A billboard in Freetown, Sierra Leone, urging people to go to hospital to be tested for HIV. Ebola has stopped people from doing that. Credit: Lansana Fofana/IPS

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Dec 1 2014 (IPS)

The outbreak of the deadly Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone has dwarfed the campaign against HIV/AIDS, to the extent that patients no longer go to hospitals and treatment centres out of fear of contracting the Ebola virus.

“It is a big challenge for us. HIV/AIDS patients now fear going to hospitals for treatment and our workers, who are also government health officials, are also afraid of contacting patients for fear of being infected,” Abubakar Koroma, Director of Communications at the National AIDS Secretariat, told IPS.“HIV/AIDS patients now fear going to hospitals for treatment and our workers, who are also government health officials, are also afraid of contacting patients for fear of being infected” – Abubakar Koroma, Director of Communications, Sierra Leone’s National AIDS Secretariat

Sierra Leone records one of the lowest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the West African region. For over five years, the country has managed to stabilise the figures at 1.5 percent, out of a population of 6 million, mainly because of massive countrywide awareness raising. The authorities also offer free medicines and treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS.

But all this may be reversed if the Ebola crisis is not contained soon.

Before the outbreak of the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone in April, one key area of success in the fight against HIV/AIDS had been in curtailing mother-to-child transmission. Today, however, there are concerns that it may surge again because pregnant women are now reluctant to go to hospitals for treatment.

In 2004, the prevalence rate among pregnant women was 4.9 percent but, just before the Ebola in April this year, the figure had dropped to 3.2 percent.

According to Koroma, “between January and now, that service [for pregnant women] has dropped by 80 percent. We are worried that the Ebola crisis may worsen the situation.” From the point of view of those already living with HIV/AIDS, this is already happening.

Idrissa Songo, Executive Director of the Network of HIV Positives in Sierra Leone (NETHIPS) advocacy group, says that its members fear going to hospitals for care and treatment and that they are constrained by what he described as a cut in the support they were receiving from donors and humanitarian organisations before the outbreak of Ebola.

“Donors and other philanthropists have turned their attention away from the fight against HIV/AIDS,” he said. “Now it’s all about Ebola. Most organisations have diverted their funding to the fight against Ebola and this is badly affecting our activities.”

Songo added that the core activities of NETHIPS, which include community awareness raising and training of members in care and prevention, have all come to a standstill because of the government’s ban on all public gatherings following the Ebola outbreak.

Given the current crisis, the National Aids Secretariat and the Ministry of Health have set up telephone hotlines to connect with people suffering from HIV/AIDS. The aim is to be able to trace and locate them and then get treatment to them. At the same time, HIV/AIDS patients are now receiving a quarterly supply of the drugs they need, compared with the monthly dosage they were receiving before Ebola struck.

According to Songo, these measures are working because “that way, our members, who fear going to hospitals and treatment centres, can stay at home and take their medication. We know it is risky to go to treatment centres nowadays because of the possibility of contracting Ebola, another killer disease,” Songo told IPS.

Notwithstanding the Ebola crisis, Ministry of Health officials say that they have not lost sight of the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Jonathan Abass Kamara, Public Relations Officer at the Ministry of Health, told IPS that attention is still focused on the fight against HIV/AIDS. “Even though Ebola has taken centre-stage, the Ministry is still very much focused on the fight against HIV/AIDS. We supply drugs to patients regularly and we try our best to give care and attention to them,” Kamara told IPS.

However, while Sierra Leone has made tremendous progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS and its success in this fight surpasses that of almost all countries in the West Africa region, it may well find it difficult to maintain its achievements in this sector if the Ebola epidemic is not brought under control.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

School children in Freetown walking with their parents. Ebola has badly affected the country’s education. Credit: Lansana Fofana/IPS

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Nov 17 2014 (IPS)

The outbreak of the deadly Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone has badly affected the West African country’s move towards meeting key development goals. 

Agriculture, which is the mainstay of the economy, has been the worst hit as many farmers have succumbed to the disease and many more have abandoned their farmlands in fear of contracting the virus.

“We have lost hundreds of farmers to the Ebola epidemic and the regions where agricultural activities take place have become epicentres of the pandemic, such as Kailahun in the east and Bombali in the north,” Joseph Sam Sesay, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, told IPS.

In early November, 4,059 people were killed by the virus. This surpasses neighbouring Liberia which, until a month ago, was the worst-hit country.

Sesay said that 60 percent of the country’s six million people are engaged in agriculture but as a result of the crisis many are now unemployed. The sector, he said, also contributes to 60 percent of the country’s GDP. However, with the current epidemic, Sierra Leone’s prospect of meeting the millennium development goal of eradicating hunger and poverty is a far-off dream.

“We had made significant gains before we were confronted with this Ebola problem. Food productivity had increased tremendously and local foodstuffs were plenty on the markets. We had even begun exporting cash crops to neighbouring countries, including rice, and cocoa. All these have been stultified,” Sesay added.

When President Ernest Bai Koroma came to power in 2007, he made agriculture a key priority in his developmental blueprint, which he dubbed “Agenda for Change and Prosperity”.

Bilateral partners, including China and India, have donated hundreds of tractors and other agricultural machinery to help boost the country’s move towards food security. But no farmers are working currently and experts predict that there will be food scarcity if the Ebola epidemic is not contained soon.

“I have discontinued my farming activities temporarily. More than 15 of my colleagues have been killed by Ebola and I cannot risk going to the farm any more. The situation is frightening,” Musa Conteh, a farmer in Sierra Leone’s northern district of Bombali, told IPS.

The health sector is also badly affected by the epidemic. Even though this West African nation has a free government healthcare scheme for children under the age of five, pregnant and lactating mothers; people are refusing to go to hospitals and peripheral health centres as they fear being suspected of having Ebola and being quarantined.

However, many of the country’s doctors, nurses and auxiliary health workers are also fearful and have not been going to work. Sierra Leone has lost five medical doctors, more than 60 nurses and auxiliary health workers to Ebola.

“It is a terrible crisis facing us. With our poor health infrastructure, we were certainly not prepared for this epidemic. Perhaps, with the intervention of our international partners, we may be able to defeat the disease much quickly,” Sierra Leone’s Health Minister Abubakar Fofana told IPS.

He, however, said that even after the Ebola epidemic has been contained, the country will be faced with an upsurge in infant mortality because children are not being vaccinated for killer diseases at the moment. “The situation is worrisome,” he said.

Sierra Leone had one of the worst infant mortality rates in the world with 267 deaths recorded per 1,000 live births just after the country’s civil war ended in 2002. In 2012 the infant mortality rate had more than halved to 110 deaths per 1,000 live births. In recent years, it had started making progress, with a free healthcare scheme introduced by Koroma. But the Ebola epidemic is sure to reverse all those gains.

The outbreak of the epidemic has forced all schools and learning institutions to close. The government says it cannot put a timeline on when they will resume.

The country’s educational system was considered to be at low, even before the outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease, with falling standards and persistent industrial actions by teachers.

The Minister of Education Minkailu Bah told IPS that the Ebola crisis is having a dire effect on education and that this will be felt even after the disease has been contained.

“Already, our children are not attending schools or colleges. Their future is uncertain and we do not even know how many drop-outs we’ll have on our hands if this Ebola crisis is not contained,” Bah said.

The government has introduced a teaching programme, on radio and television, for school-going kids. But many say this is ineffectual.

“I don’t think this will work. How many families can afford TV or radio and batteries in their homes? How reliable is the electricity supply? The kids today prefer viewing Nigerian films and watching football. They are not interested in that teaching programme,” Michael Williams, a father of four in Freetown, told IPS.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

Concern is being raised by civil society and the public about how Sierra Leone’s government is handling the Ebola pandemic. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Nov 6 2014 (IPS)

The fight against the deadly Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa seems to be hanging in the balance as Sierra Leone’s Minister of Health and Sanitation Dr Abubakar Fofana told IPS that the government is overwhelmed by the outbreak.

“We were not prepared for this Ebola scourge. It took us by surprise and with our weak health system, we can only rely on support given to us by our international partners,” he told IPS.

According to a report published last week by British charity Save the Children, five people are infected every hour here and the situation is worrisome.

The government has, however, downplayed this, claiming the report is hugely exaggerated and that the situation is getting better in some parts of the country.

However, concern is being raised by civil society and the public about how the government is handling the outbreak.

Bernard Conteh, the director of the rights advocacy group Anti-Violence Movement, told IPS: “The authorities should be more pro-active. They should pay health workers, who are the frontline soldiers in this fight, reasonably well and ensure they are supplied adequate Personal Protective Equipments. This is not happening. Even the enforcement of the quarantine of Ebola suspects is not effectively done.”

On just one day, Nov. 2, 61 new cases were reported across the country bringing the nationwide toll to 4,059 people infected by the virus. This surpasses neighbouring Liberia which, until a month ago, was the worst-hit country. Liberia has recorded 2,515 cases while Guinea, where the epidemic first started, has 1,409 recorded cases of Ebola.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic in April, Sierra Leone has lost five medical doctors, more than 60 nurses and auxiliary health workers to Ebola. And the figure keeps going up.

