Sierra Leone

["Bob Wood" <bobwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Below is the text of an article I wrote for the British publication Socialist
Outlook (June 2000 issue) and which your subscribers might be interested in.
There has been very little informed comment on the situation there. Feedback
welcome!   THE TRAGEDY OF SIERRA LEONE   Globalisation is fraying at the edges.
For evidence, look no further than Africa. Look
at the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, look at the Congo, look at Angola or
the
Sudan. Or look at the unhappy country of Sierra Leone.   The British press,
reporting on the recent renewal of conflict in the West African state
has presented us with a simple counterposition. The constitutional, elected
government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah is faced by a rebellion led by the
pathologically criminal Foday Sankoh. The only activity of the rebels is to rape
and
terrorise, and they specialise in random acts of mutilation and torture.  The
truth, as
always, is more complicated, though scarcely more comforting.   Since it gained
independence in 1961, Sierra Leone has been systematically pillaged
by an alliance of western mining companies and corrupt local politicians. The
country
is rich in mineral resources, particularly diamonds, now said to be funding the
rebellion, but also iron ore, aluminium and titanium, the latter obtained
through
shallow mining of laterite, leaving vast areas in the south of the country
environmentally sterile and useless for farming. The profits from mining have
all
gone to line the pockets of mining company shareholders, merchants or local
politicians, milking the state. The extent of this corruption can perhaps best
be judged
from the activities of Jamil Sahid Mohammed, the Afro-Lebanese crony of the late
President, Siaka Stevens. In addition to controlling both the diamond and
fishing
industries, Mohammed attended Cabinet meetings and influenced political
appointments, although not an elected politician. At the same time, the
President's
secretary was busy selling civil service appointments, for example an aspiring
district
officer might have to pay several thousand pounds on initial appointment, and
then
regular monthly payments for the privilege of retaining the job. Little
imagination is
required to understand who ultimately paid the cost of these bribes.   Since
independence in 1961, the politics of Sierra Leone have been largely influenced
by conflict for spoils between the elites of three main groups ? the Mende in
the south
of the country, the Temne in the north, and the Krio, descendents of freed
slaves, in
the Freetown peninsular.  These ethnic conflicts have often subdued, but of
course
never entirely over-ridden class conflict.   After independence, the country was
ruled successively by the Margai brothers from
the Mende south, leaders of the SLPP (Sierra Leone People's Party), with the APC
(All People's Congress) in opposition. Siaka Stevens, the leader of the APC took
office in 1968, following disputed elections and a short-lived military
intervention.
Stevens had been a trade union leader on the railways, and although he came from
the
north was not a Temne but from the smaller Limba tribe. Ruling first as Prime
Minister, then as President of a one-party state, Stevens turned the moderate
corruption of the Margai period into full-blown kleptocracy. He was followed in
1985
by his chosen successor, Joseph Momoh, leader of the armed forces. Momoh was if
anything even more corrupt than Stevens, and was eventually overthrown in 1992
by
a group of junior officers under Valentine Strasser. These officers  were
concerned
about the conduct of the war against the rebels which had by then begun.   The
origins of the rebel organisation, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), can be
traced back to the late sixties and early seventies, a period of world-wide
radicalisation, from the coalescence of student radicals and marginalised,
disaffected
and socially excluded elements in Freetown, of the kind that Marx and Engels
dubbed
the lumpenproletariat. These circles were influenced by Guevara and Castro,
books
like Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth", and to a limited extent by
Lenin and
Marx too. Serious disturbances took place on the campus of Fourah Bay College
(the
University of Sierra Leone in Freetown) in 1977, spreading to involve school
students
as well. By the 1980s student groups were being influenced by panafricanism, and
by
the ideas in Colonel Qaddafi's Green Book. Talk of revolution was in the air,
and the
students adopted anti-imperialist slogans.   In 1985 forty-one students were
expelled from Fourah Bay College for alleged Libyan
links. These were undoubtedly trumped-up charges, for without evidence, the
authorities said that the students had intended to allow their rooms to be used
by
Libyan mercenaries during the vacation! The president of the Student Union, Alie
Kabba, was arrested and detained for several months.   But even if the detailed
charge was spurious, the students were definitely interested in
Libya, for thirty-five of them went there two years later, in 1987, for military
training.
