Setting an even better example was Rudi Bruns, a German businessman who ran the local bottling plant. Rudi was the Honorary Swiss Consul and he had a particular reason for showing his compassion to the victims of the rebels. In 1995 he had been among a group of expatriates who had been kidnapped by the RUF whilst working at the Sieromoco mine. They were held in captivity for three months and subjected to a terrible time. Rudi took on half a dozen amputees as both skilled and semi-skilled employees at his bottling works.
The sheer barbarity of the atrocities was difficult to comprehend. The rebels used to devise ‘games’ to play with the innocent civilian population. A particular favourite was to guess the sex of a baby in a pregnant woman’s womb. Having placed their bets with one another, they then would hack open the pregnant woman and withdraw the unborn child. A bottle of beer was won – the mother and baby of course died.
As a diplomat serving in a foreign country, one was expected to remain objective and not to get too involved, but for those of us who were living in Freetown at that time, daily coming across the tales of horror and misery, we would not have been human if we had remained immune to the evidence of suffering and torment. It was especially difficult for those in the front line of dealing with the victims of the atrocities – the doctors and nurses, those working for NGOs and international organizations alongside the government’s health authorities. Most of the international staff had pulled out during the January invasion, leaving a few dedicated Sierra Leone staff to deal with the problems. It was one thing to see a person whose hands had been brutally hacked off after medical staff had attended to them. By then all one saw were two stumps carefully wrapped in white bandages, but imagine what it was like when such victims first appeared. Often they would come to the hospitals and clinics clutching their severed limbs, or with bloody hands still connected precariously by tissues of skin and sinew, dangling uselessly from their arms.
During the worst of the fighting in Freetown the rebels occupied Connaught Hospital, the main hospital downtown. Fly and mosquito-infested dead bodies were piled up outside the main gates, rotting and decaying in the sun. Inside the staff were forced at gunpoint to treat the rebels. One of the dedicated doctors was forced to treat a rebel while his fellow rebels were raping the doctor’s wife in an adjoining room. He listened to her screams while he operated on the rebel.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff soon returned and were dealing with the daily horrors. I received a report from them that detailed just one month’s surgical activities at the Connaught Hospital: 271 patients had been operated upon, 172 of whom were suffering war-related wounds. The report chronicled interviews with seventeen patients whom the MSF staff were treating. They made pitiful reading. One adult female reported how the rebels chopped off her hand and told her to take it to President Kabbah and ask him for another hand. Another case study of a middle-aged female suffering with lacerations on her head, shoulder and back, noted: ‘Unable to interview the patient as she died just after arrival. Others said that her whole family was killed in front of her, and that she died of a broken heart.’
After a while one became almost immune to the barbarity of the situation and sometimes it was the less gruesome stories that had a bigger impact. Bruce Williams, the tough captain of HMS Norfolk, was brought to tears when I introduced him to Mammy Noah at the residence on one of our first trips into Freetown from the ship.
Mammy Noah was a legend in Sierra Leone. In her eighties, this determined Krio lady had already lived to over double the life expectancy in Sierra Leone. She had been married to one of the first Sierra Leoneans to qualify as a doctor and all her family were eminent in the medical field, featuring prominently in a book on the history of medicine in West Africa. Her husband, who had spoken out against the excesses of Siaka Stevens, had died some years earlier. Mammy Noah was a gifted botanist and gardener. She had introduced several varieties of shrubs and flowers to Sierra Leone. My predecessor had engaged her services to help with the garden at the residence and when I arrived I took her on full-time overseeing the work of the gardeners at the residence and producing beautiful floral displays at the residence and the office. At the time it had amused me that she expressed concern that she would not be able to do much digging in the garden.
Mammy Noah lived alongside the President at Hill Station, where she maintained her nursery of plants and seedlings. During the junta rule the rebels had tried to mount an anti-aircraft gun in her garden. She chased them away shouting, ‘I don’t want that gun in my garden and we don’t want you in our country. Go away!’ And they did.
