Atrocities, Diamonds and Diplomacy

by Peter Penfold

  The Abidjan Peace Accord

  Peace talks between the Kabbah government and the RUF were started and culminated in the signing of the Abidjan Peace Accord in November 1996. Under the terms of the agreement the members of the RUF would be granted amnesty, they would be demobilized and some of them absorbed into the army. In a confidential annex to the accord a number of the RUF would be given positions in government. One of the conditions upon which the RUF insisted was that the government’s contract with Executive Outcomes should be terminated. Despite widespread concerns expressed by many of President Kabbah’s advisers, he agreed. The EO staff were withdrawn. Although an offshoot of EO, Lifeguard, continued to provide security for the Sierra Rutile mine and for a diamond mine run by a British firm, Branch Energy.

  Prominent among the EO personnel had been a remarkable man, Fred Marafono. A Fijian by birth, Fred was an ex-member of the SAS who had fought with this elite regiment in many parts of the world. After the departure of EO, Fred remained in Sierra Leone and developed a close attachment to the country. His exploits would be colourfully described in the book by Hamish Ross, From SAS to Blood Diamond Wars.

  A Commission for the Consolidation for Peace (CCP) was set up to implement the terms of the Abidjan Peace Accord, under the chairmanship of the colourful and outspoken Desmond Luke, one of Sierra Leone’s leading lawyers and a former foreign minister under Siaka Stevens. A United Nations Trust Fund was established to implement the provisions of the accord, to which the British Government contributed £1.2 million. As the leading bilateral aid donor, the British Government embarked upon a number of aid projects designed to nurture the infant democracy – support for the Parliament, the Public Service, the judicial sector, the press and media and various civil society and human rights groups. It also paid attention to the security sector through projects to support the police and military. A two-man British military training team arrived, headed by a Scots Guard’s officer, Major Lincoln Jopp.

  I reported to London at the time that I felt for once we were getting things right with our aid programme. For far too long we had seen millions of dollars of aid money in Africa channelled into providing better healthcare, education, transport, communications and so on; but it was all wasted if the problems of insecurity, instability and corruption were not also addressed. The number of schools and hospitals destroyed and people made homeless and hungry as a result of coups and rebellions was endless. This would continue to be the case unless more attention was focussed on security and good government. The previous Tory government under Douglas Hurd and Lynda Chalker’s guidance had recognized this and the New Labour government under Tony Blair and Robin Cook was continuing this policy.

  In my speech during the presentation of my credentials to President Kabbah at State House I noted that ‘one could have stability without development, but one could not have development without stability.’ I also noted that I had served in Nigeria in the 1960s during the civil war, in Ethiopia in the 1970s during the revolution, in Uganda in the 1980s during two military coups, so how nice it was at last to serve in ‘a peaceful African country’. These remarks were to prove somewhat ironic and prophetic; but for the first few weeks I began to settle into my new home and started to travel around the country.

  The British High Commissioner’s residence was perched high on one of the hills overlooking Freetown, a couple of miles from the office. It was called ‘Runnymede’, after the site of the signing of Magna Carta in Britain. A large, modern building, built in the 1960s, it had a grand marble staircase leading down from the entrance hall to the large drawing and dining rooms on the lower floor. Though lacking the character of our previous residence, Government House in the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, it was very functional for living and entertaining. The upper floor contained a suite of rooms for our personal use plus a couple of guest bedrooms. The lower floor was encased by large sliding doors, which remained closed most of the time to keep in the air-conditioned cool air, provided by a generator that ran continuously. At times it felt like living in a large fish tank. A large patio surrounded the house leading onto the gardens, which sloped steeply down the hillside.

