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THE recently published
report on Sierra Leone’s 10-year-old conflict ‑ Sierra
Leone: Time for a new military and political strategy ‑ by the International Crisis Group (ICG) is
a dangerous mix: a well-written, authoritative report with some ropey
recommendations. International organisations have periodically issued reports
analysing Sierra Leone’s precarious situation and pronouncing on what should
be done. However, this report stands out for two main reasons. First, is the
nature of the ICG itself. The ICG probably calls itself a non-governmental
organisation. The role call of its board members ‑ from chairman Martti
Ahtisaaria, former president of Finland to Cyril Ramaphosa, former ANC
Secretary-General, to billionaire George Soros to New Labour’s Mo Mowlam –
reads like a role-call of the great, the good, and the extremely influential
across the globe. Thus we ought more accurately to see the ICG as almost an
inter-governmental organisation. This is no mere protest group singing in the
wind. Second, the ICG’s intervention comes at a crucial juncture for Sierra Leone, stepping as it does into something of a policy vacuum. Sierra Leone’s parliament recently granted the government a six-month extension to its rule because the country is in no position to hold free and fair elections. Despite this extension, however, we see no convincing evidence that the government has a clear strategy of how it intends to restore peace and stability to the country after its 10-year ordeal of war and increasing poverty. Meanwhile, Britain is playing a crucial role in the country without any real mandate, either domestically or internationally. Indeed, British policy makers and politicians appear to prefer to quietly get on and do what they can rather than have their role subjected to intense debate, especially before a British election now likely to take place early June. So we should not ignore this report. Credible media commentary trailing the report’s publication suggested that the British government would be “quietly pleased” with the ICG’s report and recommendations, as it says things in public that British authorities themselves would shy away from saying. Perhaps this report is as close we will get to a clear statement of British policy in Sierra Leone. Rule Britannia?
“Having determined that the causes of 'failed
states' are supposedly intrinsic to the domestic domain, Western engagement
is then advocated, in the name of the downtrodden, to save the third world
from themselves, in the interests of international stability and security.
Such interventions, therefore, facilitate the suspension of power and
authority from supposedly deficient entities.” This comment comes from the
organisers of a conference entitled “The Global Constitution of 'Failed
States': the consequences of a new imperialism?” and the ICG’s report
provides cannon fodder for this critical perspective on international
relations. In reading the ICG report, one could be forgiven for assuming that
all players in the conflict are either inept, incompetent or have malign
interests. Except Britain, that is. It is as if the “black box” of Britain’s
policymaking machine has ethics poured in at one end and out pops a benign
intervention in Sierra Leone from the other. Let us give credit where credit is due. The British
intervention helped to stabilise the situation in Sierra Leone at a critical
point. The presence of a few hundred British soldiers provided the civilian
population with far more confidence than any of the many militia – including
those purportedly supporting Sierra Leone’s government – or even the
thousands of United Nations peacekeepers (who know more about the beaches and
night clubs in Freetown than they do about the frontline). Although they have
not achieved this single-handed, the British have succeeded in putting the
RUF on the defensive. A combination of astute psychological warfare and the
occasional devastating strike, as the Westside Boys can attest, have
disconcerted the RUF. At the same time, by West Africa’s lamentable
standards, the Brits are incorruptible ‑ as far as we know they cannot
be bought off with a couple of diamonds. No doubt Britain draws much comfort from the
popularity of its intervention among Sierra Leoneans, particularly Freetown
dwellers. Indeed, Sierra Leoneans’ jest that they would like to vote for Tony
Blair as president has radical pan-Africanists cringing with embarrassment.
Certainly, President Charles Taylor is most unhappy at having the Brits as
regional neighbours, just last week as he went into talks with President
Kabbah in Abuja, he complained that Britain was welcome to recolonise Sierra
Leone but should leave Liberia alone. But Sierra Leoneans’ pro-British stance
actually points to the fundamental problem with the British intervention.
Sierra Leoneans have lost faith in their own leadership in virtually every
state institution. Four years ago after the May 1997 coup in Sierra Leone, Tony
Blair told the British public that his government was backing the good guys.