The African Governance Initiative has also painted a grim picture of the outbreak here, saying that it is spreading nine times faster than it did two months ago. Of the 12 districts in the country and the capital Freetown, only Koinadugu in the north was Ebola-free — until recently. It now has at least six confirmed cases. Now, no part of Sierra Leone is unaffected but the virus.

The government has, however, been assisted by the international community. The United Kingdom has sent medical equipment and health workers, and has built test and treatment centres in parts of the capital. China has also sent medical aid, while Cuba has deployed dozens of medics on the ground.

But, there are still many challenges to be addressed. According to the medical charity MSF or Doctors Without Borders, the outbreak is far from over and more help is desperately needed.

“There is a huge gap in all aspects of the response, including medical care, training of health staff, infection control, contact tracing, epidemiological surveillance, alert and referral systems, community education and mobilisation,” MSF says.

As the fight against the killer epidemic continues to prove difficult with the virus spreading fast, the government in Freetown has just implemented a year-long state of emergency. This comes just two days after an earlier 90-day state of emergency, implemented in July in response to the outbreak, ended.

Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Frank Kargbo told IPS the extension of the emergency period was necessary to help control the spread of the virus.

“No one knows when the Ebola epidemic will end. We believe that within this period and with our hard work, we will be able to contain the disease.”

Many attribute the rapid spread of the Ebola virus to people’s attitudes and, as MSF says, a lack of sufficient community education and mobilisation. Cultural practices and traditional beliefs are also greatly hampering the fight against Ebola.

“Our people still continue to touch, wash and bury their dead. This is an easy way to get infected, even though they have been told repeatedly not to do so,” the chairman of the National Ebola Response Committee, Alfred Palor Conteh, told IPS.

People also refuse to report to hospitals when they fall ill because of the fear of stigmatisation by their families and communities. Many believe that Ebola is fatal and that going to treatment centres will not help. Ebola survivors and discharged patients also face stigmatisation.

However, Health Health and Sanitation Minister Fofana said he was hopeful the situation would be brought under control soon with international help.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Apr 17 2010 (IPS)

The crusade against corruption seems to be gathering momentum in this West African country, with the arrest and prosecution of senior government officials, including cabinet ministers.

The latest to be roped in by the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), is Afsatu Kabba, the then-Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, who is currently facing a 17-count indictment for graft and abuse of office. Kabba was sacked immediately the indictment was announced.

She was charged shortly after the conviction, in March, of another cabinet minister, Sheku Tejan Kamara, who was heading the Health and Sanitation ministry. Koroma was found guilty of awarding contracts to his cronies without opening them up to public tender. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment, but avoided jail by paying the alternative fine of $40,000.

At his inauguration in September 2007, President Ernest Bai Koroma announced a zero tolerance approach to corruption and vowed that public officials who engaged in graft would be arrested and prosecuted.

“No one, not even members of my family, will be spared (in this fight against corruption). There will be no sacred cows in my administration,” the president announced at the national stadium, in front of a crowd of more than 25,000, including foreign diplomats and donor representatives.

Within a year, he had strengthened the ACC, enabling it to take on cases without waiting from approval from the attorney-general or the justice ministry. The ACC also now has its own court and judges, separate from the normal judicial set-up. Before Koroma took office, prosecution of cases of corruption depended wholely on the whim of the attorney-general and there was seen to be major political interference in the operations of the ACC.

In March 2009, senior officials of the National Revenue Authority (NRA), who had allegedly colluded with Lebanese importers to under-value goods, were arrested and charged. The president personally ordered these arrests; along with officials from the country’s immigration department, who are accused of selling Sierra Leonean passports to foreign nationals, they are awaiting trial for corruption and attempting to defraud the state.

At the start of 2010, President Koroma summoned cabinet ministers, heads of parastatals and other government agencies to State House to warn them about endemic corruption in the public sector.

The president threatened to sack and prosecute anyone found wanting; this public warning seems to have emboldened the ACC’s head, Abdul Tejan-Cole, to address corruption without fear or favour.

Festus Minah, head of the Civil Society Movement of Sierra Leone, is pleased by the new vigour with which corruption is being routed out. He finds the ACC is now more receptive to partnership with civil society, including gathering cases of suspected graft.

“It is only now that we are seeing cabinet ministers and high profile public officials arrested and prosecuted. What was lacking before was the political will and so the fight against graft was jettisoned by interference from the executive arm of government.”

This view is widely shared. Retired civil servant Mary Johnson says, “The prosecution of senior government officials and public workers on corruption charges send out the right signal, that the president is determined to rout out this cancer from our society. He must be supported by all Sierra Leoneans.”

The ACC, which was set up in 2000, is partly funded by the British Department for International Development. DFID has often insisted on the independence of the anti-graft body. DFID has a staff member attached to the ACC and Commonwealth judges and investigators help run the affairs of the commission.

“No one tells me what to do, who to arrest and prosecute or how to conduct my investigations. The ACC is totally independent and we are guided by our mandate, which is to expose and fight corruption in whatever form,” ACC head Tejan-Cole told IPS.

The ACC boss adds that his commission has introduced new strategies in the fight against corruption. These include the setting up of Integrity Clubs in schools, publicly recognising Sierra Leoneans who are deemed to have demonstrated the highest integrity, radio and TV jingles, as well as rewarding individuals who report suspected cases of public graft to the Commission.

“These strategies are proving very rewarding because there is now more public awareness about the fight against corruption in the country,” Tejan-Cole maintains.

Notwithstanding this success story, the country’s opposition claims the president’s anti-corruption crusade is been exaggerated and that the Chief Executive is practicing what it brands as “selective justice.”

The secretary general of the main opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), Jacob Jusu-Saffa, rants: “Our party raised key issues to the president, bordering on governance and these include members of the president’s family been protected from prosecution. The president’s sister has been benefiting from untendered contracts and his brother getting duty waivers, of goods imported, running into hundreds of thousands of US dollars.

“We see this as corruption. Period.”

The SLPP wrote an open letter to Koroma in November 2009, just ahead of a donor’s conference on Sierra Leone, held in London. The letter is thought to have harmed the Sierra Leoneans government’s efforts to secure pledges of aid.

The president dismissed the opposition’s charges as “cheap politics” and the recent clampdown on government ministers and key political allies seems to support his point.

“This government has made a difference in the fight against corruption. The president has empowered the ACC, making it more independent and several high profile prosecutions have been made. I believe the president must be commended,” says Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, the minister of information and communication, who also doubles as the official government spokesperson.

Having presented documentary evidence supporting its claims, the SLPP insists there is more to be done. “Why has the ACC not gone after members of the president’s family that we have exposed as been involved in corruption? Are they sacred cows?” Jusu-Saffa questions.

Corruption has been a hallmark of Sierra Leonean politics since at least the era of Siaka Stevens, when massive spending to host a summit of the Organisation of African Unity engendered matching levels of financial misconduct. It continued under his successor, Joseph Momoh, becoming so bad that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission regarded it as one of the factors that ignited the 1991-2002 civil war.

At the end of the conflict, in 2002, one recommendation of the truth commission was that corruption be tackled by the government head-on if the country is not slip back into war and anarchy.

And, president Koroma has made this campaign his priority, something that – if he is seen to be succeeding – could earn him a second consecutive term, come elections in 2012.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN , Mar 25 2010 (IPS)

Former child soldier Komba Gbondo maimed and killed many people from his hometown, and the 25-year-old is still too terrified to return.

Gbondo was 13 when Revolutionary United Front (RUF) fighters invaded his home town of Tombodu, in the eastern district of Kono and forcefully recruited and conscripted dozens of able-bodied men and boys, into their ranks.

For four years Gbondo was part of what was known as the “Small Boys Unit” – a death squad of underage boys who terrorised and killed civilians, including many people from his village.

“I killed and amputated the limbs of many people, but I was not alone. We were drugged and given gun powder which emboldened us and made us commit all those horrific crimes. I regret my actions today but I am still afraid to go back to my village for fear that my victims or their relatives might kill me,” Gbondo says.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up immediately after the conflict ended, but Gbondo’s testimony is but one of many clear indications that eight years on, Sierra Leone’s reconciliation process is faltering.

Forty-five year old Margaret Sesay watched as her husband was murdered in front of her. “I know the guy who killed him and he is right now here in Freetown, but he can’t dare go back to the village. I think people like these should be taken to the communities and made to confess their deeds and ask for forgiveness. That way the nation will reconcile itself.”

But Bishop Joseph Humper, the chairman of the TRC, is pessimistic about the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations.

“My fear is that the country might slip into war or conflict if reconciliation is not given the due attention it deserves,” Humper says.

The TRC recommended in 2004 that government distribute copies of its report, findings and recommendations throughout the country.

