A strong message coming out from London post-Lomé, as evidenced by the Prime Minister’s message, was the need for reconciliation – the people should bury their differences, forgive and forget. This was easier said than done with the memories of January still so vivid, with people walking around without hands and arms and so many still homeless.
Celia was in church one day when she noticed the young man sitting across from her. His shirt sleeve appeared to be flapping around. She then realized that the man’s arm had been amputated at the elbow. His shirt sleeve was flapping because he was trying to make the sign of the cross at the appropriate time in the service, but with a hand that was no longer there. His memory was telling his body to do something to which his body could no longer respond. Celia watched him as he awkwardly made the sign of the cross with his left hand after years of making it with his right. The horrors of what he had gone through were still alive in him.
Encouraged by the Inter-Religious Council the religious leaders in the community were very active in preaching reconciliation within the spirit of the Lomé Peace Agreement. On Sundays and Fridays in churches and mosques around Freetown the message would be preached. On one occasion when the priest had just finished his sermon explaining Lomé and preaching reconciliation, an elderly lady somewhat hesitantly walked up to the front of the church. She turned embarrassingly to face the congregation and said: ‘Please excuse me, I have never done this before, but I feel that I must say something in response to what our priest has just said.’
The packed church went silent as every face turned towards the woman. She went on: ‘I am the headmistress of a school. I have been a teacher for thirty years. In all that time, I have been teaching my children about right and wrong, good and bad. If a child is good, he or she is rewarded; if a child is bad or misbehaves, he or she is punished. But now it seems that if a child misbehaves, he should not be punished, he should be rewarded, indeed, taking the analogy of the ministerial positions under the Lomé Agreement, I should make him a prefect. How can I reverse all that I have been teaching and practising all my life?’
She went back to her pew while the whole congregation sat there stunned.
In a simple but very clear way she was voicing the concerns of so many Sierra Leoneans. They did not want vengeance. They did not want retribution for what they had suffered. They were prepared to forgive, though not forget. But it seemed to them that ‘rewarding the RUF’ was wrong. Sankoh and the RUF did not accept that they had done anything wrong. They either denied committing atrocities, or said it was necessary for the common good.
To Sankoh the Lomé Agreement was not a peace treaty, it was a surrender document. It was the document by which he and the RUF were accepting the surrender of the government, Ecomog, the UN and the international community. They had won and therefore it was right that they should be rewarded with ministerial positions, with control of the diamonds, with houses and cars and with money from DDR. The old schoolteacher was right. If this attitude prevailed among the rebels, there would never be lasting peace.
The blanket amnesty in the Lomé Agreement had encouraged this attitude. To counter the bitter taste of the amnesty the drafters of the agreement had put in a clause setting up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The TRC, as it was called, had been very successful in South Africa under the chairmanship of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and people felt that this was what was needed to help reconciliation in Sierra Leone. But there were faults in this logic. For a start there had been no amnesty initially in South Africa. It was putting the cart before the horse to grant a blanket amnesty and then establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. At first many Sierra Leoneans did not understand the purpose of a TRC and even when it was explained to them, some questioned the need for it. Sierra Leoneans were very fatalistic. They adopted the attitude that if someone had done wrong, then God or Allah would punish them. They cited how bad people like Siaka Stevens had died in misery. Exposing again so soon the details of the atrocities in public forums, they said, would only re-open the wounds when they needed time to heal.
The UN had disassociated itself from the amnesty at the signing of the Lomé Agreement. This would subsequently lead to the establishment of a war crimes court, which would have far-reaching developments.
While the people of Sierra Leone were being persuaded to forgive and forget and efforts were made by us to establish camps for the DDR programme, the rebels continued to breach the Lomé ceasefire by attacking and looting villages. The divisions among the rebels also became more and more self-evident. This was starkly illustrated when a group of the ex-Sierra Leone army, who were hiding out in the Occra Hills just south of Masiaka, took some UN military observers hostage.
