POLITICS-SIERRA LEONE: Liberian Mercenaries Support Ousted AFRC

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Apr 29 1998 (IPS) - Liberian mercenaries captured by the West African Peacekeeping Force (ECOMOG) have provided further evidence of Liberian support to remnants of the ousted military junta of Major Johnny Paul Koroma.

Colonel Maxwell Khobe, ECOMOG’s Task Force Commander who was recently put in charge of Sierra Leone’s overall security, told IPS this week that so far, close to 100 Liberian mercenaries have been captured either behind the frontlines in combat, or in various towns and villages in the interior where rebels of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) are still fighting.

Khobe also said that more than 50 fighters from the former United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO-K) rebel faction and 20 from the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) are detained at the Freetown Maximum Security Prison. The ULIMO-K faction led by Alhaji G.V. Kromah was predominantly Islamic and Mandingo and operated from Guinea during the Liberian civil war.

“This is enough evidence to show you that the Liberian leader (Mr Charles Taylor) and his ex-rebels are helping the deposed (AFRC) junta in its military campaigns in Eastern Sierra Leone,” Colonel Khobe says.

Among those Liberian rebels currently detained at the Central Maximum Prison are Colonel Mohamed Kromah, formerly of the ULIMO-K faction. He acknowledged in an interview with IPS from his prison that Liberian rebels, including himself, were indeed involved in the conflict in the eastern districts of Sierra Leone.

“I am detained here with more than 50 fighters from my contingent, the Special Task Force (STF), and we had been fighting alongside the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC)…, ” Kromah adds.

Kromah says he himself represented the Task Force and other Liberian elements at negotiations held at Freetown’s Orogu Bridge between ECOMOG representatives and the junta, two months before the Nigerian-led intervention in February that toppled the AFRC.

Another prisoner of war, Samuel Konneh from Taylor’s former NPFL, said he could not say exactly how many of them (ex-NPFL) were sent across the border to fight.

“Perhaps more than 1500, because we were driven in trucks to RUF-controlled areas, along the Sierra Leonean border, and since then, three weeks ago, we have been fighting in Kono district, where I was captured,” Koneh added.

Konneh, who is 22 years-old, said it is easy to recruit fighters in Liberia since thousands of youth, who fought on the side of the NPFL, had nothing to do. “I was happy to come fight in Sierra Leone, because I know nothing other than the gun,” he said. “President Taylor could not integrate us into the Liberian army and I thought coming to Sierra Leone to fight, could have helped me out.”

Other captured Liberians interviewed said they had been promised diamonds and gold by the deposed junta and Liberian officials, whom they declined to name.

“They (the unnamed officials) told us not to allow Kono and Kailahun districts in the east to fall, because these places have rich diamond and gold deposits,” Konneh said.

But as the rebels continue to lose ground in Kono, they have resorted to committing large-scale atrocities there. Fleeing civilians have narrated such acts as murder, rape and arson perpetrated by the retreating junta troops.

“Most of the rebels speak with Liberian accents and do not understand the terrain in Kono, so they just kill, rape and burn without compunction,” Aiah Ngegba, a civil servant from Yengema in Kono, said. Ngegba’s left hand was chopped off with a machete by junta forces.

Close to 100 people from the eastern region are undergoing medical treatment at the Freetown Connaught Hospital. More than 30 of those being treated had their fingers or wrists chopped off with machetes, while at least 15 lost their ears in rebel attacks on civilians.

“When they slashed off my left wrist, I complained that it was painful,” said Komba Saffa, a farmer in Kono. “They then chopped off my left wrist and both ears with machetes.”

Liberia’s Minister of Defence, Daniel Cheah, this week once again denied Sierra Leone’s claims that Liberia is backing the rebels’ efforts to topple the returned civilian government of President Tejan Ahmed Kabbah.

“We have no interest whatsoever in the Sierra Leonean crisis and all we are saying is that it is easy to chase out rebels from the city, than from the jungle…we think all sides to the conflict should negotiate,” Cheah said.