  To help run Runnymede there were Osman, the cook/housekeeper, assisted by Alimamy, John and Fatmata, and Abu, with Toma and Ibrahim, to tend the large garden. They were to become members of our extended African family. Osman had been working at the residence for four years. A devout Moslem, he came from Lunsar in the north and had previously worked as a pastry chef in one of the Freetown hotels. His cooking was excellent. He could produce a wide range of meals to suit anyone’s palate, from Joloff rice and peas – the Sierra Leone national dish – to steak and kidney pudding. But his sense of organization left much to be desired. We would regularly run out of food even when he had been to the market the day before, or he would produce a sumptuous lunch, only to forget that we had guests coming to dinner that evening. If one could deal with the frustrations of Osman, one could deal with anything. But he was friendly and engaging and Celia and I got to love him dearly. We nicknamed him ‘Oh dear!’ because every time something had been forgotten, he would appear from the kitchen to explain and start by saying ‘Oh dear!’

  Alimamy’s nickname was ‘Yes please’. He was very shy and hardly spoke at all, unlike Osman. When questioned about anything, Alimamy had a habit of clutching his testicles for comfort. He had worked out that the best response to any question was ‘Yes please’. John and Fatmata were much more on the ball. John was in charge of the drinks. He took his job so conscientiously that he often felt obliged to personally check the drinks before he served them. In quick time he was producing the best gins and tonic in Sierra Leone. Fatmata was the only member of staff to live in. She was very fashion conscious and at weekends on her day off, she would dress up to the nines to go into town to socialize with her friends.

  One month after my arrival it was time to hold The Queen’s Birthday Party (QBP), at the residence, the highlight of the social year. The Queen’s Official Birthday is in June but British Embassies and High Commissions have discretion to vary the date. As it would be held outdoors and as the rainy season would be in full swing in June, it made more sense to hold the QBP in April, the month of Her Majesty’s actual birthday. This would prove a good opportunity to meet a large cross section of the Sierra Leone and British community early on in my tour.

  Among the guests invited was ex-President Momoh. This caused quite a stir. Momoh had returned to Sierra Leone after his overthrow but was rarely seen out in public. It seemed to me that as an ex-president of a government with whom Britain had maintained relations, it was right that he should be invited. I had another reason for doing so. One of the problems, especially in Africa, is the difference in lifestyle between being a president and an ex-president. As president, you reign supremely in power and luxury, whereas an ex-president, even if he survived not being killed, would often be forced to live in relative poverty with no power and little respect. If ex-presidents were seen to still be worthy of respect, given a pension, invited to official functions, etc, then perhaps more presidents might be prepared to stand down, rather than abuse the democratic system and cling on to power. Ex-President Momoh turned up looking very smart in a natty pinstripe suit. After some hesitation from his fellow guests, he was soon engulfed in animated conversation with many of them. He clearly was thoroughly enjoying himself and said so as he left.

  Another important member of my extended African family was my driver, Emmanuel Fillie. His family came from the diamond area of Kono, where they had suffered badly at the hands of the rebels. He was very proud to be the British High Commissioner’s driver and was to become one of my closest confidants. Sierra Leone is relatively small, about the size of Ireland, and Emmanuel and I started travelling around the country by road. This was something that my predecessor, Ian McCluney, had not been able to do much because of the insecurity created by the rebel war.

  It was in the rural areas that one witnesse
d the true extent of the poverty of Sierra Leone. Freetown was certainly run down but I had seen similar capitals, and living in Freetown did not leave you feeling that you were in the second poorest country in the world. Outside of Freetown you could begin to see this. But it was not the poverty of malnutrition. Sierra Leone was blessed agriculturally with good soil and ample rainfall and sunshine so no one needed to go hungry. It was the total absence of other amenities – healthcare, sanitation, education, employment, communications, transport, housing – in the rural areas, where there was hardly any sign that a government existed. People just subsisted and survived; their way of life had not changed for centuries.

  We visited Bo, the second city of Sierra Leone, in the south, and from there we toured the surrounding districts in the company of a British doctor, Mike Downham. Mike was one of the admirable band of selfless people whom one bumps into in the far-flung corners of Africa who, with meagre resources and basic lifestyle, get on with helping those around them. Originally sent out to study the killer disease of Africa – malaria – he was now running a British aid-funded project setting up rural health clinics. People, who before would have had to walk up to 30 miles to receive medical attention, could now get it on the spot. It was one of the best aid-funded projects I had ever seen.