A children’s version was printed, audio tapes made and songs composed in local languages to spread the message contained in the TRC report, but these failed to reach the communities which were badly affected by the conflict. Many think government has not been pro-active in disseminating this.

Many Sierra Leoneans are troubled to see that instead of reconciling former combatants with their communities, the presidency has recruited some of the most notorious ex-fighers into the security services, with some working as close-protection bodyguards to the president, his vice-president and other senior state functionaries, says Steven Kamara, a civil society activist.

“I think it was wrong for the government to re-arm these former killers,” remarks Ishmail Conteh. “Seeing them in uniforms and wielding guns reminds one of the dark days of conflict. I can even recognise some of these former rebel commanders parading behind the president. This is in no way helping national reconciliation.”

Conteh lost his child and cousin in the eastern town of Koidu when rebels captured the area in 1998. He is now a businessman based in Freetown.

Popular concern is further stoked by the fact that state security personnel have been involved in a string of politically-motivated acts of violence since elections three years ago, says Jacob Jusu-Saffa, the secretary-general of the main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). Jusu-Saffa adds that there are fears that there will be violence during the 2012 presidential and general elections.

Information and Communication Minister Ibrahim Ben Kargbo dismisses these fears as exaggerated.

“Those security guys have been retrained and made to be more professional. If anything, they are now being kept busy so that they stay away from violence,” he says.

Kargbo says the president is a leading advocate of reconciliation. “I think the president has national reconciliation close to his heart and he expresses this whenever he meets the people.”

James Kamara, a construction worker whose sister was abducted – never to be seen again – when rebels invaded Freetown in January 1999 is one of many who feels this is not enough.

“Reconciliation is a difficult process,” he says. “The government has to take the initiative and bring the people together. They have to go to the towns and villages and bring victims and perpetrators together, to tell their stories and embrace each other.”

Kamara, whose also lost his son during the rebel invasion, says government should set up a task force that will go to communities and help reconcile people.

The lack of initiative by government prompted the non-governmental organisation “Fambul Tok” (meaning “dialogue between the people” in Krio) to take the initiative and launch its own reconciliation initiative in 2008.

Fambul Tok’s executive director, John Caulker, a former member of the TRC working committee, says: “We have waited for too long but nothing seems to be working practically. The nation is still bitterly divided, families are torn apart and tension is still mounting in the communities. This is why we have stepped in to help heal the wounds of war.”

Fambul Tok has reconciled hundreds of communities.

“We have covered more than 50 chiefdoms and hundreds of communities in various parts of the country’s east and south. We bring together victims and perpetrators under big trees in the villages and allow them to tell their stories. This has worked in all instances of our campaign. We also organise football matches in the communities where victims and perpetrators take part. It is incredible how these people embrace each other and get on with their lives,” Caulker says.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Mar 17 2010 (IPS)

Ismail Conteh has been teaching for the past year-and-a-half at a primary school in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown – without receiving a single cent. He is one of hundreds of teachers recruited by schools to match the ever-growing number of pupils.

Since the country’s government started to aim for universal primary education in 2003, classes have continuously become larger, with an average of about 50 pupils per teacher. Yet, the national department of education has employed only few additional teachers so far.

Trying to fill the gap, numerous school authorities decided to hire teachers at their own discretion, instead of waiting for the education department to appoint more staff. Now, the education department is refusing to pay those teachers’ salaries.

About 3,000 teachers, including Conteh, have been working in public primary schools without receiving the 40 dollars due to them each month. Attempts by the national teachers union to negotiate payments with the education department have been unsuccessful.

The standoff has mainly been caused by lack of adequate planning from government side, unionists say. Having its eyes set on reaching Millennium Development Goal 2 – universal primary education – the government mainly focused on enrolling more children, while ignoring the fact that more teachers need to be employed to teach additional pupils.

Sierra Leone Teachers Union (SLTU) president Abdulai Brima Koroma calls for salaries to be paid out soonest: “These teachers are entitled to salaries. They have been giving their services to the state under very unattractive conditions and deserve to get paid at the end of every month.”

The SLTU held several meetings with education officials, Koroma says, but without results: “We have told ministry officials that standards in schools are falling, with students producing bad results. This is having a devastating impact on the very universal primary education we are trying to achieve.”

The education department, however, maintains it will not pay the salaries of teachers who were employed by schools. “We have a database of teachers recruited by the ministry, and we can only pay those teachers. The school authorities that recruited (additional) teachers will have to find a way of paying them,” said education, youth and sports minister Minkailu Bah.

Bah admits, however, that achieving universal primary education is not only about mass enrolment of children: “I agree that our schools are overcrowded and that we need more teachers. But it is the ministry that has to do the recruitment, with consideration of budgetary constraints.”

He says government chose to first focus on building more schools across the country: “You can find schools in virtually every town and village. We are paying exams fees and providing school materials, especially for the girl-child, and we are also encouraging enrolment of children.”

IPS was unable to obtain statistics on primary school enrolment, number of teachers or national education budgets from the department.

Teachers criticise government for focusing mainly on quantity, while letting the quality of education deteriorate. Joseph Kamara, head teacher at another public school in Freetown, says the education department is making short-sighted decisions: “The government is anxious to meet the MDG of universal primary education, and so it is enrolling more kids in schools.” But the finances to make this expansion possible have still not been made available, he says.

In the past two years, Sierra Leone recorded dismal results in the state-run, regional schools examinations in comparison to neighbour countries Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia and the Gambia. The exams are conducted each year by Accra-based non-profit body West African Examination Council (WAEC).

This compelled Sierra Leone’s president Ernest Bai Koroma, who once worked himself as a teacher, to set up a commission of inquiry in late 2009 to investigate the causes of declining education standards.

The commission, which submitted its findings in early March, recommended the formation of a schools monitoring unit to make education more effective and results-oriented. It also suggested improving working conditions of teachers through better teaching materials and better pay.

Government says it is in the process of reviewing those recommendations, but until decisions are made, budgets approved and changes implemented, public school teachers will continue to work without salary.

“It is frustrating, to say the least. You can imagine how I barely survive with my wife and three children. We live in a two bedroom flat, and I pay about $50 rent a month. On top of that, I pay electricity as well as water bills,” said Conteh.

He says teachers’ morale is low: “I have seen dozens of colleagues leave for private schools where salaries are more attractive and paid promptly.”

The only money Conteh currently earns is from private lessons. His income is complemented by a few dollars his wife makes by selling vegetables, cooking oil and fish at a market. “But this is not enough to take care of my family,” he says.

Several other public school teachers told IPS they live in similarly difficult situations.

Lamented primary school teacher Michael Jones: “Classrooms are overcrowded, with more than 60 kids in one class in some cases. The children hardly concentrate, school materials are few and far between, and the teachers are not getting paid.”

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Dec 23 2009 (IPS)

Sierra Leone’s parliament has come under serious scrutiny by opposition legislators, civil society and members of the public for ‘breaching procedures’ and ‘undermining the constitution’.

Washing diamonds in the Sandoh chiefdom in Kono district, Sierra Leone. Credit: Anna Jefferys/IRIN

It also aims to introduce mining reforms. But the opposition, as well as democracy-watchers, say the Bill was not gazetted and adequately publicised before being tabled in the House.

It was at first thrown out by the Speaker, upon objections from members of the main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) that the Bill was not properly tabled in parliament, and because of the lack of public consultation. It was re-introduced only days later by the minister of Mines and Mineral Resources, Alpha Kanu, despite the fact that it still had not been gazetted.

The 44-member SLPP contingent in parliament boycotted the debate on the Bill. The 59 members of the ruling All People’s Congress (APC), assisted by some members of the People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), their smaller coalition partner, nevertheless went ahead and hastily got the Bill passed.

This has divided the House further and put its integrity under test. “Bills must not be rushed through parliament for the sake of political expediency. If the public shows interest in any Bill it must be publicly and widely debated,” commented Emmanuel Tommy, the minority SLPP’s leader in parliament.

“This is a test for our fledgling democracy. Procedures were flouted in the way the Bill was tabled, and that is why we as a party decided to walk out of the House and refused to take part in the debate.”

Another opposition MP from the PMDC, Sheka Samai, took a swipe at provisions of the Act, especially the one giving legal protection to government officials who control and regulate the mining industry.

“The section that says the minister, director and other officials of the ministry cannot be prosecuted in the line of their duties, as long as they act in good faith, is unacceptable. This concentrates power in the hands of the officials, and leads corruption and abuse of office.”

The MP added that the 0.1 percent of gross revenue given to the mining communities “is grossly inadequate and ridiculous”. The land belonged to the people, and they must benefit from the mines that destroyed their lands, and forced them out of traditional farming.

Political watchers here believe the Bill was rushed through parliament in time for the Donors’ Conference on Sierra Leone, held in London, from Nov 1 to Nov 20.

Commented Desmond Cole, an analyst: “The government had to present a comprehensive mining policy document, since it was trying to attract foreign investors. It had to do this, though it was clearly wrong in law. It simply did not have much time on its hands.”

