Atrocities, Diamonds and Diplomacy

by Peter Penfold

  On 5 July President Kabbah addressed the nation. He told his people that he had been invited to fly to Lomé by President Obasanjo to finalize a ‘comprehensive peace agreement’. He said:

  Even today, as I prepare to travel to Lomé, the RUF continues to make unreasonable demands. I am sure many of you believe that the government has given the RUF far too much already, and that the RUF has given very little or nothing at all. Yet, they continue to make demands, prolonging the suffering of our people and delaying the start of reconciliation and the healing process. However, I have no doubt you will agree with me that after so much pain and suffering, after so much destruction of life and property, we need to exercise patience and persevere in our search for lasting peace.

  The die was cast and President Kabbah flew off to Lomé. He took with him an 8-year-old little girl called Mamounia, who had had her arm amputated by the rebels and whose mother had been murdered.

  On 7 July, in front of the world’s media, President Kabbah and Foday Sankoh signed the Lomé Peace Agreement. Both were dressed in flowing African robes. Kabbah held little Mamounia in his arms. She was clutching a teddy bear, one of those that had been sent out by the UK charity Teddies for Tragedies that we had been distributing around the displaced camps and children’s hospitals.

  The agreement gave the RUF four ministerial posts in an expanded Cabinet of eighteen, and four deputy minister slots, plus the promise of various ambassadorial and public service positions. All combatants and collaborators were granted absolute and free pardon for any actions up to the signing of the agreement. The constitution was to be reviewed and new mandates to be sought for Ecomog and UNOMSIL. All prisoners and abductees were to be released, and all mercenaries were to be withdrawn. Disarmament would commence immediately. Among the bodies to be established were a Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP), a Council of Elders and Religious Leaders, a National Electoral Commission and a Human Rights Commission, all having RUF participation.

  The RUF was also to be accorded every facility to transform itself into a political party. Sankoh and the RUF had achieved far more than anyone expected. But there was even more. As well as receiving a specific pardon, Sankoh was to be Chairman of a new Commission for the ‘Management of Strategic Resources, National Reconstruction and Development’. This was a euphemism for putting him in charge of the diamonds; and the position was to have the same status as the Vice President.

  There was a hitch at the last minute during the signing ceremony. Alongside the signatures of Kabbah and Sankoh were to be the signatures of the ‘moral guarantors’ – the United Nations, Ecowas, the OAU and the Commonwealth. However, in the light of the recent Human Rights Watch report and Mary Robinson’s comments during her visit, there was growing concern over the ‘blanket amnesty’ in the agreement for all the combatants. Francis Okelo was told by his New York headquarters that the UN was not prepared to put its signature to the document. Having overseen the negotiations, this was a grave embarrassment to him. The issue was resolved by allowing Okelo to sign the document but only after adding a disclaimer to the terms of the amnesty.

  The Sierra Leone reaction to the peace agreement was mixed. There was some rejoicing on the streets of Freetown but it was hardly euphoric. Many Sierra Leoneans felt that they had been betrayed by their president and the international community.

  The international community was more positive about the agreement and again, one of the first to issue a welcoming statement was Tony Blair:

  I believe that this agreement offers the people of Sierra Leone the prospect of an end to the terrible suffering they have endured over the past eight years of conflict. The people of Sierra Leone now have a chance to rebuild their lives and their country in peace and stability and in a spirit of national reconciliation. Britain will help them in their efforts to sustain and develop their democracy.

  I found it difficult to share the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm for the Lomé Peace Agreement. I felt that the international community, especially those bastions of democracy, Britain and the United States, had acted disgracefully in forcing through the Accord. Sierra Leone’s infant democracy had been undermined. Against the publicly and privately expressed wishes of the people, a power-sharing agreement had been reached in Lomé. The barrel of the gun (combined with the most horrific atrocities and human rights violations) and not the ballot box had achieved positions of political power. After signing the Lomé Agreement it was expected that Kabbah and Sankoh would fly back to Freetown together. But Kabbah flew back alone, leaving ‘Vice President Sankoh’ to continue to enjoy the luxury of his hotel suite in Togo.

  Chapter Eleven

  No More Guns, No More Killing

  In the immediate aftermath of the signing of the Lomé Peace Agreement there was an unreal period of inactivity in Sierra Leone. The agreement had called for the disarmament of all the combatants and had set a totally unrealistic deadline of two months for this to be fully completed. In fact, it became increasingly apparent that, notwithstanding Sankoh’s signature, the RUF were not disarming. They told the various United Nations military observers who were in the country to observe the DDR programme that they had not received orders to disarm from Sankoh. He remained out of the country enjoying the hospitality of the Togolese. To help give things a push, Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, paid a visit towards the end of July.