  We visited one of these clinics in the tiny village of Sar, about one and a half hours’ drive along rough corrugated tracks north of Bo. I formally opened the clinic and the local headman made a moving speech of appreciation. He invited me to inspect the local school, which apart from the clinic was the only breeze-block building in the village. It comprised two rooms, a tin roof and a mud floor. About fifty children, bright-eyed and smiling, sat cramped on benches in their smart school uniforms. They had no exercise books, pencils or paper. The barefooted teacher wrote the lesson on the faded blackboard and the children copied it down in chalk on top of their desks. At the end of the day they would have to rub it all out to prepare for the next day’s lessons, almost symbolizing that everything they had learned that day counted for nothing. What I found astonishing was that what I read on the blackboard was of a higher standard than one would find in the best-equipped primary schools in Britain.

  I had arranged with a printing firm in Freetown to produce some school exercise books with the Sierra Leonean flag and Union Jack and the words ‘From the children of Britain to the children of Sierra Leone’ on the cover. I presented a box of these together with pencils, rulers and rubbers and a box of chalk. The teacher noted that when he ran out of chalk he would use a dried cassava stick to write on the blackboard. He had not been paid for three months. Even if his salary was available to collect in Bo, there was no public transport, and to go by taxi would cost half a month’s salary. There were two dedicated teachers at the school, working a two-shift system. A group of children would come in the morning and another group in the afternoon. Some of the children would have to walk up to three hours a day to get to school from the surrounding villages.

  Education was the most sought-after luxury in Africa. Parents and guardians made enormous sacrifices to educate their children. It was the one chance by which they could lift themselves from the subsistence lifestyle in which they were stuck. An educated child represented the opportunity of a job, which would benefit all the family.

  From Bo, Emmanuel and I drove to Makeni, one of the major towns in the north, but by a little-used route. The Shell map showed a dirt road but it had all but disappeared in parts, which made the journey very hazardous. Close to Makeni was Magburaka, which was where some of the RUF rebels had started voluntarily coming out of the bush to surrender. They were staying at the Islamic Training College in the town. I wanted to meet them to see what could be done to encourage more to surrender.

  The local officials had been alerted that we were coming but we confused them by arriving from ‘the wrong direction’. No one had travelled the route we had taken for a considerable time as it had taken us through Foday Sankoh’s village and where rebels were still active. Fortunately, I was treated better than poor Bishop Hannington of Uganda. In the 19th century he had arrived in Uganda ‘from the wrong direction’ and the Kabaka, the superstitious King of Buganda, had him killed for this ‘crime’.

  A big ceremony had been arranged with all the local dignitaries in attendance – the District Officer, Paramount Chief and local elders. A group of fifty or so RUF rebels were herded into one of the large classrooms. They looked dishevelled, sullen and suspicious. They listened in silence to the endless speeches. One of them was invited to say something. A young boy, no more than sixteen, stood up, quoted disconnected tracts from the Bible, and sat down. This was not what I wanted. I had wanted to get a chance to talk to them without all this fanfare. I told them that I would come back the next day but without any ceremonies. As I took my leave, one of the RUF muttered to me: ‘If you’re coming back tomorrow, bring some Fanta’ – soft drinks.

  I stayed that night with Bishop George Biguzzi in his modest but comfortable dwelling on the outskirts of Makeni, close to the army barracks. I was immediately impressed by him. This Italian cleric in his late fifties was revered in the north and widely respected throughout the country. During my predecessor’s time, the RUF had embarked upon a number of kidnappings and by January 1995, they had been holding seventeen expatriates, including six Britons and seven Catholic nuns, as well as sixty-two Sierra Leoneans. The skilful negotiations for their eventual successful release had been conducted by Bishop Biguzzi and Ian McCluney over the high frequency (HF) radio set at the residence. The Bishop’s knowledge of what was going on, especially in the north, was second to none. The Catholic Church had a network of priests, mainly Italian, spread all around the remote corners of the country, and over breakfast the next morning I listened with fascination as the Bishop called up each of them over his radio network to check how things were.