Civil society, too, has been up in arms against the Act. Leslie Mboka, of the Coalition of Activists on Just Mining, told IPS: “The Act is faulty, and needs to be withdrawn and re-written. It simply gave excess powers to the minister and his officials, giving them immunity from prosecution.

“The so-called Minerals Advisory Board has no oversight functions, and the minister is not obliged to listen to it. This will lead to unbridled corruption.”

Mboka also wants the people in mining communities to have a greater say in policy, as well as benefit from infrastructural and social development.

“Their lands are been destroyed with no reclamation done. They are paid a pittance as royalties, and their agricultural activities have been overrun by big mining corporations, which have no regard for the welfare of the people whose lands they exploit,” Mboka fumed.

Like other civil society activists, Mboka argues that the Act is not in the best interest of the country and must be withdrawn. But this is hardly feasible, since it has been passed by the House of Parliament and is awaiting presidential assent. Yet this is expected to cause a drawn-out debate.

Many believe parliament is rushing laws that could be detrimental to the country, as long as they are in the interests of the ruling party. This is not the first time that parliamentary majority has been used to rush through Bills.

During the administration of the previous SLPP government, that lost elections to the APC in 2007, Bills were pushed through as and when the governing party wanted. The then opposition APC at least once staged a similar walk-out of parliament.

The country was governed under a single-party dictatorship from 1978 to 1996, with the APC in power. Some fear that the indiscriminate pushing through of Bills, as was done in the past, may scupper the nurturing of democracy and stall development.

Michael Conteh, a rights activist, says: “Democracy entails mass participation. But if a whole opposition party walks out of parliament, then their voices as well as the aspirations of millions of their constituents will not be heard in decision-making.”

The furore over the Mines and Minerals Act has also alerted ordinary members of the public to their rights as the governed. The debate has hit the airwaves and made headlines. Talk shows are being organised on the vibrant community radios, and people are discussing the Act in public places and on public transport.

One angry father of seven, who lives in the rich diamond-producing district of Kono in the east, told IPS: “This is ridiculous. How can they be making laws for our region without involving us, the locals? We see diamonds carted away from here daily, but remain impoverished.

“Our children don’t go to school, our roads are bad, and we don’t even have pipe-borne water. It is really unfair.”

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Dec 18 2009 (IPS)

A new police force plan to recruit youths in each community, to help fight the country-wide spate of armed robbery, has provoked controversy and sparked a nationwide debate.

Unemployed youths in Sierra Leone sometimes find work pushing wooden carts for merchants. Credit: Ansu Konneh/IRIN

“Some of the youths may have despicable records, but (still) manage to make it into the volunteer force. My worry is that they may end up tormenting members of the community they are supposed to protect, by engaging in mobile phone and purse snatching, mugging and other petty crime,” opines Margaret Sandi, a Freetown housewife and recent mugging victim.

But even these ex-child combatants are as desperate as the more than one million youths roaming the streets in search of jobs.

This is not the first time that the authorities have resorted to recruiting youthful volunteers to help state security forces. At the height of the civil war, in the 90s, youths were recruited to form “civil defence forces” throughout the country.

Their mandate was to help the regular forces contain the rebels. Many of these ended up harassing and looting the neighbourhoods. Some even surrendered their loyalty to the rebels, who were gaining control of territory and resources.

Acting police chief, Morie Lengor, told IPS there was an urgent need for this recruitment drive.

“These youths know their communities very well. They would not be considered police officers, but simply community volunteers who help the police identify and arrest criminals and armed robbers.”

Lengor said the criteria for recruitment were: a volunteer must be above 18; residing in the community; not have a criminal record and not be an alcoholic or drug addict.

The rules, according to the police chief, prohibit any volunteer from extortion or bribe-taking or impersonating the police. They can make arrests only in co-operation with the police, and may not carry offensive weapons.

Lengor said they would not be paid monthly wages, but receive stipends and other logistical support to help them carry out their job. They would also be supplied with white T-shirts to distinguish them from the blue uniform of the police.

The exercise will start in Freetown, the capital, which has already been partitioned into 860 zones, with 10 community volunteers manning each zone.

Lengor says this will make community policing more effective and responsive.

“Already hundreds of unemployed youths in the communities have been offering themselves for recruitment, and we have set up community safety committees composed of elders to help us identify suitable candidates.”

Armed robbery has increased sharply in cities and towns across the country in the past few months. Scores of people, including foreign investors, have been killed and property and money valued at tens of thousands of US dollars stolen.

This has caused people to lose confidence in the police, many residents accusing them of complicity in robbery.

These fears were increased by the arrest of two senior police officers on suspicion of colluding with robbers. They were named by robbery suspects as providing them with weapons. The robbers and the officers are now on trial in Freetown.

“I don’t trust the police to deal with the problem of armed robbery,” says robbery victim Michael Cole. “My home was robbed at gunpoint. We called the police, who are few metres away from our west Freetown residence, but they told us they had no vehicles and were short of manpower. It is a tragedy here.”

This view is shared by many residents of the capital and the provincial cities. They claim wherever there is a reported case of armed robbery victims often say they saw the robbers in police uniforms and bearing arms.

The police claim they do not have enough personnel and the logistical capacity to deal with the upsurge in crime.

With 10 youths manning each zone, the police would end up recruiting close to 9,000 volunteer youths for Freetown alone – almost as many as in the entire police force. There are also questions about the duplication of police functions.

But Lengor told IPS this was in no way abdicating police responsibility. “We are not relinquishing our constitutional responsibilities. Rather, we believe this initiative will make our work easier. We would be recruiting the most suitable youths, who are disciplined and patriotic,” Lengor maintains.

The opposition claims the government is using the recruitment of youths partly as a political gesture to win elections.

Comments Jacob Jusu Saffa, secretary-general of the main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party: “The Ruling All Peoples Congress party is recruiting these youths in order to position itself for the 2012 elections.

“They give the impression jobs are been created for the youths, but we see this as the government failing in its duty to provide security for the people.”

Civil society has also voiced concern. John Caulker, of the rights monitoring group Forum of Conscience, told IPS: “The authorities must be careful in the way they go about recruiting these youths.

“We must not in the quest for job creation rush into recruiting youths who have questionable backgrounds. I think the police must be adequately empowered to carry out their duties.”

The police force has benefited immensely by support from the British Department for International Development in its restructuring. Officers have been given advanced training, had barracks refurbished and received vehicles and logistical help.

But there is a lot more to be done before the Sierra Leonean police force gets on top of the situation, and tackles the twin problems of crime and violence in the impoverished west African state.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Dec 8 2009 (IPS)

The country’s president has failed to meet his electoral commitment of running a transparent and accountable government, free of tribalism and regionalism, opposition parties say.

President Ernest Bai Koroma's administration has been heavily criticised. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

The letter is a strong indictment of Koroma, who promised a new break in the politics of Sierra Leone. It has alerted not only the local population grappling with bread-and-butter survival, but also the international donor community to widespread graft and poor governance.

John Caulker, of the rights monitoring group Forum of Conscience, told IPS: “The president or State House must respond to these allegations about governance. They are very serious and bothering.

“This pattern of rewarding one’s family and cronies with lucrative contracts is not peculiar to the Ernest Bai Koroma administration. Past governments have done likewise, but the trend must be stopped if the state is to move forward.”

Koroma campaigned on the ticket of ending corruption, and turning the country’s economic fortunes around. Two years into his presidency the people remain just as poor and deprived, living on less than a dollar a day. Infant and maternal mortality rates are the highest in the world and the country still ranks as the poorest on the United Nations Human Development Index.

Festus Minah, chairperson of the Civil Society Movement of Sierra Leone, said: “We are already seeing a pattern of cronyism and tribalism in the awarding of contracts and jobs. The president must address the concerns raised by the opposition, and put an end to speculations.”

Titled ‘Major Governance and Development Concerns’, Benjamin’s broadside highlighted what he called “key areas of concern” on the running of the state. He spoke about the “improper awarding of contracts” for the supply of electricity to the capital, Freetown, and many other government procurements.

Benjamin even placed Koroma’s avowed commitment to ending corruption under scrutiny, alleging that his family has been involved in contract deals.

Following Koroma’s election victory in 2007, the president announced in his inaugural address there would be an end to corruption. “There will be no sacred cow in my regime. My ministers, my family and no one will be given preferential treatment. Everyone must face the law,” he had said.

This was seen as a new chapter in the fight against graft, and the president soon gave the anti-corruption commission prosecutorial powers, making it significantly autonomous.

In October the president fired his minister of health and sanitation, Sheku Tejan Koroma, after allegations of corruption. He is facing the commission on charges of abuse of office, and graft. Many welcome this, but think the president needs to do more, even if it means exposing his family and friends to the law.

“There is documentary proof that a duty waiver of about one million dollars was granted Harmony Trading Company, operated by your younger brother Sylvanus Koroma. The company’s only qualification (for bagging the duty waiver) is its closeness to the presidency,” Benjamin charged. Imported goods are subject to duty or custom charges, but Harmony Trading was exempted from paying, allegedly because of its CEO’s relationship with the president. Harmony has been importing rice since Koroma’s ascendancy to power in 2007.