But the good guys have let them down, something that the ICG report is honest
enough to acknowledge. And British policy is propping them up. So how much of a coherent strategy do the British
really have in Sierra Leone? Britain’s tendency to muddle through these
situations could end up leaving the country in a right pickle. And lest we
forget, Britain has not always bequeathed Sierra Leone benign leaders who go
on to do the country proud. In his historical account of British
decolonisation (Colonial Wars and the
Politics of Third World Nationalism), Frank Füredi details how the
Colonial Office used leading British trade unionists to groom the “moderate”
Siaka Stevens (a scholarship to Ruskin College) and precipitate a split with
the more radical I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson. Britain is once again in deep in Sierra Leone. The
Brits are very disappointed in their man President Kabbah. In their
desperation for a bailout, they would love nothing more than another basket
in which to throw all their eggs. In the current climate, such a basket is
most unlikely to serve the long-term needs of Sierra Leoneans, just as Siaka
Stevens ultimately failed them. If Sierra Leoneans do not want to live with
another very British fix, they will have to take far more responsibility for
their own fate. Out with Lomé baby and bathwater
This is the context within which we should read the
ICG’s recommendation that we tear up the Lomé peace treaty and go with a
gung-ho British approach to beef up the Sierra Leone army (SLA) and take the
fight to the rebels. The UN Security Council should force the RUF, with “no
meaningful political constituency”, to surrender immediately, and support the
SLA’s use of military force against those who refuse, with support from the
UK. Our knowledge of the destructive capacities of the
RUF is in marked contrast to our understanding of the organisation’s internal
workings. The ICG report itself only speculates about splits within the RUF.
Does fragmenting the RUF work in the best interests of long-term peace in
Sierra Leone? We can almost plot a graph of the escalating violence in this
conflict, which has scaled its goriest peaks just as the RUF has felt and
behaved like a cornered rat. The ICG is very flattering about the role of
Executive Outcomes (EO) in exerting military pressure on the RUF and almost
bringing it to its knees. But another reading of that episode of the conflict
would suggest that EO’s intervention actually helped to brutalise the
conflict (methods reportedly included pushing RUF combatants out of airborne
helicopter gunships). Moreover, for many of the victims of Sierra Leone’s war
– the underage combatants that make up the RUF – that brutal organisation may
now be their only family and support structure. Is Sierra Leone society ready
to absorb these ex-combatants in large numbers? Is it capable? Sierra Leonean scholar Professor A. B.
Zack-Williams has pointed to the total breakdown of Sierra Leone society
prior to the outbreak of war. Indeed, he even implicates the “mehn pikin”
system (the widespread practice of fostering children from poorer families,
sometimes from within the extended family) in creating social dysfunction in
Sierra Leone. What fuelled much of the conflict at the local level were the
grudges RUF miscreants held against a society that they felt treated them as
second-class citizens. People who have spoken to RUF combatants stress the
importance of allaying their fears that giving up their weapons and leaving
the bush (or the mines) will result in certain death for them. Taking the ICG
approach would almost certainly confirm those fears, with predictably
disastrous consequences. And while the ICG wants to rip up Lomé and start
over, quietly and away from the public glare, the peace process has been
slowly but gradually gathering pace. Indeed, some of the Lomé institutions,
such as the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP) are working well
and notching up successes under very difficult circumstances. In fact, what
the ICG report misses is any serious consideration of the indigenous Sierra
Leonean efforts to bring peace to their war-torn country. Surely it is
precisely these efforts that the international community should study, learn
from, build upon, and provide with substantial resources to continue. For
sure, Lomé is deeply flawed – not least its failure to take into account the
needs, interests and wishes of the wider Sierra Leonean public. Lomé needs
revision, but that does not mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Splitting and smashing the RUF
All the evidence suggests that rank-and-file RUF
members are war-weary and ready to demobilise. But one problem with the peace
process to date has been the attempt to bypass the hierarchy within the RUF,
meaning that combatants must disobey orders from their own superiors to
participate in the peace process or that commanders must face what they
perceive as humiliation (for instance, being treated the same way as those
under their command). For too long too many people have treated the RUF as a
“rag tag” bunch of hooligans whereas in reality, and with devastating
consequence, the RUF has proved to be a cohesive, cunning adversary that has
successfully exploited its foes’ every weakness and error. Dangerous the
movement is, rag tag it most certainly is not. Instead the ICG wants to rely on the
British-trained SLA to defeat the rebels. And here the ICG is being plainly
duplicitous. The main report talks of “the intensity of the horrific revenge
killings and abuses during the January 1999 RUF attack on Freetown”. But in
the appendix detailing the political background to Sierra Leone’s conflict we
read that “in January 1999, the AFRC [former military junta responsible for
the May 1997 coup] and the RUF infiltrated and nearly seized control of
Freetown. Appalling atrocities were inflicted on civilians including rape,
the random amputation of limbs from men, women and children, and kidnapping.”