  After calling on Paramount Chief Bai Seborah Kasangha II in Makeni the next morning, we drove back to Magburaka. I joined the RUF in one of their dormitories and they continued to view me with their sullen faces. I began to believe that it would take months of ‘trauma counselling’ before we could ever begin to make an impact on these youths, who had spent the last six years living in the bush committing awful deeds in the name of their supposed revolutionary movement. I reminded them that I had been asked to bring back some Fanta. Emmanuel appeared with a large ice box full of Fantas, Sprites and Cokes and we started handing them out. The change was phenomenal. From a bunch of sullen and morose kids, we suddenly had a group of friendly, animated children. Some of them began to chat confidently with me. One of them told me that after six years in the bush, the bottle of Fanta that he was holding in his hand represented the first thing that someone had actually given to him without him taking or stealing it.

  In talking and listening to them, it soon became apparent that they had little knowledge of the Abidjan Peace Accord. The RUF leader, Foday Sankoh, known as ‘Pappy’, was to them a messianic figure who controlled the organization with a rod of iron. He was supported by a band of ruthless lieutenants, many of whom were Liberians, who went by names such as Mosquito, Superman and Black Jesus. Tight discipline was maintained and the flow of information was closely controlled. For example, the rank and file were forbidden from listening to the radio. Everything that was looted was carefully written down in school exercise books and a portion had to go to Sankoh. The use of drugs was widespread. Children as young as seven or eight were given drugs to complement the daily programme of propaganda and indoctrination. Biblical texts rolled off their lips without any fundamental understanding and with a complete absence of morals and ethics. When the RUF attacked a village, they would burn all the homes and kill or maim the adults – sometimes children were ordered to kill their own parents. In so doing, the RUF became their surrogate family. Those who joined the movement at the age of twelve were by the age of sixteen junior officers with the powers to command adults twice their age. Many of them had no id
ea how old they were and whether their true parents were alive. Many of the younger ones became ‘slaves’ to the older commanders. They claimed that there were many who would leave the miserable existence in the bush but that they were afraid to do so; they related tales of arbitrary executions of others who had tried to leave. Hollywood would later capture the essence of this lifestyle in its movie Blood Diamonds.

  Although the site itself was good, the conditions at the Magburaka camp were poor. There was no bedding, no pots and pans for cooking, no plates and spoons for eating. This annoyed me as our contribution to the UN Trust Fund had been made to supply such materials and I knew that they were sitting in a warehouse in Freetown. I raised this with the UN when I got back to the capital. The UN, together with the Ministry of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (known as the Triple R Ministry), were responsible for setting up the camps. I was told that Magburaka was not one of the designated sites under the programme. I pointed out that none of the other camps had yet been set up at the designated sites; if the RUF felt more comfortable coming to Magburaka, we should set up a camp there. The way that the first ones who came out of the bush were treated would determine whether others would come. I heard later that another group had voluntarily surrendered near Freetown but had been sent back to the bush, being told that the programme was not yet ready for them!

  Meeting the RUF in Magburaka increased my view, widely shared by others, that Foday Sankoh and the RUF commanders were not taking the Abidjan Peace Accord seriously. It later came to light that within hours of signing the accord, Sankoh had sent a message to his commanders in the bush telling them not to take any notice of the document he had signed and that he was merely playing for time to regroup and rearm. Sankoh’s attitude towards the peace accord had been encouraged by an international non-governmental organization (NGO), International Alert (IA). A representative of IA had been present during the negotiations in Abidjan, supposedly as an impartial and neutral participant to help the peace process along, but this representative was accused by the UN and others of acting as an advisor to the RUF and of encouraging Sankoh to adopt an entrenched and belligerent attitude.