The group of UN military, which included five British officers, had gone into the Occra Hills, along with Bishop Biguzzi, some Nigerian Ecomog soldiers and local press reporters, to arrange the disarmament of this rebel group. Having set up the meeting one day, when the UN officers went back the next day, instead of disarming and coming back to Freetown, the rebels surrounded the UN group, disarmed them, trashed their vehicles and marched them back to their camp in the hills. Bishop Biguzzi was released but the rest were detained as hostages. What had started as a positive sign that the Lomé Agreement was working, turned into a disaster. This would be a foretaste of an even more serious event in the following year when British troops were deployed and attracted the attention of the whole world.
The rebel group, who later were to become known as the ‘West Side Boys’, were a particularly nasty bunch. These were the ones who had been closely involved in the attack on Freetown in January. They had names like ‘Junior Lion’, ‘Captain Cut Hand’, ‘Major No Surrender’, and ‘Colonel Leatherboots’. They claimed that they had not signed up to the Lomé Agreement, which offered nothing for them. They said that they did not answer to Foday Sankoh, that their leader was Johnny Paul Koroma, who was still being held hostage by Bockarie in the east of the country.
A team of experienced hostage negotiators were sent out from the UK. Working day and night alongside the UN, Ecomog and the Sierra Leone government, our professional team finally secured the release of all the hostages who, as a bonus, brought out with them some of the abducted children. I met the released hostages when they reached Freetown after dark. They looked drawn and haggard. They had been badly treated by the thugs, many of whom were young kids high on drugs. It was a good end result to what had been an extremely dangerous situation.
Not only did this incident reveal the extent of the divisions among the rebels, it brought back into the picture Johnny Paul Koroma. As part of the negotiations to secure the release of the hostages, Bockarie had been persuaded by Charles Taylor to release Koroma and allow him to go to Monrovia. Sankoh flew from Lomé to Monrovia, and there the two of them had their very first meeting. It was somewhat frosty but led to the return of both of them to Sierra Leone.
Almost three months to the day of the signing of the Lomé Peace Agreement Sankoh and Koroma flew back to Freetown to be given a fanfare greeting by the world’s press. A group of us were assembled at the Hill Station Lodge to meet them.
Koroma must have wondered what was going on. His footnote in Sierra Leone’s history had been written as the leader of the ill-fated AFRC. In Kailahun his life was literally hanging by a thread at the whim of the psychopathic Sam Bockarie. Koroma later admitted to me that he was not sure whether each and every day with the RUF might be his last. And then he was plucked out of obscurity to share centre stage with Sankoh in front of the world’s media. The experience had a profound effect on Koroma, and this showed immediately when he returned with Sankoh.
The two of them were invited to say something to the press on the steps outside the presidential lodge with the assembled group of dignitaries in the background. Sankoh spoke first. Dressed in African robes and looking somewhat dishevelled, he stumbled hesitantly through a written prepared text. He said that he supported peace and looked for th
e full implementation of the Lomé Peace Agreement. Reacting in a hostile way to a question from the press about when he would release the abducted children, he denied that the RUF were holding any ‘adoptees’.
By contrast, Koroma stepped forward, dressed in a natty Western suit, and speaking off the cuff he said he was pleased to be back. He regretted what had happened in the past and committed himself to peace in his country. Koroma spoke clearly and positively. Everyone was impressed. Sankoh had not wanted to share the stage with Koroma. The Occra Hills incident had forced this upon him and he must have already started to regret it.
With the return of Sankoh and Koroma, hopes were renewed that at long last the peace process, especially the DDR programme, could get underway. Both men became members of the national committee chaired by the President to oversee the programme, of which I was also a member representing the international donor community. The committee met once a week. Sometimes the meetings dragged on for over four hours. Although President Kabbah went out of his way to flatter and cajole Sankoh at these meetings, the latter was clearly uncomfortable in such a setting. He could not debate and discuss in committee. He was used to either being treated as a Messiah by his boys in the bush, or to receiving dignitaries in suites of five-star hotels. To hide his discomfort he would either slouch on a sofa and pretend to fall asleep, or deliver a noisy diatribe against all those present. Kabbah just sat there and took it, as did most of the other ministers present. The only people who spoke up against Sankoh were Joe Demby, the Vice President, and Sam Hinga Norman, the Deputy Minister of Defence.
