, when the Court was being set up, he said that he was prepared to face the Court. And yet he wouldn’t even consent in the end to being a defence witness for one of his own ministers. And when we pressed hard − we who were involved in Sam’s case − to try and get Kabbah to appear, they had a special hearing to decide whether Kabbah should appear before the Special Court; and the judges ruled that he shouldn’t be brought before the court.58
No diary exists for 2006 among Hinga Norman’s papers. There is a statement, however, written by him (and passed to Fred) entitled, ‘Exhortation to Kamajors By Chief Samuel Hinga Norman’, the first two paragraphs of which rehearse his membership of and sufferings for the SLPP in the 1960s and 1970s, then the paper continues:
3. And when the SLPP government was overthrown in May 1997 after only fourteen (14) months in office, President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah fled into exile and made a passionate plea to the people of Sierra Leone to do everything in their power to restore his government back to power. You and many others, including my humble self even as his Deputy Minister of Defence, eagerly took to the bush for several months and finally succeeded in bringing back the President and his government in March 1998, a job we selflessly did without any prior conditions of remuneration or other reward.
4. The government subsequently made an agreement with the United Nations to establish a Special Court for Sierra Leone. And today, three of us who were among the most instrumental in securing that restoration are standing trial before that Court right in the heart of Freetown, where we have been detained for over three (3) years now, all in proxy for your own alleged activities during the war.
5. Neither the Party (SLPP –Palm Tree) nor you as its members are responsible for what is happening to me and my colleagues. The Party, as a party, has not done anything to hurt me. And so I will never take any action against the Party or anyone who has not hurt me. Our reward lies in the bosom and contemplation of the Lord Allah, and will surely come.
6. You may be aware that I have taken two judicial actions in recent months in respect of the Party, one of which is still pending in the Supreme Court. Time will tell that both actions were taken for the protection of the Party itself, so that other political parties do not invoke the national Constitution against it at an inauspicious moment to the detriment of the Party, especially considering its twenty-nine (29) years in the political wilderness from 1967 to 1996. After the Supreme Court decision, hopefully in the next few weeks, you will hear again from me as a matter of URGENCY.
7. Until then, PLEASE, in the name of God and the dear lives that were lost in the defence of our country and our Party, I repeat PLEASE DO NOT JOIN ANY OTHER POLITICAL PARTY (new or old) for the purposes of the next general elections.
8. WAIT! BE PATIENT AND STEADFAST!
Date: 26 August 2006.
Sam Hinga Norman59
However, energetic and determined as he was, over the time he had been in detention, health problems developed, particularly pain in his leg. He first referred to having it seen by a doctor on 28 March 2003, shortly after he was arrested. Then in early 2004, he had to have his cervical collar examined at a medical centre. This may have been a recurrence of a problem he had treated in a clinic in Pretoria (courtesy of Executive Outcomes) when Roelf van Heerden was escorting him at a UN conference in South Africa. By the end of 2004, he was recording a very painful groin and leg; and the following year he required treatment for his right leg, back and neck. Finally, the recommended treatment was hip replacement surgery, which was unavailable in Sierra Leone. The Special Court asked some other countries to provide such medical assistance, and only Senegal volunteered.60 However, Hinga Norman did not know this; the venue for his treatment was withheld from him as preparations were put in hand for both him and the Interim Leader of the RUF, Issa Sesay, who also required surgery for some problem, to be taken to Dakar, Senegal early in the new year.
Meanwhile, Fred and his company came up against the consequences of endemic corruption at official level. His company, VIPWA, submitted the first proposal to the government for a contract to provide security for Fishery Protection in Sierra Leone. It was a well-crafted tender; they felt they were in a strong position to win. But at ministerial or official level the company’s bid was released to rival security companies, enabling them to undercut Vanguard, and of course, give a kick-back to ministers as part of the arrangement. Faced with the realities of government contracts, Fred’s partner with the finance, Jeffrey Wright, put other irons in the fire and, as Christmas approached, he was negotiating a partnership with a South African mining company. The omens looked promising as Fred booked his flight to the UK for a vacation.
A fourth New Year’s day in prison began for Hinga Norman, and two weeks later he was informed that he would be transported to another country for medical treatment. He had a brand new notebook, and he immediately began making a record of events. On 16 January at 9pm, ‘I was informed of my travel to elsewhere for medical treatment.’ And the following morning, 17 January, he began charting the sequence of events in numerical order, under the heading, ‘the process for the treatment of my hip replacement started’, beginning at 5.30 when the door of his cell, number 3, is opened. His packed belongings were carried to ‘the just-landed helicopter’. From the style of the way he wrote this record, he anticipated that it might later be read by a third party, or in the event of his death, because while written in the first person (singular and plural), there are times when he includes his own name. For example,
07.45 Issa Sesay and I, (Chief Hinga Norman) were taken by a waiting jeep to the waiting helicopter.61
They landed at Lungi airport and boarded a fixed-wing UN aircraft. On landing at 11.10, he was informed that they were at the Military Wing of Dakar International Airport. The immigration formalities carried out, he and Issa Sesay were taken in two ambulances in a ‘long motorcade’. By now his numbering of the sequence has reached point 11.