  This would be the first official visit to Sierra Leone since the signing of the Lomé Agreement. It was the first British ministerial visit since Tony Lloyd’s brief visit in March 1998 and the first visit by a British Cabinet minister for many years. After its success in the 1997 General Election the new Labour government had created the Department for International Development (DFID) as a separate ministry to replace the old ODA, which had been part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Clare Short had replaced the Tory minister Baroness Lynda Chalker, who had established such a good relationship with so many African politicians. For those of us serving in the Diplomatic Service in Africa, the change had both advantages and disadvantages. As part of the FCO Lynda Chalker had been responsible both for Britain’s overseas aid programme and for the UK’s policy towards Africa and it was difficult to separate the two. However, as a separate minister, especially with Cabinet rank, Clare Short carried far more clout in government and she had quickly established her credentials as an energetic minister, even though she did not conform to the image of ‘New Labour’, much to the annoyance of the Labour spin doctors.

  Soon after her appointment Clare Short announced that her major priority was the elimination of poverty in the world. She also recognized that the problems of poverty and security were intertwined. This was one of the clear lessons of Sierra Leone, which now two years on since I had first arrived, had slipped to the bottom of the UNDP’s poverty chart for the world. I had told President Kabbah that perhaps it was now better to be the poorest country in the world instead of the second poorest because now there was only one way to go - upwards.

  Clare Short had been the MP for Birmingham Ladywood since 1983. Prior to that, she had been a civil servant in the Home Office. She had a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense, sharp-talking minister. I was looking forward to meeting her. She arrived from Nigeria with a small team, which included Brian Thomson, the head of DFID’s West and North African Department. I met them at Lungi Airport and we jumped into the Ukrainian-piloted helicopter across to Freetown.

  In a packed programme lasting two days and nights she met President Kabbah three times, addressed meetings of Parliament and the paramount chiefs and visited DFID-supported community projects in the devastated parts of Freetown, plus the Connaught Hospital and the amputees camp at Murray Town. At a meeting in Freetown she addressed representatives of around a hundred civil societies. She also met with the Ecomog Force Commander, Felix Mujakpero, UNOMSIL officers and NGO representatives.

  I was keen to take her out of Freetown so we drove up to Masiaka, 50 miles north
of the capital. This once-thriving town of over 15,000 inhabitants had been totally destroyed by the rebels as they advanced on their way to Freetown. Hardly a building had been left standing and all of the population had fled either to Freetown or into the surrounding bush.

  With the signing of the Lomé Accord some people had started drifting back. On the trip we took with us the Sierra Leone minister, Momodou Koroma, and Paramount Chief Kompa Bomboi of Masiaka. The latter was now displaced and living in Freetown and this was his first visit back to his chiefdom since the fighting. We walked around the town looking at all the destroyed buildings – the school, the church, the mosque. There were emotional scenes as the people saw their chief again. A large crowd gathered outside the remains of his burnt down house in the hot afternoon sun. There was little shade and not one chair in the whole of the town on which Clare Short could sit as the usual speeches of welcome were made. People related the terror that they had faced as the rebels had killed, looted and burned indiscriminately. There were thousands of the Masiaka population still unaccounted for, especially children. The people welcomed the Lomé Peace Agreement but voiced concern over the sincerity of the rebels. They were desperate for help in rebuilding their homes and their lives. No help was coming from government or the international community. Clare Short made no false promises but her visit gave them hope. It also helped demonstrate to her the importance of getting the paramount chiefs back to their chiefdoms as one of the keys to encouraging the people to return to their homes and villages and to promoting development and reconciliation. I had advocated a DFID programme to achieve this and shortly after her return to the UK she approved a £2 million programme to help rebuild the chiefs’ houses and court barres – the traditional gathering places for the people.

  We had met some of the displaced on the way up to Masiaka, at the makeshift camp at Waterloo on the outskirts of Freetown. Waterloo was at the gateway to the peninsula and therefore the gateway to Freetown. In the olden days it had been the site of a major train station, hence its name. Thousands had taken shelter in and around the old community building, which had been destroyed in the fighting. Inside the building pools of stagnant water formed by the rain that came through the roof were dotted around the floor, providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Some people had assembled dilapidated structures made of straw outside. David Hill and I had visited the camp back in March and had distributed some bags of rice. We had been one of the first outside agencies to do so. Little had been done to alleviate the plight of the people, whose numbers had trebled since our previous visit. Because there was still concern about the security situation at that time, the government had insisted that the people should come into the displaced camps in Freetown. However, many of the people had small plots of land in the Waterloo area where they cultivated their crops of cassava, onions and tomatoes. They did not want to lose them as they provided some food to eke out their miserable lives, whereas in the Freetown camps they would be totally dependent upon the uncertain delivery of food stocks from the NGOs.

  Back in Freetown President Kabbah joined us for a quiet supper at the residence. Celia and I had taken to inviting him down to the residence of an evening from time to time. As usual, other than a couple of security guards whom the close protection team looked after, he came alone. Such occasions were virtually the only time he left his residence and I believe he much enjoyed the opportunity to get out and relax. We usually kept the conversation light-hearted. With Clare Short we were able to keep the conversation relaxed, though she was able to probe his thinking on the implementation of the Lomé Peace Agreement and on the other vast range of problems that his government faced. Without other government ministers and officials around, the conversation flowed more freely and frankly compared with the next day’s formal meeting at which the Vice President and ministers were present. On a one-to-one basis one was always impressed by the basic sincerity and goodness of Kabbah, though his weakness and political inexperience sometimes showed through.