With this group was Foday Sankoh, now the leader of the RUF. Sankoh had first
achieved notoriety when as Corporal Sankoh he had taken part in an abortive coup
against the Stevens regime, for which he was jailed in the early seventies.  
When the first small group of guerrillas entered Sierra Leone in March 1991,
many of
these students had dropped out, leaving a greater preponderance of lumpen
elements
in the leadership of the RUF. It is certainly the case that the ideology of the
RUF has
become more confused, and marginal to its activities as time has passed.  But
they
still have a residual  politics. In their statement to the talks which resulted
in the Lome
peace agreement in July last year, the RUF said: "After the past eight years of
our
liberation struggle, which we commenced with reluctance, it is now crystal clear
that
our conflict is essentially socio-political and cannot be resolved by military
means but
through genuine negotiation."  Their totally unrealistic political programme,
promulgated at these talks, called for self-reliance and a gradual reduction in
foreign
assistance, but at the same time free education up to secondary level and free
primary
health care. It is not surprising that they have sometimes been compared with
Peru's
Shining Path guerrillas, or even the Khmer Rouge.   What does the
lumpenproletariat represent socially? The term was coined by Marx to
describe all those on the margins of society, those who have fallen out or
dropped out.
In writing about the Peasant Wars in sixteenth century Germany, Engels said:
"The
lumpenproletariat is generally speaking a phenomenon more or less developed in
all
phases of society to date ? people without a definite occupation and a stable
domicile
? In wartime some of these tramps joined the armies, others begged their way
across
the countryside, and others eked out a meagre living in the towns ?"   Later he
wrote: "The lump lends his fist for a few talers to fight out the spats among
the bourgeoisie, nobility and police."   The Communist Manifesto was perhaps
even less kind: "The lumpenproletariat, this
passive putrefaction of the lowest strata of the old society, is here and there
swept up
into the movement of the proletarian revolution (but) in accordance with all its
condition of life, it is more apt to sell itself to reactionary intrigues."  And
finally, in
writing about the role of Bonaparte in the Paris of 1848, Marx said that he was
the
"chief of the lumpenproletariat ? who recognises in this scum, offal, refuse of
all
classes the only class upon which he can base himself unconditionally."   This
is not to say that lumpen elements are only to be found in the RUF. Political
thuggery, making use of the poor and dispossessed of Freetown, has a long and
inglorious history in Sierra Leone, dating back to the sixties. Some police
methods,
involving beating suspects rather than using more subtle forensic techniques,
can be
traced back to the colonial period. Human rights abuses, including mutilation,
torture
and summary execution have been practised by both sides in the civil war. The
government has generally been less culpable than the rebels, but probably only
because it is more beholden to international opinion. The most recent testimony
to the
government's behaviour is the way in which the recently captured and wounded
Foday Sankoh was paraded naked through the streets of Freetown.   What of the
future? The intervention of the UN, and now British forces, has been no
more helpful in resolving the crisis in this poverty-stricken and war-torn
country than
the previous campaign by Nigerian-led West African forces. Whatever the origins
of
the civil war, it is clear that since 1997, its shape has changed. The alliance
formed
then between parts of the Sierra Leone Army and the RUF has consolidated the
hold
of the rebels over the northern part of the country. The map showing the areas
held by
the rebels is almost entirely the same as the areas where the Temnes live. By
the same
token, the areas controlled by the government are the Mende areas. Any prospect
of
completely defeating the rebels is a pipedream, although as long as the
government
can hold Freetown, with international military assistance, the rebels can be
contained.   New political structures must be found  - possibly some type of
federal arrangement,
with powers devolved to the regions. The Kabbah government was elected using a
closed list system, similar to the European elections in this country, leaving
the
political elites in the parties to pick their representatives. And one of the
reasons why
the most recent peace agreement broke down may well have been the failure to
implement one of its clauses - the holding of local elections. What remains
certain is
that those imperialist countries largely responsible for the current state of
Sierra
Leone cannot be trusted to find an ethical solution.