11.
12.00 The 2 ambulances entered a Victorian-looking courtyard where [we] alighted and were escorted by a large number of uniformed men with pistols who, I was later informed, were prison officers of Dakar-Senegal. I was taken into a just-renovated tiny room with a door marked Cabine 10, referred to as self-contained with a very small shower-bath and a toilet bowl with a wash-hand basin all jammed together, so-to-speak.
In the room were:
a) A bed with only a single bedspread with no pillows.
b) An air conditioner with no remote control
c) A local TV with three local stations only
d) One empty fridge.
e) One empty wardrobe.
12. 2pm. Food was served but we refused to eat. We stated that if we did not get in touch with our people back home to report our plight, we will refuse to eat anything and we will eventually refuse treatment.
Later, I got in touch with my daughter to whom I narrated my (our) plight and we thereafter took our food and ate; other events followed later.
13. 11pm I retired on the bare bed and soon thereafter, fell asleep and woke only the next morning.62
He was in L’hôpital Aristide Le Dantec, Dakar, and, according to Special Court officials, in ‘the VIP (Very Important Persons) wing of the same top military hospital where Senegalese Ministers of Government get treated.’63
For ten days after his arrival there is no entry in his notebook until 27 January, when he wrote that he received $500 US from his daughter Teteh by Western Union Dakar-Senegal. He needed the money: arriving as he had at such short notice, he was unprepared for the local custom where VIP patients brought their pillows with them to this wing of the hospital, so he was now able to make good his deficiency. And he certainly required a pillow, because four days later he wrote,
We quarrelled about the continued constant lock-up which we (Issa Sesay and Hinga Norman) considered a mental torture.64
Life seemed a bit better the following day when he heard from a few people, and again the next when he linked up with Mahmoud Kamara Jr, a grand nephew who lived in Dakar. And it is clear too that the regime of being confined to his cell had eased a bit, he wrote that he,
visioned a brown belt with a gold buckle lying on the ground in front of me as I was sitting in the court yard of Hospital Aristide Le Dantec in Dakar-Senegal.65
But the time for his treatment was close, and the doctors informed him that they were going to carry out his hip replacement surgery on 7 February. Then there was some aggro over his grand nephew, Mahmoud Kawara Jr not being allowed to be around to inform Hinga Norman’s family immediately after his operation.
On the morning of 7 February, he wakened early, he writes, and got himself ready for the operation. The Special Court-appointed physician, Dr Harding, was waiting for him along with a Mr Walt Collins; he requested a phone call to his daughter Teteh; and then they waited. Around 10.30, the surgeon confirmed what they had already begun to suspect, that it was impossible to go ahead with the operation, ‘because of an unannounced strike today by all the hospital nurses of Senegal.’ So the operation was rescheduled for the following day.
It was now almost four years since he had been arrested in his office at the Ministry of the Interior; the Court’s decision was anticipated sometime in the course of the year; and he seems to have been as strong in himself, and as free in the power of his mind as he had been during the first hellish months in Bonthe. In that former slaves’ dungeon the first dream he described was of finding himself in a strange place, asking for directions, and being told that whichever path he took it would lead him to his destination. Nonsensical in the physical sense, yet the dream’s meaning echoes what the philosopher, Kierkegaard argued, that it is not a case of one particular route as opposed to another; in the spiritual sense, ‘the way is: how it is travelled.’ And Hinga Norman travelled according to his lights: a statesman, a resistance leader carrying an AK-47 rifle and a Bible; he risked his life to restore democratic rule; he made no wealth for himself or his family − as some of his political colleagues had − ; and he stood his ground before men for what he had done.
In his cell on the night before his surgery, he recorded what is surely a fitting journey’s end for a soldier who bears no personal animosity towards his enemy: hostilities over, two former enemies, the National Co-ordinator of the CDF and the Interim Leader of the RUF, Issa Sesay awaiting medical treatment together, and he wrote, ‘Took communion with Issa before midnight.’ Then at midnight they spent time on,
Some meditation reading from Mark 11: 23–25, reading Psalm 67 followed by prayers and we retired into our cabines to sleep, wake up and look forward to the day’s events.66
Next morning he was up early.