The opposition leader also lashed out at the president’s elder sister, Admire Sesay (Nee Koroma), a former civil servant who, since the election of her younger brother, quit her secretarial job to become a government contractor.

“We are concerned that your elder sister keeps bagging huge government contracts, using her influence without competing on public tender,” Benjamin fumed. He cited multiple catering contracts awarded her by the government, and her influence in helping cronies bag contracts.

Other members of the president’s family were also included in allegations. Benjamin’s letter was made public just before the start of a two-day donors’ conference on Sierra Leone held in London. It has triggered a debate that has sent political temperatures to boiling point. The opposition has capitalised on this expose, with neither the president’s office nor officials in government responding.

“The president’s office or the official government spokesperson must shed light on these grave allegations,” commented Steven Jones, political analyst in the capital. “They bother on the issue of governance, probity and accountability, and surely it is in the public interest.”

Koroma attended the London conference with a high-powered government delegation, in the hope of attracting private investors to his country, which ended an 11-year civil war in 2002.

“There can be nothing more damaging to the image of the presidency and the country than these damning allegations made by the opposition leader. This obviously makes potential investors shy away from the country, Jones added.

Supporters of the government say Benjamin’s letter was ill-timed, as it had an adverse impact on the donors’ conference in London.

Economist Ibrahim Sillah opined that the meeting did not attract as many pledges as the Sierra Leonean delegation might have expected.

“Apart from a few pledges to buy shares in local banks, and invest in agriculture, there was little said about industries and infrastructural investment. Investors might have been thinking about the negative signals sent out by the opposition, and how their investment might be a worthless risk,” Sillah said.

Benjamin’s letter also spoke about inflated and untendered contracts to ruling All People’s Congress (APC) party loyalists, and the government’s failure to swiftly deal with cases of corruption.

The dismissal of highly trained and qualified professionals and civil servants who are believed to have opposition sympathies also featured in Benjamin’s letter, and this has been an issue of major public debate here since the elections of 2007.

Benjamin said: “Since you were elected in 2007, more than 200 qualified and competent professionals, particularly those perceived to be sympathisers of the SLPP, especially south-easterners (the SLPP stronghold), have been fired from public service and replaced by your kinsmen, cronies and party supporters, with little regard for their competence, experience and qualification.”

This question of exclusion of perceived opposition supporters from governance has all the more proved to be an obstacle to badly needed national reconciliation. The country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up immediately after the end of the war, noted in its findings that corruption, marginalisation and regional and ethnic divides were key factors that triggered the war in 1991, and warned that a relapse might well send the impoverished West African state into another round of anarchy and bloodletting.

More than 50 percent of Sierra Leone’s economy comes from donor assistance, and with the war long gone and donor fatigue setting in, the government will need to generate substantial revenue internally. And this would mean fighting corruption and making government transparent and accountable.

A Western diplomat told IPS on condition of anonymity: “We are carefully studying the situation, and we do take Mr Benjamin’s allegations very seriously. Sierra Leone is in the process of rebuilding, and it cannot afford to allow corruption to go unchecked. As partners we cannot sit by and allow a reversal of the gains made so far.”

There is pressure on the president and his APC administration to deal with the concerns raised in the opposition letter, and a party insider told IPS the president’s office was considering a public statement on the allegations.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Nov 11 2009 (IPS)

It may be seven years after the country’s civil war, but Sierra Leone is still battling to obtain an independent judiciary.

Recent claims that the president’s office had inside knowledge of the date a judgment, in a case brought by the media, would be handed down has left many wondering if the country has independent courts.

Since the end of the 11-year civil war in 2002, the British Department for International Development (DFID) has been pouring huge amounts of money into helping reform the judiciary which, like many state institutions, had virtually collapsed.

Judges and magistrates were provided with luxurious vehicles, the law courts were given a facelift, judicial officials were trained and the prisons system overhauled. But there is still much to be desired.

Sierra Leone’s 1991 constitution clearly affirms the independence of the three arms of government – the judiciary, legislature and the executive (presidency) – but the judiciary has often been accused of allowing some of its activities to be interfered with by the executive, eroding neutrality.

A long-awaited ruling is expected on a matter brought before the Supreme Court by the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), demanding a repeal of the criminal and seditious libel laws of the 1965 Public Order Act.

The law criminalises libel, and has seen many journalists sent to jail or have their publications proscribed.

Arguments in the matter were concluded in March 2009, and a ruling was expected within 90 days, according to the country’s constitution. But when the Supreme Court reneged on giving a verdict, the SLAJ imposed a news blackout on the judiciary and other arms of the government, such as the police and the ministry of information, which the media association saw as accomplices in thwarting its goal.

Apparently embarrassed by this stand-off, the president’s office wrote a letter to the SLAJ informing the association the ruling would be given in mid-September, when the judiciary resumed sittings following months of recess.

The SLAJ was re-assured and hopeful, but this provoked widespread condemnation of the president’s office by rights monitoring groups and democracy watchers, who accused the executive of interfering in the activities of the judiciary. As yet, there has been no ruling on the matter.

First to fling down the gauntlet was the Awareness Times, a daily tabloid that has been a thorn in the flesh of the administration.

Its publisher, Sylvia Blyden, told IPS: “It is not that we are opposed to the cause of SLAJ. We are simply pointing out the constitutional abuses of the executive, and how these undermine democracy. How would the president know when the courts were to pass a ruling if he was not interfering with their activities?”

Her campaign resonated with that of others who believed democracy was under threat. The president’s office was forced to issue a press release insisting that it was neutral. It claimed its message was simply that the ruling would be given any time within the judicial year, which started mid-September.

Blyden claims she has herself been a victim of what she described as executive interference in judicial proceedings. In July 2008 she took the president’s press secretary, Sheka Tarawalli, to court for alleged libellous articles about her.

The matter had barely started in court when the attorney-general, through the director of public prosecutions, issued an order of nolle prosequoi, which automatically quashed the matter, apparently to save the image of the presidency.

This was no isolated incident. The history of Sierra Leone’s judiciary is replete with allegations of executive interference, and this is not peculiar to the current government. Past regimes, both civilian and military, are similarly accused of such executive excesses.

During the past administration of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), journalist and editor of the vocal For Di People newspaper, Paul Kamara, was jailed for criminal libel, after alleged interference by the executive.

His deputy, Harry Yansaneh, died after being brutally assaulted by aides and the children of a former member of parliament. After alleged executive interference no one was brought to trial, in spite of the courts having ordered arrests.

Easmon Ngakui, spokesperson for the bar association, agrees there are shortcomings in the judiciary – but denies it is been influenced by the executive.

“I don’t think the executive influences the judiciary. Rather, the judiciary has a long way to go in terms of meeting the logistical challenges and manpower requirements,” Ngakui told IPS.

Judges and magistrates, he argued, did not even have computers and were poorly paid. In addition to Ngakui’s position, there is an apparent shortage of judicial personnel, and allegations of corruption abound.

On top of this, the head of the judiciary, the chief justice, is appointed by the president as are senior members of the bench. Some believe this has undermined the effectiveness of the judiciary, as decisions sometimes get influenced by the executive.

“How can the judiciary be effective when poor people don’t have access to justice? Suspects spend years on remand without having their cases heard in court, and most people cannot afford to hire the services of lawyers because of poverty,” commented Michael Jones, a legal analyst in the capital, Freetown.

Sierra Leone has had to hire foreign judicial personnel from neighbouring countries like Ghana, Nigeria and the Gambia to shore up its system, and the difficulty in meeting legal costs by the majority of the citizenry drove a group of young lawyers to set up a legal aid service, which provides services to the poor and marginalised.

Melron Nicol-Wilson, executive director of the Lawyers’ Centre for Legal Assistance (LAWCLA), told IPS they were motivated by the growing number of people who had no access to justice.

“It is a huge sacrifice but a worthy cause. The majority of people in this country have no access to justice, because for them the legal charges are prohibitive and they are too poor, so we are stepping in to help,” Nicol-Wilson said.

LAWCLA has gained a reputation for championing the poor and helping them gain access to justice through its many lawyers, free of cost.

It is widely believed here that politicisation and under-funding of the judiciary have over the years been the main cause of ineffectiveness. So the intervention of DFID, which provides financial support for its overhauling, is seen as a ray of hope.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Sep 28 2009 (IPS)

Sierra Leone's largest opposition party has taken the country's media monitoring body to court for banning its radio station.

The Independent Media Commission (IMC) banned the Sierra Leone Peoples' Party (SLPP) station, Radio Unity, in March. This followed political clashes between the SLPP supporters and the ruling All Peoples' Congress (APC). The APC’s station, Rising Sun, was also banned.

Just before the Rising Sun’s suspension, the station broadcast messages claiming the SLPP had mobilised former militia fighters at its Freetown office to unleash terror on city residents. The outcome of that broadcast was an attack on the SLPP at its Freetown office.

