SIERRA LEONE-MIGRATION: Hopes for U.S. Visas End up in the Sea

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Feb 13 1997 (IPS) - For many Sierra Leoneans, going to the United States means an escape route out of poverty, so when people here heard that a batch of US visa applications had been dumped into the sea, they went mad.

Eighteen people were injured, 20 arrested and property damage estimated at thousands of dollars caused when reports that postal workers had thrown away the applications led to disturbances here on Wednesday. The unrest caused President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah to go on radio Thursday to appeal for calm and promise an investigation into the matter.

It all started on Tuesday night when a young man found a number of envelopes, photographs and application forms floating off the King Jimmy wharf here.

“I picked them up and realised they were (U.S.) visa lottery applications that had been mailed but were dumped into the sea by some wicked person or persons,” said the youth, who gave his name as Zolla.

Zolla, himself an applicant for the lottery — through which the United States grants visas to a fixed number of people from qualifying countries — then went to the Central Post office here.

“When I showed the samples to postal authorities, they simply asked me to leave the post office immediately or else the police would be invited to get me out of the building,” he said. “That was when I decided to alert members of the public.”

By dusk on Tuesday, word had circulated that “thousands” of visa lottery applications had been thrown away or destroyed by postal employees. On Wednesday morning an angry mob of well over 3,000 people gathered at the Central Post Office.

“When the postal officers refused to give convincing explanations, the mob somewhat spontaneously started hurling insults at workers and eventually began pelting stones,” one of the protesters, John Bangura, told IPS.

One angry visa applicant said: “We should burn the post office.’These people are callous and they need to be taught some lessons.”

The demonstrators did not go that far but window panes at the post office were smashed, a postal vehicle was destroyed and postal employees were attacked, although none of them are reported to have been seriously injured.

However, police shot and wounded 18 demonstrators and that sparked disturbances elsewhere in the city, especially in the depressed East End area. Traffic was interrupted and shops closed their doors in many parts of Freetown.

Over 20 protesters were arrested.

A worried Tejan Kabba went on radio Thursday. “I appeal to you for calm,” he said. “This situation is annoying and investigations into the matter have been ordered by my office.

Officials at the U.S. consular office here have refused to speak to the media but a source close to the U.S. ambassador said all applications might be cancelled and people would have to reapply.

The visa lottery programme was introduced by the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton during his first term in office partly to give people from developing countries a fair chance to migrate to the United States and thus discourage illegal immigration.

Analysts here believe Sierra Leone is high on the list of African nations whose people have been applying for both regular and lottery visas. This is hardly surprising: a 1991-1995 civil war ravaged the country and impoverished many of its people, about 80 percent of the active population are jobless and security has not yet returned to rural Sierra Leone.

The disturbances have served as a reminder of how volatile Sierra Leone is: many analysts believe that it will take little to cause a resurgence of violence in this country as it struggles to recover from the civil war.

Kabbah himself hinted at this. “I am deeply concerned about the skirmishes and especially the demonstrators’ plan to burn the post office,” he said. “We need peace and stability now more than ever before.”