By Muzondwa Banda

‘‘Fellow citizens, the unfortunate incident of misinformation that happened last night has no doubt created a lot of confusion in your minds. However, let us not compound the problem by spreading unfounded rumours. This only serves to create unnecessary panic, which is exactly what those who are seeking to destroy our country thrive on. As your elected President, I am committed to serving you, and will do all in my power to ensure your safety and security. I therefore urge you all to rely on official government releases for accurate information. We shall endeavour to keep you well informed.”

This was President Tejan Kabbah broadcasting to the nation on Sunday 7 May. Freetown, the capital, had been stricken by panic the night before, as a result of an alarmist (and now costly) statement released by the United Nations peacekeepers in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL).

Unamsil had claimed that rebels of Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were attacking the capital and had in fact reached Hastings, only 20 miles away.

Knowing what happened the last time the rebels visited (on 6 January last year), the capital’s residents could be excused for the panic attacks that gripped them. President Kabbah had to use the Sunday broadcast to try to calm them down, but it was too late. The horse had already bolted. Thus started the current crisis in Sierra Leone.

Shamed, Unamsil withdrew its statement, but not the mischief it set out to create.

Until the statement, Unamsil had been having some troubles upcountry with the RUF. As much as 500 (yes 500!) UN troops had managed to be “taken hostage” by the RUF. Unamsil’s mandate did not include offensive action, but they sure had the right to defend themselves when attacked. Yet 500 of them still managed to be “taken hostage” by the RUF.

According to the UN, the trouble started when some RUF soldiers came in and voluntarily gave up their arms to Unamsil. Angered by the action, the local RUF command confronted Unamsil to surrender the men and their weapons. What followed was a fire-fight which left four Kenyan UN troops killed.

The days after the incident saw intense international pressure brought to bear on Foday Sankoh, who also doubled as the vice president of Sierra Leone, to free the UN hostages. As vice president, he lived in Spur Street, in downtown Freetown, far removed from the scene of the incident. “I don’t know a thing about any UN hostages,” he told reporters. But the world did not believe him. About 100 UN troops surrounded his house as negotiations went on for the release of the UN “hostages”. In fact, as vice president, Sankoh was guarded by Unamsil troops from Nigeria.

Apart from this incident, nothing untoward was happening in Freetown to panic anybody. But on Saturday 6 May, Britain suddenly announced that it was sending a team of 15 “military experts” to provide “technical assistance” to Unamsil.

Enter Britain

On Sunday night (7 May), Britain upped the ante by announcing that it was sending 800 paratroopers and a flotilla of eight war ships to Sierra Leone to protect the Britons who live there, in case the situation worsened. Perhaps London knew something President Kabbah didn’t know. At first, London said it was a “precautionary measure” and that the troops would be based in Senegal, where they would be on standby.

Twenty-four hours later, Britain was announcing that its troops were landing in Freetown to “evacuate” the 500 Britons in the country because, according to Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, “the situation in Freetown is tense”.

Before Unamsil made the alarmist statement on Saturday, it must have known that the British troops were on the way, at least the 15 British “military experts” had arrived.

That same Saturday, (6 May), about 2,000 women led by the (female) minister for development, Kadi Sessay marched in Freetown against the holding of the UN peacekeepers. They went to Spur Street to tell Sankoh what they thought about him.

Another mass protest, organised by “politicians and civil society groups” had been planned for that day, but somehow it was postponed to Monday 8 May. Was it to allow the British troops and TV cameras to arrive?

According to reports, 10,000 people joined the demonstration, including members of the Kamajor militia group and supporters of Johnny Paul Koroma’s AFRC, the former allies of the RUF now turned enemies.

Eyewitnesses said Nigerian Unamsil troops in three armoured cars, guarding Sankoh’s house, fired into the air to disperse the demonstrators who were hurling stones and bricks at the house. This panicked Sankoh’s RUF bodyguards to fire on the crowd. Four died on the spot, but 19 people were buried four days later.

Sankoh disappeared in the melee, and at the time of going to press, was reported to have been captured wounded by pro-government forces, paraded naked in the streets of Freetown, and finally handed over to the British forces.

Britain began evacuating its nationals that same night, but the evacuees, though said to be under threat, were reluctant to go.