At one meeting at the end of the year Sankoh launched into an attack complaining that no one was helping him and the RUF as set out in the Lomé Accord. The international community was equally castigated. He said that the only thing that he had received from the community was a satellite telephone from the British, and even that did not work. I stopped him in full flow and pointed out, ‘You seem to forget that £20,000 of British tax payers’ money has been used to furnish the house you are living in.’
Sankoh retorted: ‘That’s a waste of money. The bed is not even comfortable.’
I shouted back at him: ‘Then give it back!’
President Kabbah tried to calm things down but he was ignored as the attack switched to Norman and then Demby, who both shouted back at Sankoh. Sankoh shut up and switched back to his sleeping mode. It was interesting that at the end of the meeting he made a point of coming up to Sam Norman and me to mend fences with us. It was the classic case of the school yard bully. The more you try to appease them, the more they demand and intimidate. The way to deal with a bully is to punch him on the nose, not to offer him sweets. Sankoh only showed any respect to those whom he could not bully. He had no respect for the President or for any of his ministers.
Despite this, many people continued to flatter Sankoh, who revelled in this attention. My American colleague would go round to his house and lamely sit outside for hours waiting to be received. The endless succession of visitors to Sierra Leone all wanted to go and call on him. Sankoh treated them all with much disdain. He was particularly insulting to Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State. She flew in for the day and a meeting was set up. However, Sankoh ignored her and flew off to Kailahun to see his boys. He said that if Albright wanted to see him, she should come to Kailahun. The Americans sent a special helicopter to pick him up, and then gave him $1 million for his Minerals Commission.
Soon after Sankoh and Koroma’s return a symbolic weapons destruction ceremony took place on the hockey field at Wilberforce barracks in front of a large public crowd. Groups of Sierra Leone army, CDF and RUF marched onto the field and handed over a motley collection of guns and rifles to the UN and Ecomog representatives. All the key players were there – Kabbah, Sankoh, Koroma and Norman. I sat next to Koroma in the stands overlooking the field. He was dressed in flowing white African robes, to symbolize, he told me, that he was now demobilized and no longer a soldier, though he still supported the army. I noted that what the army was presently demanding had changed little from what we had discussed back in May 1997. I asked Koroma whether he regretted that those negotiations had not been more successful. Candidly he admitted that it had been his biggest mistake to invite the RUF to join him.
‘They were the problem then, and they are still the problem,’ he said.
In my speech at the ceremony I had referred to previous speeches I had made, when I had described the dance of Sierra Leone as ‘one step forward, two steps back’, and said that hopefully the day’s ceremony would mark the change in direction. As important as the DDR programme was and the need to help the ex-combatants, I warned that we should not forget the thousands of innocent victims of the fighting who remained in the displaced camps. There was no DDR programme for them. They just wanted to return to their homes and get on with their lives. All they asked for was to live in peace and security in a gun-free environment.
The symbolic destruction ceremony raised the public’s hopes that the peace agreement was at last underway. But it was just a gesture. The very members of the RUF who had disarmed at the ceremony were later seen carrying weapons again around Sankoh’s house, which was situated close to the High Commission offices. Taxi drivers used to sarcastically refer to the track leading up to Sankoh’s house from the main road as ‘Cut-hand Junction’.
The day after the symbolic ceremony there were further clashes in the bush between the RUF and ex-SLA, puncturing the euphoria of the previous day’s disarmament. It epitomized the mood swings that one experienced in Sierra Leone – one day up, next day down.
Sankoh continued to prevaricate over the implementation of the Lomé Accord. He continued to pick and choose which bits of the Accord he would follow. He went ahead with the appointment of his ministers, though it was a struggle to find members of the RUF who were capable of performing the duties of a minister. In the RUF anyone who could do ‘joined up writing’ was considered an intellectual. He selected Mike Lamin to be the Minister of Trade and Industry, Peter Vandi, the Minister of Lands and Housing, and Paulo Bangura, the Minister of Energy, and, on the recommendation of Johnny Paul Koroma, Jomo-Jalloh to be the Minister of Culture and Tourism. They were a sorry bunch and hardly improved the quality of what was already a rather weak cabinet.