The SLPP and APC’s radio stations were taken off air for what the media watchdog says was "incitement and non-compliance with the media code of ethics".

The SLPP dismisses this charge, insisting the ban was politically motivated and had nothing to do with the reason given by the commission. The party also claims that the APC’s station was merely banned to justify the banning of Radio Unity. And it plans to fight its case in court.

"The IMC's reason for banning our radio station was purely political. The ruling party knew our station was a thorn in its flesh, and so it was in its interests to take such a decision. We are now in court to seek redress," claims Jacob Jusu Saffa, secretary-general of the SLPP.

He told IPS that the inclusion of the APC mouthpiece in the ban was simply to justify the action taken against Radio Unity. Saffa accuses the commission of colluding with the ruling party to stifle freedom of speech and expression, a charge the commission strongly denies.

The courts resume sittings at the end of December, after a three-month recess, and the SLPP application is expected to be heard then. It is expected to be followed with great interest, given that it is politically charged and also hinges on human rights, democracy and media freedom.

The two radio stations were established in the run-up to general and presidential elections in 2007, which brought the APC to power, after 15 years in opposition. The establishment of its station gave the APC a big advantage over the SLPP in the polls. Its daily broadcast, along with growing discontent among the electorate at the performance of the SLPP, won it significant votes.

But since the APC assumed office SLPP’s Radio Unity has taken centre-stage in criticising the government. Its attacks over the performance of APC officials often angered the ruling party. This attracted more listeners, and caused support for the APC to dwindle, just two years into the party's rule.

This is not to say the APC's own radio station did not have a wide audience. It became an efficient propaganda organ for the party, with its supporters using it to justify every action of the APC, and helping to further party unity.

Information and Communication minister Ibrahim Ben Kargbo told IPS the government had no hand in banning the two stations. "The decision to ban the two radio stations was purely that of the IMC. They have a clear mandate to regulate both the print and electronic media. We are not contesting their decision because we believe in their independence and neutrality," Kargbo said.

Kargbo supports the IMC decision, saying the two political stations were leading the country to the path of "national disunity, regional divide and creating a stumbling block to reconciliation".

But this view is not generally accepted by the wider public and media watchers. Many believe the ban on the two stations is nothing but the revoking of media freedom in the country.

Hadji Bah, a spokesperson for the rights monitoring group Democracy-Sierra Leone, opines: "We are totally opposed to the ban slammed on the two radio stations. It is unacceptable in this our fledgling democracy, and we will support all efforts to get the decision overturned."

Political commentator Joseph Johnson in the capital says; "I do not belong to any political party, but I believe the existence of the SLPP radio constantly kept the government on its toes, while giving voice to the ordinary people. The ban must be lifted, it negates the values of democracy."

Sierra Leone has had a chequered history in media freedom in recent years. A bloody 11-year civil war that ended in 2002, and successive military regimes, brought the media under serious censorship and practitioners were prosecuted or jailed.

There is also an obsolete law, the 1965 Public Order Act, which the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) has been battling to get scrapped. It criminalises libel, and has seen many journalists thrown into jail. It is yet to be expunged from the statute books.

Like the campaign against the criminal libel laws, as contained in the Public Order Act, SLAJ is challenging the government to lift the ban on the two political radio stations. Its president, Umaru Fofana, told IPS the association was firmly behind the SLPP and independent advocates to see this done.

"We believe the banning of the two stations is ominous for media freedom and plurality. The IMC is authorised to monitor and regulate the media and not to ban them. This is a clear blow to freedom of speech and expression. The decision must be overturned."

With the closure of the two radio stations the government says an alternative has been found – the transformation of national broadcaster, the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service, into a public corporation. It now becomes the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), with corporate status, and it is claimed to be is autonomous and politically independent. The authorities say this will give equal voice to all shades of political opinion, and enhance free speech and expression. But both the SLAJ and the opposition disagree with the official position.

The SLAJ questions the idea that the director-general of SLBC will be appointed by the president, as this would result in the corporation boss being answerable to the president, and probably leaning towards the party in power. This was the case under the old SLPP, where the state broadcaster became mouthpiece for the government of the day, and the opposition was denied air time.

Given this climate of suspicion, civil society has stepped in with its own ideas of resolving the situation. Charles Mambu, chairman of a coalition of civil society organisations, says there is a need for the government, SLAJ, the IMC and the opposition to sit together and thrash out solutions.

"As rights monitors we think any attempt to muzzle the Press, either by proscription or imprisonment of journalists, is unacceptable. The media's role in informing and educating the people is vital, especially in this country where we are just awakening to democracy," Mambu says.

He suggests such a debate could be widened into a national consultative conference that would include other stakeholders in the democratic process.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Aug 26 2009 (IPS)

Government’s refusal to pay the salaries of thousands teachers, while looking to recruit thousands more, has plunged the schooling system into crisis.

With the new academic year poised to start next week, government and the national teachers’ union are still odds about payment for almost 3,000 teachers who have not received their salaries for over a year.

Government refuses to pay the teachers because they were not approved by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports while the teachers’ union says the teachers have performed their duties in schools where they were desperately needed and deserve to be paid.

"We cannot pay these teachers because they were not approved by the ministry," says Minkailu Bah, the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports. He adds: "Our system is such that a teacher only gets paid when his or her name is on the voucher, meaning that he or she must have been approved by the ministry."

It is a stance that the Sierra Leone Teachers’ Union (SLTU) calls ridiculous. The union’s president, Abdulai Brima Koroma, says they are taking the matter head-on with the ministry. Previously schools were allowed to hire teachers as required and the ministry would approve them afterwards.

"This is absurd, to say the least. The schools badly needed teachers last year and they still do now. These teachers have delivered services and they must be paid. The ministry has no excuse for refusing to pay the teachers and we will not relent until they are fully paid their dues," Koroma says.

He says the union is currently compiling a list with details of the unpaid teachers – including their names and the names of the schools where they’ve been teaching – in order to make a strong case to the government.

The problem has been significantly compounded by the Ministry of Education, which embarked on a teacher verification exercise last year. It announced the uncovering of thousands of so-called "ghost" or "phantom" teachers in schools who receive salaries but are non-existent.

However, government is yet to publish its findings and to streamline the Ministry’s budget, to accommodate the salaries of new teachers recruited into the schooling system.

Officials at the ministry of education told IPS the government is planning to recruit up to 2,000 new teachers, but there is no mention of whether those already recruited by school authorities, would be considered.

Despite the current situation of unpaid teachers Koroma agrees there is need for the recruitment of more educators: "In the interior of the country, some schools with 300 or so pupils have only two to three teachers. This is unacceptable and it is in fact responsible for the falling standards in our educational system."

But while government looks to recruit new teachers, Thomas Kamara has not been paid a salary by government for over a year and wonders why he can’t get paid for his work.

A graduate from Njala University College, Kamara has been offering private classes to financially support his family of four. The basic salary of a teacher in Sierra Leone is about 250,000 Leones, which is roughly USD80. But Kamara doesn’t even receive this payment.

Says Kamara: "I teach high school kids in the community and also conduct extra lessons for my pupils. It is the money that I get from these lessons that I use to keep my family going." And Kamara isn’t the only teacher providing private tuition. Others also eke out their living by filling the gap created in the schooling system.

Kamara taught through the previous academic year and is yet to receive approval from the Ministry of Education. "I see this as totally ridiculous. I am a graduate and officially employed by the school authorities. Why can’t I get paid for my services?" he asks.

He is just one of the thousands of teachers who, despite the lack of pay, have kept working throughout the year because unemployment in the country is rife and options are limited. (The United Nations estimates that unemployment figures to be about 65 percent.) Others have said they are simply committed to educating the children.

But the stand-off between the teachers’ union and the Ministry of Education is badly affecting school pupils, especially those preparing for external examinations to enter university.

"We do not have teachers for Chemistry and Mathematics, two key subjects required for entry into the university and I am worried about this development," remarks Michael Cole, a high school pupil in the capital Freetown.

Many kids, like Cole, have had to resort to private classes to cover for the lessons they miss, due to the shortage of teachers. And, the short-comings of the school system are clearly visible in the examination results.

For two successive academic years, Sierra Leone recorded the worst results in public examinations. The examinations were conducted for the four English-speaking West African countries of: Sierra Leone; Ghana; the Gambia; and Nigeria.

Earlier this year, the government set up a commission of inquiry to look into the causes of falling standards in schools and why the country has twice performed dismally at public examinations.

The findings of the commission are yet to be made public, but already, critics say the Ministry of Education should be thoroughly restructured in order to inject efficiency into the system and resolve the recurrent impasse between teachers and the ministry.

There is concern now that many graduates would shy away from the teaching profession, which not only lack incentives in terms of remuneration, but also security and guarantee of monthly pay.