This feisty, tiny lady related to Bruce Williams and me how she had coped during the mayhem of the January invasion. For days she had had nothing to eat and, already frail, she became so thin that the wedding ring that she had worn on her finger for over sixty years had kept slipping off. Listening to her brought tears to our eyes.
Throughout our tour in Sierra Leone Mammy Noah became very close to Celia and me. To Celia she reminded her of her mother, who had passed away a couple of years before Celia went to Sierra Leone. The two of them would sit together for hours discussing all manner of things. Mammy Noah was an avid reader and devoted listener to the BBC World Service and there was nothing on which she could not offer an informed view. Celia was devoted to her. Her friendship gave Mammy Noah a reason to live.
On one occasion she appeared at the residence in tears clutching an eviction notice in her frail hand. Those responsible for protecting President Kabbah at Hill Station claimed that she would have to be moved on the grounds of security. I went straight up to Hill Station to see President Kabbah. I told him that it was ridiculous to consider that Mammy Noah’s presence alongside the lodge constituted a security threat and that to move her away from her garden at this stage of her life would kill her. I added that if this was the type of government he headed, which evicted an 87-year-old woman who had stood up against the junta then it was not the type of government to which I wished to be accredited and I would ask to be removed. The President was unaware of the eviction notice and picked up his telephone there and then and gave orders that Mammy Noah was not to be moved. She was not bothered again and was henceforth treated with respect until she passed away a few years later. On her death the President’s security officer immediately moved into her house.
I had continued to visit the national stadium regularly and on each occasion I would always look in on the ‘maternity ward’. Often I would arrive just as a baby was being born. Following my first visit when I had witnessed the baby being born without even a rag to wrap it up in, I had written to friends in Cardiff, Bernie and Jane Latham, describing the scene. Bernie was the star of the television series Hollyoaks and I had first met him and his wife Jane when they had visited Uganda as part of a British Council sponsored Shakespeare tour. We had remained very close friends, and I was proudly godfather to their son Jack. They copied my letter around to friends and three weeks later I received twenty-two sack loads of baby clothes donated by the people of Wales. I was able to distribute these to the babies at the stadium and the other displaced camps. It was also through Jane and Bernie, and another close friend in the UK, Keith Harris, that we received 800 teddy bears from the UK charity ‘Teddies for Tragedies’. These too were distributed around the displaced camps and hospitals.
One of the mothers, the birth of whose baby I had witnessed on the day before my birthday, decided to name the child after me. A few weeks later I was invited to the christening ceremony of ‘Peter Penfold Amara’. He was a beautiful baby boy but I felt somewhat sorry for him that he was going to have to go through life saddled with my name. The parents would bring him up to the residence from time to time. He was not the only one. Other offspring were given the name ‘Peter’, ‘Penfold’ or ‘Komrabai’ and when the police hospital opened a maternity wing, they named it ‘The Peter Penfold Maternity Wing’. One of the amputees proudly displayed the name ‘Peter Penfold’ on the back of his wheelchair and e
ven one of the local football teams named themselves ‘The Penfold Eleven’.
There was so much to do in the immediate aftermath of the January invasion. DFID and Crown Agents responded magnificently to the grave situation. They were the first to fly in food and medicines. The medicines enabled the government to get the hospitals and clinics up and running. Even while there were still pockets of rebels around in the eastern end of the city, we distributed bags of rice to the needy, especially those vulnerable groups of people who were not covered by the larger distributions being set up by government and the NGOs, such as the old folks home, the amputees camp, the schools for the blind and the deaf and dumb and the child soldiers camp at Lakka along the peninsula.