  The meeting with the civil society groups was a much livelier affair. Clare Short kept her prepared text to a minimum and allowed for a free flow of comment, questions and answers. In the packed hall of the British Council she was questioned vigorously about the differences in the international reaction to Sierra Leone to that of Kosovo and Northern Ireland. With a manner that was neither patronizing nor condescending, she clearly demonstrated that she empathized with the people and she won them over. She was to remain a firm favourite of the Sierra Leone people.

  As well as giving a push to the DDR programme and hence the Lomé Peace Agreement, we achieved another key decision during Clare Short’s visit. For a long time I had been advocating strong support for the Sierra Leone Police. It was just as important to get the police in shape as it was to help restructure the army. In a democracy, law and order was a civilian responsibility, i.e. the police and, if we were to strengthen the infant democracy, we had to help the police force, which had suffered as much, if not more, than any other democratic institution. Unlike the army, which had to be rebuilt from scratch, there was still a semblance of order and discipline in the police force, but there was still much to be done.

  We had already part-provided and funded a team of Commonwealth Police Advisers to work alongside the Sierra Leone Police but, with President Kabbah’s support, I had argued that we should fund and provide a UK policeman to head the Sierra Leone Police. This was a difficult decision for DFID and HMG. There were concerns that Sierra Leone policemen could be responsible for human rights violations, for which the head of the force would be responsible. There were also the obvious dangers to the individual concerned. However, we argued that unless we effected changes from the top, any efforts to improve the police would be wasted and this could only be done by someone with executive authority, not as an adviser. Kabbah argued that he had no Sierra Leonean with the necessary experience who had the trust and confidence of the people. Clare Short accepted these arguments and during her visit she told the President that we would be supplying a UK officer to head the force. To ensure a speedy appointment, Keith Biddle, a former senior Manchester police officer who was presently heading the Commonwealth team of advisers, was appointed to the post, leaving Adrian Thorne, his deputy, to head the Commonwealth team. It proved to be a very wise decision. Within a short time people saw a marked change in the police under Keith Biddle’s leadership. The police were paid regularly and they looked smart in their new uniforms. Discipline was improved and corruption was weeded out. The police had pride in themselves and the people’s confidence in the force was restored.

  Clare Short’s visit was followed in October by two other important DFID visits. Dr Mukesh Kapila, the head of DFID’s department responsible for conflict and humanitarian assistance, paid his tenth visit. I had known Mukesh since my days in the British Virgin Islands when he was one of the ODA’s medical advisers. Mukesh made things happen and much of what we had achieved with Sierra Leone would not have happened without his involvement. For example, it was a conversation with him when we were in Conakry that had led to the establishment of Radio Democracy and the Sierra Leone Government Office. Now his department was overseeing our inputs to the DDR programme. Mukesh was constantly jetting around the trouble spots of the world, from Bosnia to East Timor. His visits to Sierra Leone, often accompanied by Brian Thompson and Garth Glentworth, the governance institutions adviser, were always invigorating. Mukesh was later seconded to the UN to work in the Sudan.

  Hard on the heels of Mukesh Kapila was the Permanent Secretary of DFID, Sir John Vereker. This wily, experienced top civil servant took a more measured view of DFID’s activities, conscious of the fact that as Permanent Secretary he was responsible for its coffers and its mandate to Parliament. He was an ideal foil to Clare Short and the two of them worked well heading up the DFID team. In his quieter way, he was equally impressive to the Sierra Leone people with whom he met.

  The commitment to Sierra Leone by DFID remained st
rong thanks to such visits. It meant that there was a wealth of experience and first-hand knowledge on Sierra Leone in the DFID headquarters in London, unlike, sadly, the Foreign Office. Robin Cook never visited Sierra Leone all the time I was there; Tony Lloyd’s four-hour visit in 1998 was the only FCO ministerial visit until Peter Hain came for a couple of days in January 2000, just shortly before I left. The Foreign Office officials were not much better. Up to the end of 1999 the total time spent by visiting officials from the African Department was less than seven days, and this supposedly to a country that was taking up fifty per cent of the department’s time. In a different situation this might have been welcome but the officials dealing with Sierra Leone back home seemed to have written their own agenda and did not want to hear views that contradicted their version of events. I was keen therefore to see them in Sierra Leone to expose them to the realities on the ground, so that they could form a more informed view with which to recommend policy to ministers. It was noticeable that even when they came out, they only wanted to see certain people and only sought answers to questions that would support the views they had formulated in London. For example, when the head of the department paid his one and only short visit over a weekend, I could not persuade him to accompany me to a church where he would have gained a good feel for what was going on. One other member of the department was clearly worried about meeting Sierra Leoneans. He brought with him a supply of hand wipes, which he methodically took out and used every time he shook hands with a Sierra Leonean.