In fact, most local observers put the blame for January 1999 more firmly at
the feet of the AFRC and former members have indeed confessed to their
horrendous crimes. As we all well know, the RUF is of course capable of
committing such atrocities, but it clouds analysis and judgement to blame
them for the January 1999 Freetown attack. Similarly, the ICG report
relegates to the appendix the acknowledgement that the “new, retrained Sierra
Leone army appears to contain individuals who were themselves responsible for
human rights abuses in previous years”. British training for these former human rights
abusers will supposedly result in a radical human transformation. Former top
brass within Sierra Leone’s military can provide chapter and verse on the
ways that the country’s politicians gradually politicised and corrupted the
army. Will the British train the politicians not to repeat these practices?
Or will Sierra Leone actually end up with better-trained killers who may at
some point once again turn on the people that they are supposed to protect?
One characteristic of a state is that it is supposed to have a monopoly on
the use of violence within a given territory, but attempting to reconstruct
the state starting with honing its killing machine smacks of folly. Sorry state of affairs
Reconstructing the “failed state” of Sierra Leone
is the responsibility of Sierra Leoneans. Outside forces and bodies can help
in this process, but only as facilitators. And in allowing Sierra Leoneans to
decide their own fate, we must look beyond narrow conceptions of liberal democracy.
The ICG report claims “there is widespread support among Sierra Leone
citizens for new elections this year”. It is difficult to believe that the
ICG has evidence to back up this claim. In any case, the issue is far more
complex. The civil society-led democracy campaign that resulted in the 1996
elections was a success in that Sierra Leoneans were able to rid themselves
of the discredited NPRC military regime. And while many recognised the
desirability of achieving peace before elections, they feared that the
military regime would hang onto power indefinitely on the pretext that peace
was just round the corner. However, most Sierra Leoneans would now accept
that holding elections when they did was a mistake. The international
community – Britain especially ‑ that also pushed hard for these
elections has been more reticent about acknowledging its mistake. Indeed, a
key flaw in the Labour government’s strategy has been its failure to break
with its Conservative predecessor’s approach, in spite of the hot air about
an ethical dimension to its foreign policy. Although President Kabbah has
played his hand poorly over the last five years, he was dealt a bad hand in
the first place. Much of the ensuing chaos since 1996 could have been averted
or minimised if both Sierra Leoneans and the international community had
worked to simultaneously remove the NPRC regime and achieve lasting peace. In fact, the issue of whether and when to hold
elections has itself become quite politicised. The prevailing ideology in
Sierra Leone is “power by any means necessary”. It is no good castigating the
RUF alone for having no clear political programme. It is impossible to
distinguish any of the mainstream political players and the umpteen
presidential hopefuls in Sierra Leone along ideological lines. What
distinguishes the RUF from the rest is the sustained scale and scope of the
violence it is willing to unleash on a civilian population to achieve its
ends. When the definitive story of Sierra Leone’s contemporary history is
told, the links between the RUF and so-far unknown, but influential others
will show the extent to which all parties in Sierra Leone are willing to go
to achieve and retain power. Those who no longer feel that they can win power
by the ballot box now favour a government of national unity, which of course
they hope will include them. While a strong case for deferring elections exists,
simply perpetuating the current vacuum will almost certainly suck Sierra Leone
into a further vortex of violence. Elections now would be a competition
between a bunch of largely discredited politicians who will ignore the
interests of the vast majority of Sierra Leoneans simply to line their own
pockets and continue with business as usual. Before elections, Sierra
Leoneans need space to ask some much bigger questions: What values should
underpin the relationship between leaders and led? How do they want to be
governed? What are the lasting lessons to be learnt from this traumatic phase
of the country’s history? How is lasting peace to be achieved and sustained?
What kind of a society do Sierra Leoneans want to live in? When and under
what conditions should elections be held? Power to the Sierra Leonean people
In the interests of peace and stability in Sierra
Leone and the region, the international community should now hold the fort
while all Sierra Leoneans – the RUF included ‑ deliberate these
important issues. Such broad-based consultations could culminate in a
national conference the results of which would be morally binding on any
future government in Sierra Leone. Demoralised and war-weary as they all are,
Sierra Leoneans are perfectly capable of deciding their own destiny. The
international community, including Britain, should have faith in them. |
© FSL