For some time child soldiers had been rescued in the provinces and brought to Freetown. Initially there had been no facilities to look after them. They could not be kept with the older captured rebels, nor could they be put in prison. An elderly Catholic priest, Father Berton, had taken them under his wing at his compound in the east of the city. Drawing upon my experience of meeting the RUF at Magburaka soon after my arrival, I would occasionally visit Father Berton’s compound to try to understand what made these children tick and how they might be rehabilitated back into society. Much of the time would be spent just reading to them or playing football. My visits were far too infrequent to really win their confidence but I learned much from Father Berton’s experience of being with them all the time. They did not want to be placed in family environments. Even those who had families in Freetown did not want to be reunited initially. They felt more comfortable in the company of one another, with those who had shared in their awful experiences. Their main wish was to recommence their schooling and education, which had been so savagely interrupted. When the rebels had hit Freetown, they had to be moved with Father Berton to a disused house at Lakka. Later, UNICEF would take over the running of the camp.
The Royal Navy ships, firstly HMS Norfolk and then HMS Westminster, had helped provide a logistical base for the humanitarian relief effort and with their crews we were in all parts of the city helping where we could. The two ships were not able to repeat the amount of work that we had achieved with HMS Cornwall the previous year, because they did not have the same resources – smaller crews and smaller helicopters. Also, to our and her frustration, the Ministry of Defence would not give clearance for HMS Westminster to come alongside for most of the time she was in Sierra Leone waters. Even when clearance was given, she only came into port on alternate days, which affected the amount of assistance she could render.
The reason given by the Ministry of Defence for this decision was ‘security’. They were frightened that she would come under attack from the rebels. I found it bizarre. Here was a floating war machine, whose firepower on board could have obliterated half of Freetown and yet was prevented from showing its face in case just one young kid high on drugs with a rifle took a pot shot at it. I also sensed that many of the crew, especially the younger ratings, were not that keen to come alongside. On one occasion when the ship was in port, a couple of shots could be heard at night. For the residents of Freetown this was commonplace but the incident clearly unnerved some of those on board. They were not familiar with the sound of gunfire. Nowadays naval warfare is conducted at a distance. The enemy is located, someone presses a button, and a missile is launched at the target hundreds of miles away. Those on board a ship rarely get to see, hear, or smell warfare at close range. The modern day Nelson sits behind a computer screen in a semi-lit operations room. It’s the ultimate arcade games adventure.
This experience with the Navy was in contrast to the Army personnel who came to Sierra Leone, or to the Royal Marines on board the ships. The marines, under the command of an exceptional officer, Captain Rory Copinger-Symes, were out and about with us every day and made it easier for us to move around.
I was delighted to welcome back David Hill from DFID to help co-ordinate our humanitarian efforts. We were able to identify a number of small projects, which with a little injection of funds made a significant impact. We had been given £50,000 to spend by DFID, and this was later supplemented with a further £50,000. We used some of these funds to get the fire service working again. All the fire appliances in Freetown had been damaged or destroyed. For a long time the government’s one new appliance lay burnt-out at the bottom of Hillcot Road as a permanent reminder of what had gone on in January. This meant that that there were no means to put out any fires in the city; a dangerous situation to be in given the state of the city and the fact that it was still the dry season. One 25-year-old tender was at the station. It had not been destroyed but its batteries had been looted. For a few leones we were able to purchase locally a couple of batteries and thus enable it to function again. Also, a Land Rover fire appliance had been reduced to a wreck but its pump was still working. We bought a second-hand Land Rover, and the fire service officers fitted its body onto the old appliance and got it working again.
Even though most of the rebels had now been driven out of Freetown and a degree of peace had been restored, there were still thousands in the national stadium because they had no homes to go back to. They had been destroyed. I continued to visit the stadium and give what help I could. The conditions were awful: no electricity, no running water, limited amounts of food either donated by NGOs or scavenged around the town, and appalling sanitary conditions. Families marked out their spots on the cold concrete floors underneath the stands and around the outside of the building. The grass in the middle of the stadium was left bare as this did not provide any protection from the hot sun. The football pitch, therefore, was in relatively good shape and it was this that led me to suggest what some initially considered a crazy idea.
