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First published on 30 October 2000 in FSL Vol. 5 No. 3 |
For Focus,
pursuing the military option as a final solution for the civil war in Sierra Leone
is a dead-end and, in our view, not attainable. Current evidence and past
experience in both our country and other parts of the world,
point to that conclusion as inevitable. As a nation
that is ravaged by warfare, we need to re- examine our consciences and seek
answers to some lingering questions: How come after all our previous
expeditions - Ecomog, UN, British/Westside saga, etc., we are still so far
away from establishing a peaceful and normal Sierra Leone? How is it that the
RUF and their allies still have the stomach to meet and survive our very best
efforts? Partly
in defiance of the overwhelming military threats around them and partly in
opposition, and possibly due, to the starkly timid and irresolute political
edifice that masquerades as a government in Freetown, RUF and allied forces
have shown a willingness to fight to the death and carry with them the
hapless civilians who live in their areas of operation. Thus without
negotiation and a peaceful end to fighting, these areas will only be taken
with the loss of not just rebel lives (which will no doubt satisfy some,
possibly most Sierra Leoneans!) but also innocent civilians who have been
caught behind rebel lines. It is not right that those who have become
victims, through no fault of their own, should also be made to pay with their
lives simply in order to make the rest of us feel at ease. Presently, the
reality is that there is yet no (existing) peace in Sierra Leone to enforce
or to keep. This probably begs the question, what is the role of the UN? But there is still peace to be made
…and had, which must be created from scratch. It cannot be created by force.
Although the use of force can potentially help to reclaim the vast swathes of
territory currently held by the RUF and its allies, it will do nothing to
blunt, or win, the minds and hearts of those who are dealing such terrible
body blows to Sierra Leone's nationhood and very existence. Moreover, we will
have to live with these people afterwards. New thinking
needs to be done. More effort should be committed to the search for peace
than before, through new and transparent political initiatives that are just
as fully resourced as the ongoing preparations for warfare. The pages of this edition put forward the
case for an interim government, to help the country focus its energy and
resources on broadly based objectives for peace and unity. Peace creation
requires us to seek to transform the conflict objectively - through
explaining and understanding its origins, the fact that it so readily spread
out to most parts of the country and refuses to go away, and the consequences
that it has wrought for everyone. This must be done without the emotionalism
and the (sometimes) deliberate obfuscation of the last ten years. If, as was
often claimed, RUF leader Corporal Foday Sankoh was the main obstacle to
peace, why is it that now that he is at least for the moment out of the way,
it has not been possible to go all out and broker a new peace deal with
everyone else, even if new political concessions have to be made? What is so
repugnant about having a peace 'deal' in Sierra Leone when virtually every
current and past conflict in the world has been attended by deals of every
description? Take for examples: Northern Ireland where known bombers and
killers were freed from jail to facilitate an end to the 40 years of terror
in that country; the current Israeli-Palestinian flare-up which is bringing
all kinds of closet peace makers out of the woodwork; the glaring absence of
disapproval by the international community which turned a blind eye and,
therefore, implicitly encouraged Libyan Colonel Mu'amar Quadafi's payment of
ransom (or as some people charged, 'blood') money to Philippino rebels for
the release of European hostages; then again, some European /NATO leaders
only this October were even prepared, for the sake of peace and democracy in
former Yugoslavia, to let the former Serbian leader President Milosevic go to
a safe haven if he would concede to the 'democratic' wish of his country’s
electorate. Sierra Leone
too needs a peace deal, but not a sell-out. The Lomé Agreement tried to do
just that, but it was weak in that it did not include all parties to the
conflict. It was not appeasement, as was alleged. The violence had to be
controlled and eventually brought to an end. At least under Lomé the rebels
were going to be made accountable with the task of controlling the excesses
of their fighters, which Sierra Leoneans could not make them do except upon
outright military victory. But Lomé was derailed, in part, by meddlesome
individuals and institutions. Undeniably, there has to be a trade-off for
ending the fighting. There was a
time when Sam 'Mosquito' Bockarie was the
problem and, deservedly, everybody's hate figure. Then he was removed from
the scene, not by the bellicose posturing of our over-inflated military egos
but by the RUF itself and the very people to whom he was a hero. Lt Col Johnny
Paul Koroma and the AFRC also flirted with the RUF for a while but see, now,
what a proactive disciple for peace in Sierra Leone he has become! He is
doing so, despite the personal tragedy of the brutal, barbaric and totally
unjust execution of his elder brother and twenty-three other military
officers in October 1998, by a vengeful and uncompassionate President Kabbah
and his government. People talk about training a new army but never mention
the fact that the cream of the country's skilled and experienced officers was
wiped out in that mad fit of revenge. Koroma for his part is even now being
buffeted on all sides by whispering accusations of betrayal from some of the
men he commanded, including surviving members of the group that staged the