At a ceremony at State House attended by all the Cabinet and members of the diplomatic corps, and eventually Sankoh, Lamin made a short speech of acceptance on behalf of all the new members of government. Mike Lamin had been one of Sankoh’s most senior field commanders and was obviously a person he trusted. But Lamin was scarcely someone who would encourage bona fide international businessmen to trade or invest in the country. As with so many of the RUF he looked emaciated in his ill-fitting suit and dark sunglasses. Lamin had been sent to negotiate with the SLA rebels in the Occra Hills, where they had buried him up to his neck in the ground and injected him with dirty water. There were doubts whether he would survive this punishment. Before the end of the year he went to the United States to represent Sierra Leone at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) conference in Seattle. Other delegates were amazed to see such a person representing Sierra Leone. At a meeting in Washington with the Sierra Leone community organized by the Sierra Leone Embassy he was nearly lynched by the angry Sierra Leoneans.
The other new ministers were no better.
Following the Lomé Accord the United Nations had passed a further resolution allowing for an expanded UN presence with an enhanced mandate to implement the Accord. The small team of UN military observers, UNOMSIL, was to become a 6,000-strong UN force, UNAMSIL. There was much discussion over how Ecomog and UNAMSIL would operate side by side. President Obasanjo of Nigeria had told Kofi Anan that his government could no longer afford to bear the financial costs of the Ecomog force. The UN Security Council took this to mean that the UN should bring in other troops to help out. What Obasanjo really wanted was for the UN to pick up the tab of the Ecomog operation. The UN was seen as a ‘gravy tr
ain’ to subsidize the West African troops. There were heated debates over who should contribute the extra UN forces. Finally it was decided that three of the Nigerian Ecomog battalions should be ‘re-hatted’ – i.e. they should become part of the UNAMSIL force and wear the famous blue berets of the UN. Both Ghana and Guinea also insisted on getting a share of the UN coffers. The remainder of the UN force would be made up of two Indian battalions and a Kenyan battalion. Next came an argument over who should command the force. The Nigerians argued that it should be one of their generals as they were contributing so many of the force. The UN insisted that it should be an Indian general. A compromise was struck by accepting an Indian commander, Major General V.K. Jetley, but by replacing Francis Okelo, the UN Secretary General’s representative with a Nigerian, Ambassador Olu Adeniji, who had successfully completed a similar assignment for the UN in the Central African Republic. Adeniji proved to be an experienced and shrewd operator. After distinguishing himself with the UN in Sierra Leone, he would return to Nigeria as Foreign Minister and later was appointed Ecowas Secretary General.
The relationship on the ground between the UN and Ecomog became strained. Obasanjo had replaced the impressive Mujakpero as Ecomog Force Commander with Major-General Kpamber. Mujakpero had been Director of the Nigerian Army Legal Services at the time when Obasanjo had been arrested and tried by the Abacha government. Some felt that Obasanjo was harbouring a grudge and, although Mujakpero had only been in the job for a few months, he was sent back to Nigeria. In the short time he had been in charge of Ecomog he had displayed a welcome firmness in dealing with Sankoh and the RUF, and many regretted his departure.
Kpamber had previously served as the number two of the Ecomog force in Sierra Leone and had also served with Ecomog in Liberia, where he had reportedly struck up a friendship with Charles Taylor. As Taylor was seen as the architect of Sierra Leone’s problems, Kpamber’s appointment was viewed with concern by many Sierra Leoneans. Many of the Ecomog troops had not been home to Nigeria for over three years and some of the officers were now engaged in commercial deals in Sierra Leone. There were mixed views over whether Ecomog should pull out. I had much sympathy for the Ecomog position. Nigeria had carried the burden to help restore democracy in Sierra Leone for too long, and practically on her own. Many of their troops had lost their lives in the cause. However, I also shared the concerns of many, including President Kabbah, that the continued Nigerian presence would not help his ambition to root out corruption in his country. Corruption was rife throughout Africa, but Nigeria had made it into an art form.
Atrocities, Diamonds and Diplomacy Page 25