Concludes SLTU president Koroma: "The ministry needs to work with the SLTU in so far as the issue of teachers is concerned. Any unilateral move by them is bound to be counter-productive and inimical to progress in the schooling system." (END/LF/NK/09)

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Jul 15 2009 (IPS)

Two Sierra Leonean radio stations have been stripped of their licences. The national regulatory body, the Independent Media Commission (IMC), says the stations failed to comply with the country’s media code.

Turning down the volume: rival radio stations have been blamed for fanning political tensions with inflammatory broadcasts. Credit: Tugela Ridley/IRIN

A statement from the media regulator reads: “Notwithstanding the provisions of the Media Code of Practice and the IMC Act relevant to the suspension of radio stations, and despite efforts by the Commission to get the two political radio stations to comply with the media code, without success, the Commission is regrettably left with no option but to withdraw their licenses with immediate effect.”

The banning of the two radio stations follows their suspension in March by the country’s vice president, Samuel Sam Sumana, after a series of politically-motivated clashes between militants of the two parties that resulted in many injuries and destruction of property.

Sumana’s action received widespread condemnation, not only from the opposition but also from the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) and rights monitors.

For instance, just before they were suspended, Rising Sun broadcast messages claiming the SLPP had mobilised former militia fighters at its Freetown office to unleash terror on city residents. The outcome of that broadcast was an attack on the SLPP office where people got injured and property destroyed.

Incidents like these explain why their ban is welcome among many people here.

“These were hate radio stations that were simply fanning the flames of tribalism, sectionalism and disunity in the country. They were pushing the country to the brink of another conflict which this country can ill-afford,” comments Michael George, a political analyst in the capital.

A truce between the groups of militants was brokered in April by the United Nations Peace-building Office. But the sanctioning of the radio stations now threatens to inflame an atmosphere that is still politically charged.

The president of SLAJ, Umaru Fofana, has condemned the ban, describing it as “lacking any moral justification.”

Fofana has resigned from the IMC’s Policy Committee in protest. “This ban is incompatible with my principle and belief in media pluralism and a free press,” he says.

It is curious to see that the journalists’ association is split on the ban on the two political radio stations. Officially, SLAJ is opposed to the ban, but some members say it was a wise decision by the IMC and support the move.

David Tam-Baryoh, a newspaper commentator and former publisher who is a member of SLAJ says the two stations had failed to comply with the media code of ethics and were grossly unprofessional.

“I have been a strong advocate of media freedom and pluralism but I think the two political radio stations had taken this too far. Their broadcasts were highly inflammatory and given that this country has just emerged from a brutal civil conflict, their existence would only plunge us into anarchy.”

The opposition SLPP, however, is more disturbed by the ban. Radio Unity had been very vocal in challenging policies of the ruling APC. Radio Unity repeatedly pointed out the ruling party’s failures and naming and shaming ministers and government officials it considered under-performers, much to the annoyance of the APC government.

Jacob Jusu Saffa, the secretary general of the SLPP, told IPS his party is contemplating taking legal action against the IMC seeking to overturn its decision.

“The IMC is only independent in name. It is acting on the orders of the ruling APC and is helping the ruling regime to stifle free speech and pluralism of the media. We in the SLPP consider this unacceptable and so we are going to court to challenge this action,” Saffa told IPS in Freetown.

As for the ruling APC party, its officials have remained largely silent. This is understandable because it has little to lose if the two stations are off air. After all, it controls the state-owned Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service and enjoys more air time than the opposition.

Frank Kargbo, the assistant national publicity secretary of the APC, says his party respects the decision of the IMC. “The IMC is the official media regulatory body and so if it decides to shut down the two political radio stations, we (APC) can only respect their decision because we believe they have done so in the interest of peace and national stability.”

The minister of information and communication, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, denies the government is behind the ban imposed on the two political party radios.

“Our government believes in the freedom of the press. We have not thrown any journalist in jail, for publishing or airing his or her views, since we assumed office nearly two years ago, so for anyone to suggest that the government is behind the ban is totally untrue. At the same time, we respect the decision of the IMC, which is an independent body.”

While the IMC continues to endure the condemnation of media watchers and rights activists in the country, with some accusing it of collusion with the ruling party, Sierra Leoneans are waiting to see if the opposition SLPP will carry out its threat of going to court.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, May 19 2009 (IPS)

Incitement and violent clashes continue to shackle the government of Sierra Leone that took office two years ago. The elections were marred by reports of assassination attempts; violent confrontations between party militants; burning and looting; and widespread intimidation of voters.

The turbulence has not subsided: in March, two radio stations were taken off the air for inciting violence and by-elections put on hold because of political instability.

"There is an urgent need to review the country's electoral system and to make amends, so that the chaos and violence that characterised the polls of 2007 would be avoided," political analyst, Lawrence Davies, told IPS in the capital, Freetown.

His rallying call is what a two-day national consultative conference organised by the civil society group, Enhancing interaction and interface between civil society and the state (ENCISS) set out to do on May 8 and 9 ahead of the next elections in 2012.

The 2007 presidential and general elections saw the ousting of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) who had won both the 1996 and 2002 polls on the Proportional Representation (PR) electoral system. Its arch-rival the All Peoples Congress (APC) ascended to power in 2007 on a constituency based or winner-takes-all system.

John Caulker of the Forum of Conscience, a rights monitoring group involved in reconciling former combatants with their communities, said the 2007 elections polarised the country.

"There is widespread regionalism and tribalism even in governmental appointments and political temperatures are still boiling. A middle road has to be found and I think the PR system deserves some consideration."

The PR system requires parties to submit the names of candidates at constituency and national levels; and allows the electorate to vote for parties instead of individuals. Former cabinet minister, Julius Spencer, who is now a media proprietor said the system was "less prone" to violence and allows for "wider representation" in decision-making.

A stance supported by Dr Nemata Majeks-Walker, a co-founder of the "50/50 Group," a women's advocacy network. "The PR system obliges parties to give quotas to women, something like 30 percent, and I think this is fair in terms of empowering women."

The constitutional review commission has rejected the gender lobby's demand for a 30 percent women?s representation in political structures and in job placements. After winning the 2007 poll, President Ernest Bai Koroma, pledged to include more women in his cabinet.

Yet there are only two women in the 44-member cabinet; only 17 women in the 124-member parliament – the ruling APC has 59 representatives, the main opposition SLPP 44, the Peoples Movement for Democratic Change nine and 12 seats have been allocated to paramount chiefs.

Approximately two million voters registered to cast there ballots in 2007 at more than 6,000 polling stations for candidates contesting in 112 constituencies. The ruling APC's secretary general, Victor Foe, maintains that a move away from this system would concentrate power in the hands of party leaders.

"The PR system is only good in times of crisis because electoral districts may not be accessible and there may be logistical difficulties. But then, it detaches the MPs from their constituents because they owe no obligation to them but to their parties. They are not individually voted for."

Ibrahim Tayib Bah, the opposition SLPP's public relations officer, said his party was not averse to the National Elections Commission (NEC) reintroducing the PR system.

"That's fine, but then, we think it would warrant a national census for its approval. For us, we are more interested in free and transparent elections so that our fledging democracy would flourish," Bah said.

The SLPP is concerned though about the independence of state institutions like the police force and the NEC.

"There is evidence that the police have not been neutral both during the 2007 elections and recently with the spiralling violence that engulfed the country in March this year," said Bah.

"They have stood by watching our party offices attacked and vandalised by supporters of the APC and did nothing. We really need reforms in the whole political and electoral arenas if the 2012 elections are to be credible," said Bah.

The NEC nullified the results of more than 400 polling stations in SLPP strongholds in the east of the country eliciting complaints of electoral bias.

"Time was not on our hands and I think with three years to go before the next elections, there is considerable room for improvement. All the NEC needs is total independence and no outside interference by political players," is the appeal from the chief electoral commissioner, Christians Thorpe.

"Most of what went wrong, in the 2007 elections, was due to the high level of illiteracy in the country. The commission therefore needs to significantly sensitise voters, on the whole electoral process and we are set to do this."

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, May 7 2009 (IPS)

Since the end of the civil war seven years ago, the Sierra Leonean authorities and child welfare agencies have been battling to remove children from the diamond-mining fields, a trend which began at the height of the conflict, when children were abducted by rebel forces and coerced to work in the mines.

Mass poverty and unemployment are major factors pushing children and the youth to the mines. Credit: USAID

“It highlights the government’s failure to meet its obligations under domestic and international laws to protect and promote the rights of children. This allows the development of deep socio-economic grievances amongst a large segment of the country’s post-war generation.”

Researchers from the International Human Rights Clinic, at the Harvard Law School, recently travelled through dozens of mining towns and villages in Sierra Leone to document the situation. They have just published their findings.

“The children and youth are faced with abysmal working conditions which put them at risk of accidents and diseases and expose them to collapsing mine pits,” remarks Matthew Wells, who is co-author of the report titled “Digging in the Dirt: Child Miners in Sierra Leone’s Diamond Industry.”

The report paints a horrific picture of slave labour, where children – some as young as 10 – transport bags of gravel weighing between 30 and 60 kilogrammes, on their heads, working from sunrise to sunset, often without proper food or medical care.