coup against Kabbah in May 1997 who released him from jail to lead them. His
crime is that he has opted, wisely in our view, to work for peace with and
for the very man (Kabbah) who, they charge, destroyed the lives of their
colleagues. Koroma's courage should be applauded and rewarded by him being
brought more prominently into a renewed and more focused quest for peace. We must also
mention the thousands of civil servants who were, and still are being,
victimised by the unjust and vengeful acts of the restored Kabbah government
which, upon its return, selfishly and recklessly embarked on a witch hunt
against those who, in legitimate exercise of their personal freedom of
choice, had not found it sensible, possible, or even necessary to join the
fugitive government on its flight to Guinea following the May 1997 coup. We should
approach and win them over despite all that has happened before. If need be
we must cajole, entice and allure them – in fact do whatever it takes our
human ingenuity – to bring all of these people on board the peace process. It is not easy to
make peace. It will be a protracted process. That is why, we presume, there
is impatience among Sierra Leoneans who see nothing else but the use of force
as their only recourse. Many have suffered in this war and most of them are
direct victims of it. But we must continue to prevail on them and their inner
reserves of goodwill, to engage in a new peace process for genuine
reconciliation. We must educate them, and ourselves too, because it will be
both a learning process and an experiment in human relations for everybody. Those who now
see British ‘re-colonisation’ as the answer to their problems are
shortsighted and selfish. They only live for now and have no stake in the
future. But they must remember that Sierra Leone's independence is not up for
grabs. It is a legacy bequeathed to us, which was fought with the sweat and
tears of a previous generation, some of whom are still around. It is
therefore not for them to relinquish it. We foresee that, come the day when
there is realisation of the lack of control over their own country (and
resources), the present youth of Sierra Leone who have been effectively
deprived of a decent and peaceful childhood, will spare no effort to reassert
their nationhood in a manner reminiscent of the earlier struggles of their
forefathers for independence. Happily, the British have vigorously denied any
suggestion of re-colonisation. There is absolutely no reason to doubt that
the present British government’s intention and determination is solely to
help Sierra Leone attain peace. So, by all
means, let the international community continue to take keen, active and
supportive interest in Sierra Leone as they have done before. But let them
also encourage the Sierra Leonean people themselves to come to a homegrown
solution of their divisions, of which this war is a tragic consequence. It
must be a solution that draws upon our traditional methods of conflict
resolution, deriving from the society and the communities whence the rebels
originally came. This is the pragmatic approach to peace in which we expect
the government of the day to take the lead. On the contrary, they seem keener
to do only the things that ensure their permanent grip on power. Nowadays, the
Kabbah government is more interested in taking over the mines than anything
else. The British seem to agree with this and seem to be working zealously to
this agenda. What if that too fails? And since no one wants to address this
question, we must assume that failure is not contemplated. So then they take
the mines. What next? Whose interest will the mines serve? How would the
expedition itself be paid for, now or in future? No doubt, with the proceeds
from exploiting the mines! But how much of that will then be left for the
citizens of Sierra Leone and for rebuilding their country and economy? The fact that everyone wants victory explains why, during the
last three months of the rainy season when there has been a dramatic lull in
the fighting and the incidence of mutilations and amputations greatly
reduced, no serious sustained effort has been made to come up with new
political initiatives. No one, but for the brave efforts of
the struggling Commission for the Consolidation of Peace, has been minded
enough to capitalise on this brief respite from violence to instigate
dialogue and break the political (never mind, the military) impasse. Instead
more resources and effort, including manpower, have been put into the
reinforcement of battle lines. Now there is fresh panic as word spreads
around about a growing deficit in the ground strength of the UN force, with
Indian and Jordanian troops reportedly calling it a day. This has added more
pressure on the British to make their presence not only more visible but also
permanent and in greater numbers. The expectation is that “they should go in
and finish the rebels”. If only that were possible! We can’t keep
on expecting others to do things for us when we do not show sufficient care,
concern and appreciation for our own predicament. Any observing stranger to
Sierra Leone very quickly comes to the conclusion that the real problem of
our civil war lies within and between Sierra Leoneans themselves. We do not
like each other. Focus again affirms that violence never pays
and only, always, serves as a temporary cure. The attendant causes of civil
strife remain intact and soon reinvigorate and reinvent themselves once the
dust of civil war settles down. Among the present authorities in Sierra
Leone, there is a lack of new initiatives to motivate the population into the
direction of peace and reconciliation. It is a lethargy that is aided in
large measure by a miasma of incoherent and knee-jerk policies that point
more towards fire fighting than a long-term strategy to forestall the
resurgence of violence in the future.
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