“I am not happy about this,” The Times (of London) reported Vic Smith, a Yorkshireman working on a UN construction contract in Sierra Leone, to have said. “I would have stayed in my flat and have been perfectly happy. None of the Brits as far as I can see, wanted to leave,” Smith added.

A group of British wives whose helicopter flight to freedom was cancelled, according to The Times, “all stood up, hugging and shouting with joy. ‘We can stay! We can stay!,’ Mrs White called to her friends. ‘We love this place,’ said Mrs Reid. ‘No matter what happened to it. I don’t feel frightened...”

The reaction of the reluctant British evacuees gave the lie away that something catastrophic from the RUF was about to hit Freetown and thus deserving all the hubbub of the past several weeks.

And yet, when the Britons who wanted to leave had left on the strange-looking Chinook helicopters to Senegal, and those who wanted to stay in Freetown had stayed on, the British paratroopers wouldn’t go, in fact more British troops were being sent in, as we went to press, bringing their troop strength to 1,100. And Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, could still not clearly tell his people back home what the troops were there for.

These strange connecting events have set tongues wagging. Is Sierra Leone a British diversionary ploy? A diversion from Zimbabwe where President Mugabe had soundly defeated the British on the land issue? Was it a trap to catch Sankoh and his rebels?

If it were a diversion, what an expensive one it is! For, in its wake, has erupted fighting between the RUF and everybody else who has guns in Sierra Leone, while the Lome Peace Accord is facing imminent death.

As usual the global reaction has been predictable. As usual the quick fix solutions that have ensured that African conflicts do not end, have again been prescribed. Yet none is prepared to look at the other side of the story, which is the following:

The financial resources promised by the international community, led by Britain and America, in support of the Lome Peace Accord didn’t materialise, thus creating problems for the implementation stage (see NA October 1999).

A total of £45m was promised, £10m of which was to come from Britain. Last October, Sierra Leone’s chief justice, Solomon Berewa, was lamenting that, once again, the international community had left the country in the lurch.

Because the implementation is out of schedule, certain promises made under the accord to the rebels in return for disarmament have not been fulfilled, thus making the rebels reluctant to give up their arms. The pro-government Kamajor militia has likewise not given up its arms. In fact that was one of the main grievances of the RUF for not disarming. It complained that the peacekeepers were doing very little to disarm the Kamajors, yet all attention was being focused on RUF arms.

For example, the accord envisaged that in 60 days after its signing, the Sierra Leone Army would be restricted to barracks and their arms put in storage under constant surveillance by a neutral peacekeeping force. That, too, has not been fulfilled.

Of particular concern to the rebels was, again, the partially fulfilled promise in the accord by the government to help the RUF turn itself into a political party. On top of it, most of the cabinet and parastatal appointments promised the rebels in the accord did not materialise. In effect, the rebels felt more sinned against, than sinning.

On 1 May, Dr Francis Kai-Kai, executive secretary of the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration told the BBC in Freetown that the rebels had genuine grievances over the unfulfilled promises under the accord, but said the government was trying to address them. “I know that the issue is being discussed by Chairman Sankoh and the president. It’s really at their level,” he said.

Thus, a conflict was always on the cards, when Unamsil, which replaced Ecomog in late April, tried to disarm the RUF ahead of the resolution of the rebel concerns then under discussion by President Kabbah and Sankoh. In short, the differences were bridgeable, and nothing was happening to lead to the collapse of the peace accord.

A parallel can be drawn with the Northern Ireland situation where London continues to treat the concerns of the IRA with understanding, if not sympathy.

After the “Good Friday Agreement” signed last year, the IRA and the other paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland have refused to disarm, leading to the collapse this February of the Northern Irish government formed after the accord. After four months of behind the scenes talks, the IRA has only now committed itself to putting its arms “beyond use” (whatever that means). And Peter Mandelson, secretary for Northern Ireland, says “that is the best we can get from the IRA for now, and everybody should do well to accept it.” Another one-year deadline has been set to see how the IRA fulfils its pledge of making the two British-appointed arms inspectors to periodically inspect its arms dumps.

If the IRA were an African rebel group, no such time and space would be given it. Quick fix would have been the name of the solution, which in the end would have ensured that the conflict did not end. Welcome to Sierra Leone.

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