On one of my visits I suggested that we should arrange a football match between those in the stadium and the British naval ship. It was common during a ship’s visit to arrange a local football match and although there were clearly other things to do, why not? I said that I would kit out the team with the assistance of HMS Westminster and told the organising committee to select a team. This led to much excitement and the search to select their strongest team became as intense as if they were choosing a team to play in the World Cup. After all, this would be Sierra Leone versus England!
Decked out in their blue and white shirts (I deliberately chose Chelsea’s colours), the ‘Displaced Stars XI’ took to the field to the cheers of the thousands gathered in the stadium. HMS Westminster’s XI looked decidedly fitter and better nourished and they took an early lead. But, urged on by their supporters, the Displaced Stars team fought back and soon had equalized. As the game went on in the hot sun the sailors began to wilt and the Sierra Leonean team went on to win comfortably. The crowd were ecstatic. I looked around the thousands of smiling faces in the stadium. For just a couple of hours all the miseries that they had been facing were forgotten as they cheered their team on. It was a special moment.
With so many displaced people, shelter was a major problem. CARE had brought in some plastic sheeting provided by funds from the American government, which were used to help set up temporary camps for the displaced and homeless. But we needed to help the people repair and rebuild their homes. We tracked down one backstreet workshop, Duncan’s, which was making block-making machines. These machines were ideal for Africa – unsophisticated, not expensive (about $250) and cost-effective. One poured some sand and a small amount of cement into a rectangular mould fashioned from iron plates, the mixture was then compressed by pulling down on a long iron lever, and out popped a block that was ten times firmer and more durable than the mud bricks that were usually used in poorer African countries. We commissioned Duncan to make machines for us, which we then distributed to local communities as part of self-help schemes to repair and rebuild their homes. We also made a bulk purchase of bags of cement from the local cement factory, which fortunately had not been destroyed in the fighting, and with each block-making machine we handed out half a dozen bags of cement.
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Health and sanitation was another priority for government. When we had first returned there were hundreds of bodies still lying on the streets or buried superficially in makeshift graves around the city. We had distributed the disinfectant to every one of the 106 zones set up by the Civil Society Movement to spray around the city and thus prevent the outbreaks of disease. DFID now sent in a dozen tipper trucks, septic tank emptiers and water bowsers to help clear the bodies and debris and deliver water. They were handed over to a very grateful Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr Tejan-Jalloh.
Getting the schools open again was a major task. Many of the schools were damaged, some were totally destroyed, and others were being used as centres for displaced people. All were bereft of essential teaching equipment. One of those totally destroyed was the Sierra Leone International Mission school (SLIM) at Old Wharf, Wellington. This school, which catered for 1,400 pupils, half of whom were orphans, had been one of the best schools in Freetown. The rebels had burned it down. We provided funds to build a temporary structure on the compound to allow the school to reopen. In just two weeks, the local community, under the guidance of an energetic Trinidadian building engineer, Joe Ramsahoi, had put up a very impressive building using equipment purchased with the DFID funds. ‘Brother Joe’, as he was known by all the local community, was about the biggest man I had ever met – a mountain of a man. I found it amusing that he should be associated with a project called ‘SLIM’.
The amount of assistance required for the schools was enormous but it was very important to get the children back to school. This would be a further indication of normality returning. I discussed the enormity of the task facing him with the able Minister of Education, Dr Alpha Wurie. With the reaction of the people of Wales in mind to the need for baby clothes, I suggested to him that in addition to the efforts of his government and the official assistance from the international donor community and bodies like UNICEF, we should consider tapping into the generous goodwill of the ordinary people of Britain. The concept of the scheme ‘Help a School in Sierra Leone’ was born.
Atrocities, Diamonds and Diplomacy Page 21