A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

by Ishmael Beah

  May 1997 Kabbah is overthrown by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a military junta headed by Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Paul Koroma, and the junta invites the RUF to participate in the new government.

  March 1998 The AFRC is ousted by the Nigerian-led ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) forces, and the democratically elected government of President Kabbah is reinstated.

  January 1999 The RUF launches another attempt to overthrow the government. Fighting reaches parts of Freetown again, leaving thousands dead and wounded. ECOMOG forces drive back the RUF attack several weeks later.

  July 1999 The Lomé Peace Accord is signed between President Kabbah and Foday Sankoh of the RUF. The agreement grants the rebels seats in a new government and all forces a general amnesty from prosecution. The government has largely ceased to function effectively, however, and at least half of its territory remains under rebel control. In October, the UN Security Council establishes the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to help implement the peace agreement.

  April/May 2000 Violence and rebel activity return, most notably when RUF forces hold hundreds of UNAMSIL personnel hostage, taking possession of their arms and ammunition. In May, members of the RUF shoot and kill as many as twenty people demonstrating outside Sankoh’s house in Freetown against RUF violations. As a result of these events, which violate the peace agreement, Sankoh and other senior members of the RUF are arrested, and the group is stripped of its position in the government. In early May, a new cease-fire agreement is signed in Abuja. However, disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) does not resume, and fighting continues.

  May 2000 The situation in the country has deteriorated to such an extent that British troops are deployed in Operation Palliser to evacuate foreign nationals. They stabilize the situation and are the catalyst for a cease-fire and the end of the civil war.

  2001 A second Abuja Peace Agreement is signed to set the stage for a resumption of DDR on a wide scale. This brings about a significant reduction in hostilities. As disarmament progresses, the government begins to reassert its authority in formerly rebel-held areas.

  January 2002 President Kabbah declares the civil war officially over.

  May 2002 President Kabbah and his party, the SLPP, win landslide victories in the presidential and legislative elections. Kabbah is reelected for a five-year term.

  July 28, 2002 The British withdraw a 200-man military contingent that had been in the country since the summer of 2000, leaving behind a 105-man-strong team to train the Sierra Leone army.

  Summer 2002 Both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Special Court begin to function. The Lomé Accord calls for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to provide a forum for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations to tell their stories, and to facilitate genuine reconciliation. Subsequently, the Sierra Leonean government asks the UN to help set up a Special Court for Sierra Leone, which will try those who “bear the greatest responsibility for the commission of crimes against humanity, war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law, as well as crimes under relevant Sierra Leonean law within the territory of Sierra Leone since November 30, 1996.”

  November 2002 UNAMSIL begins a gradual reduction in personnel, from a peak level of 17,500.

  October 2004 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission releases its final report to the government, although widespread public distribution is delayed until August 2005 because of editing and printing problems. The government releases a white paper in June 2005, accepting some and rejecting or ignoring a number of other recommendations. Civil society groups dismiss the response as too vague and continue to criticize the government for its failure to follow up on the report’s recommendations.

  December 2005 The UNAMSIL peacekeeping mission formally ends, and the UN Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL) is established, assuming a peace-building mandate.

  March 25, 2006 After discussions with the newly elected Liberian president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria says that Liberia is free to take Charles Taylor, who has been living in exile in Nigeria, into custody. Two days later, Taylor attempts to flee Nigeria, but is apprehended and transferred to Freetown under UN guard by nightfall on March 29. He is currently incarcerated in a UN jail, awaiting trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) on eleven counts of war crimes.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I never thought that I would be alive to this day, much less that I would write a book. During this second lifetime of mine, a lot of remarkable individuals have given meaning to my life, opened their hearts and doors to me, supported and believed in me and all my undertakings. Without their presence, this book wouldn’t have been possible. My immense gratitude to my family: my mother, Laura Simms, for her tireless work to bring me here, for her love and advice, for providing me a home when I had none, and for allowing me to rest and enjoy the last moments of what was left of my childhood; my aunts, Heather Greer, Fran Silverberg, and Shantha Bloemen, for your good listening, kind hearts, generosity, love, emotional support, all the meaningful moments, and everything; my sister, Erica Henegen, for your trust, honesty, and love, and for all those insightful long nights we spent grappling with the reasons for our existence; and Bernard Matambo, my brother, for your friendship and intelligence, for our common dreams and unremitting strength to carry on and enjoy every moment of our lives, and for making all those long nights at the library meaningful and unforgettable. Thanks, Chale. My cousin Aminata and my childhood friend Mohamed, I am so very happy to have you back in my life and indebted to you for bringing those happy memories of a past that you and I share.