Again, Dr Harding and Mr Walt Collins showed up around 8:30 am to join me and Issa who was also informed shortly after midnight to prepare himself just in case they may decide to do his operation as well.67
And these were the last words that Chief Hinga Norman wrote.
The operation was successfully carried out, and Hinga Norman’s adopted son, Lansana Jawara, arrived in Senegal to be of support; and he wrote a short account of what transpired. He turned up at L’Hôpital de La Dentec, only to be told that his father had not been admitted there but at Hôpital Aristide Le Dentec. There he met Hinga Norman who confirmed that the operation had been successful but he was suffering severe pain at night, and he asked him to find out why there were ‘no nurses at night to attend to him.’68 Lansana was informed that the nursing staff had to go home, ‘because security closed the wing where Chief Norman was admitted at night.’69 From 15 February through until 19, there was bleeding from the wound. The following day, Hinga Norman collapsed and required a transfusion of two pints of blood. And the next morning, after breakfast, he seemed to be on the point of collapsing again. Dr Harding, the Special Court’s doctor was there; other doctors were called, and one suggested the patient be moved to intensive care.
But Dr Harding said the hospital needed to go through security procedures first before transferring Chief Norman to the intensive care unit. At this stage I asked Dr Harding which he thought was his priority, the security clearance or the life of my father, but he simply ignored me.70
Lansana was then asked to leave the room, but he refused. A few minutes later, Oscar Lima, the Old Lion, was dead.
Chapter Eleven
Paying Back the Shilling
In the SAS we used to say that when you join up the Queen gives you a shilling. But when the Queen asks for the shilling back, you’ve got to pay back the shilling.
Fred Marafono
That same day, in London, Fred received a call from Lansana Jawara in Dakar with the news that Chief Sam Hinga Norman had died around 11.00 am.
Apparently, the Chief had already prepared a list of people to be contacted in case anything happened to him. It included Peter Penfold and myself. He was always a thorough man in everything he did.
I sat down and cried. I spoke to him only two days previously, when he told me he was looking forward to going back to Freetown to have some pepper soup, which was one of his favourite dishes. Hawah used to cook it for us when he came to visit me and to discuss anything he wanted me to do or anything he wanted me to pass on. We used to laugh afterwards because the soup was so hot that we were both sweating at the end of the meal.
Hinga Norman’s death had a profound effect on Fred, for his life had been intertwined with the Chief for years in the fight against insurgency, and, after that period, his loyalty held firm.
A sense of duty arising from inner prompting can be a very powerful driver in some people. Fred repaid the Queen’s shilling many times over in the SAS, and after he left the army his sense of duty was directed by a warrior’s code. When Hinga Norman asked him why he stayed to support him, rather than move on to a more lucrative contract with a PMC in another country, he replied,
‘Chief, if I was to turn my back on you, every time I heard something about Sierra Leone on the news, esp
ecially you fighting the war, I would feel very guilty for leaving you when you most needed me. I would carry that burden for the rest of my life and I would rather not.’ We both laughed and never talked about it again.
The constitution of Sierra Leone did not lay extra responsibility on Hinga Norman’s shoulders compared to those of the president or fellow ministers in respect of defending democracy, yet he responded as though it had. And his reasoning:
I got the inspiration from the simple fact that this is the only country that I have. If I lose it, my very belonging – I will be … be dispossessed of belonging to a nation. Even the bird perching on the tree would be better than me.1
Another on the list of names that Hinga Norman had drawn up of those who should be contacted in the event of his death was that of the former British High Commissioner. Peter Penfold too had made a commitment, and that commitment came from a deep moral awareness. The sacrifices that many Sierra Leoneans made to have democracy instated, and then reinstated, in their homeland made an impact on him.
In my experience, these people grasped the essence of what all this means much more than in the sophisticated countries. So I was inspired by all that.2
But Peter Penfold’s support for that country cost him much in his professional life. Robin Cook said in the House of Commons that there would be no scapegoat over arms to Sierra Leone; yet as long as Peter Penfold continued working, the Sandline affair was never allowed to become a closed chapter. After his tour of duty in Sierra Leone was over, although he had been assured of another posting, he was turned down for 16 posts that he applied for, and forced to take early retirement.3 His actions, which, in time, were interpreted as being completely compatible with the UN resolution, had temporarily inconvenienced some politicians and officials. And for that his career suffered. But in the long run, what he set in train through his support for Sierra Leone led on to all the other elements of a successful British foreign policy initiative: financial and military support within a counter-insurgency strategy that concluded logically in a military intervention at Rokel Creek, smashing a rebel stronghold, and the defeat of the RUF that brought a lasting peace.