  I am indebted to Marge Scheuer and the entire Scheuer family for your ceaseless financial support, which enabled me to complete my studies and accomplish things beyond my dreams. Thank you so much. My gratitude to everyone at the Blue Ridge and Four Oaks Foundations, to Joseph Cotton and Tracey for looking after me as your little brother and setting me straight, to Mary Sobel for checking in and making sure all is well, and to Lisa, for everything.

  I am very grateful to a lot of professors at Oberlin College. Professor Laurie McMillin gave me the confidence I needed to start writing seriously. I am indebted to Professor Dan Chaon for his patience, tutelage, confidence, honesty, friendship, and support in making this book a reality. Thank you, Dan, you taught me well and made sure that I completed this book. My gratitude to Professor Sylvia Watanabe, for all your support, friendship, and good counsel, and for your unceasing quest to enrich my creative life; and to Professors Yakubu Saaka and Ben Schiff, for your good advice, always.

  My dear friends Paul Fogel and Yvette Chalom: thank you for your unceasing care for my well-being, for your advice, for opening your house to me during the writing of this book, and for being two of my early readers—your comments helped tremendously to shape this work. I am very grateful for everything. Thank you, Priscilla Hayner, Jo Becker, and Pam Bruns, for your encouragement, friendship, and insights on the earlier drafts.

  I am very lucky to have Ira Silverberg as my agent. Thank you for all your insightful advice, your friendship, and your patience with explaining the workings of the publishing world. Without you I would have gotten easily frustrated. My editor, Sarah Crichton, thank you so very much for all your hard work. I am grateful for your honesty, your careful and compassionate treatment of this deeply personal and emotionally charged material, and all the gossip before and after each meeting that helped to lighten things. I love working with you and I learned so much from this process. Thank you to Rose Lichter-Marck for following up and making sure I didn’t procrastinate, and my gratitude to everyone at Farrar, Straus and Giroux for all your hard work and friendship.

  My friends Melvin Jimenez, Matt Moore, Lauren Hyman, and Marielle Ramsay, thanks for your friendship, for keeping in touch, and for understanding that I needed time away from everyone to complete this work. To everyone who has opened their
hearts or doors to me, thank you so very much.

  Last, I am very grateful to Danièle Fogel for all your emotional support: your love, patience, and understanding during the writing of this book. Without your friendship and care, it would have been more difficult to embark on this journey, especially while at Oberlin College.

  SARAH CRICHTON BOOKS

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

  Copyright © 2007 by Ishmael Beah

  All rights reserved

  Published in 2007 by Sarah Crichton Books / Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following previously published material:

  “O.P.P.,” words and music by Vincent Brown, Keir Gist, and Anthony Criss (interpolates elements of “ABC,” by Deke Richards, Frederick Perren, Alphonso Mizell, and Berry Gordy, Jr.), copyright © 1991 by WB Music Corp., Naughty Music, and Jobette Music, Inc. All rights on behalf of itself and Naughty Music administered by WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Beah, Ishmael, 1980–

  A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier / by Ishmael Beah.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “Sarah Crichton Books.”

  ISBN: 978-0-374-10523-5

  1. Beah, Ishmael, 1980–2. Sierra Leone—History—Civil War, 1991—Personal narratives. 3. Sierra Leone—History—Civil War, 1991—Participation, Juvenile—Biography. 4. Child soldiers—Sierra Leone—Biography. 5. Sierra Leone—Social conditions—1961– I. Title.

  DT516.828.B43 A3 2007

  966.404—dc22

  [B]

  2006017101

  www.fsgbooks.com

  *Sneakers.

  *Single.

  *Flip-flops.

  *A respectful term placed before the first name of adults.

  *A grated and dried food made from cassava.

  *A place outside villages where people processed coffee or other crops.