The government acknowledges the growing problem of child miners and the social problems it is causing, but insists it is doing its best to get them out of the mines. Last year, it passed into law gender and child rights acts, prohibiting children from being exposed to all forms of abuses.

But it seems the new laws are hardly enforced. Mass poverty and unemployment are major factors pushing children and the youth to the mines. Mining communities lack schools and trained teachers; and social services are few and far between. Most parents lack the financial means to send their children to school.

Teresa Vamboi, the chief social development officer at the ministry of gender and children’s affairs, told IPS it is a difficult situation: “We remove the children from the mines and, together with our partners who are involved with child welfare activities, try to send them back to school. Regrettably though, a good number of them return to the mines, which seem to be more lucrative to them.”

According to Vamboi, many of the kids have become bread-winners for their impoverished families. “They are encouraged by their parents to go to the mines and once they are there, it becomes very difficult to persuade them to quit completely.”

Tamba James, 15, lives in the eastern town of Koidu, the main heartland of diamond mining, in the West African country. He says he and his three siblings and lost both their mother and father during the war. They have no one to turn to for their livelihood.

“I have to go to the mines because that is the only place I can raise money to feed myself and two brothers,” James says.

“The job is difficult, from transporting gravel and digging the soil, to washing the piles of gravel. I do this from Monday to Saturday, week in, week out. It is not my choice but I have no alternative.”

He sets off at 6 am and works till 6 pm, with intermittent breaks. He admits food is meagre and poor and that they have no access to medical facilities.

The daily wages for child miners range from 500 to 2,000 Leones: approximately 15 to 60 U.S. cents a day. They are promised bonuses after a find, but exactly how much they get is at the whim of their employer.

According to Tamba and his peers, the mines’ sponsors typically give them just enough to buy CDs, sneakers and clothes and have some little amount left over to take home. The children nonetheless hope to make lots of money through their labour.

The exact number of child miners in Sierra Leone is not known but it is generally thought to be in the thousands, with the figure steadily rising. IPS saw hundreds of mine pits in Kono and Kenema districts in the east of the country, with dozens of children aged between 10 and 16 working in them. And although many hope to strike it rich, they often end up gaining nothing and losing everything: their youth, energy and education.

Not all diamond operators use children. The Harvard researchers found they are mostly recruited by artisanal miners who depend on children and youth as a source of cheap manual labour.

The industry, according to findings by mining activists including the NMJD and Journalists for Just Mining, is replete with corruption. They claim mines monitoring officials are often bribed to turn a blind eye to their activities. They say there is need for regulatory reforms both within the government and the mining industry if the system is to improve.

They are calling on the government to take immediate action to eliminate child mining, by better addressing the needs of both adults and children in mining communities. These needs include poverty reduction, education and health care for children.

Last year, President Ernest Bai Koroma set up a special task force to review the country’s mining laws and regulations. One of the issues to be addressed is that of child mining, according to the spokesperson of the force, Frank Kargbo.

He says the task force has been in negotiations with some of the multinational companies involved in the diamond industry and that a report would soon be published.

“Key to the report would be royalties paid to mining communities and the welfare of indigenes there. This will invariably include the issue of taking children and youth permanently off the mines,” Kargbo concludes.

The Harvard Law School report blames the government for failing to provide basic educational opportunities for children and youth, as well as social services in rural provinces. It surmises that this forces many children to turn to the mines, as a source of income for their families.

Wells says mining laws have been ineffectual so far because of complicity between mines officials who receive bribes from mines operators because of poor pay. No legal action has been taken against individuals who recruit children to work in the mines.

And so even with the review process by the Task Force, the future could well remain the same if the government does not take practical steps to tackle the problem head-on, by effecting arrests and closing down the minefields of those who flout the laws.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Apr 28 2009 (IPS)

On Apr. 8, the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone passed sentences on three former commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), bringing to an end the trials of militia leaders deemed responsible for atrocities committed during the country’s bloody civil war, fought from 1991 to 2002.

Issa Sesay (centre) and two co-accused, Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa, on trial at the Sierra Leone Special Court. Credit: John Fornah/World Bank

In 2008, members of the two other factions involved in the conflict were tried on similar charges. Three leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and two from the pro-government Civil Defence Force (CDF) were all found guilty and sentenced to lengthy jail terms.

The court was established in 2003, following an agreement between the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations, to try “those bearing the greatest responsibility” for horrific crimes committed during the conflict.These crimes included murder, rape, sexual enslavement, conscription of children into armed groups, amputations and burning and looting.

“The people of Sierra Leone can now move forward with their lives and put behind them this dark chapter. They now feel a sense of justice and those who think they can get away with impunity must think twice,” commented Herman von Habel, the registrar of the Special Court.

The court may have sent the war criminals to jail but for their victims, the agony still remains.

Fatmata Kamara, had both her legs chopped off by rebel fighters when they invaded the capital Freetown, in January 1999. Ten years after that ghastly incident, she has been permanently condemned to begging for alms on the city’s streets. She is supported by her two children, aged 16 and 14, who push her in a wheel chair. Before her amputation, she was a hair-dresser and owned a salon downtown.

“I still remember that fateful day when RUF fighters invaded Kissy [an eastern suburb of the city] and slashed my two legs using blunt matchetes and axes. It was a painful and traumatic experience. To date, I still feel the recurring pain and agony,” Kamara told IPS.

She is one of hundreds who suffered mutilation of body parts. Thousands more lost their lives and property.

At the end of the war, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC] was set up to document a proper historic record of the war, why and how it happened and how to prevent its re-occurrence.

The commission recommended national reconciliation and war victims were encouraged to forgive the perpetrators.

However, even after the handing down of sentences, many victims are still bitter. They claim that the ex-combatants have been rehabilitated and given skills training and cash incentives as part of the reconciliation process, while they the victims have been left on their own, languishing in abject poverty.

“I can forgive but not forget. The scars are all over me – an amputated arm and lacerations on my body. And, when I see those who did this to me, moving freely about, my heart races back and I feel even bitter,” Jabati Mambu, who plays soccer for the National Amputee team as a way of rebuilding his life, told IPS.

He thinks the sentencing of eight militia commanders, is not enough to restore the dignity of victims, or even make them feel justice. Thousands of ex-combatants roam the streets, with some having been integrated into the national security services. The victims are living as destitutes.

Mambu rants: “It makes no sense to me spending millions of US dollars on the prosecution of eight men, at the Special Court, while we the victims live in squalor. This is unfair.”

The court’s success at ending impunity and preventing a slip into anarchy, has been strongly challenged by analysts here. The historical conditions that triggered the conflict, in the first place, are very much prevalent today: mass poverty, youth unemployment, regional and tribal divide and pervasive corruption.

Political commentator Joseph Taylor says the fundamental causes of social unrest must first be addressed. “I think the authorities have to improve on governance, end corruption, provide jobs for the youths and deliver social services if we are not to once again revert to conflict.”

Another contentious issue has been the question of where the convicted war criminals will serve their sentences. Both the Sierra Leonean authorities and their counterparts in the Special Court, say the country’s prisons do not meet the requisite international standards, to keep the convicts. The special court has therefore concluded an agreement with Rwanda to take the prisoners, but the convicts and their counsels insist this is unacceptable.

The defence team for the RUF prisoners says it will appeal this at the appeals chamber of the special court. Its argument is that this would violate the rights of its clients and isolate them from meeting their families, friends and loved ones.

Victims want the prisoners must serve out their sentences here in Sierra Leone, the scene of the crimes. They say the prisoners must serve their sentences in Sierra Leone because taking them away would deprive victims of the satisfaction of seeing their tormentors being punished.

With the trials of the ex-Sierra Leonean militia commanders closed, the Special Court now has only one major case that it is dealing with, that of the former Liberian President, Charles Taylor.

Mr Taylor is facing an 11-count indictment, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, at the Hague. His trial was moved from Sierra Leone because it was feared such an exercise would plunge the region into further chaos and war.

The ex-Liberian leader is accused of having provided military support, for RUF rebels fighting in Sierra Leone, in exchange for diamonds. Taylor has denied the charges.

The mandate of the court ends in 2010, but it has since been complaining of a shortfall in its budget, to continue the Taylor trial. Its registry announced recently it has secured some funding from contributing countries that would keep it going till end of June, but that more is still needed.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Mar 19 2009 (IPS)

Sierra Leone’s vice president, Samuel Sam-Sumana, on Mar. 13 ordered an indefinite ban on radio stations owned by the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) and its main rival, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP).

This comes in the wake of a wave of politically-motivated clashes between rival party militants across the country these past two weeks. The situation has deteriorated so much so that by-elections in Gendema, a remote town bordering Liberia, had to be put on hold.

The APC-owned Rising Sun FM 88.8 and opposition-controlled Radio Unity 94.9 were registered in the run up to the 2007 elections. There’s been no let up in the volume of inciting messages being broadcast since they first went on air.

“This is assuming frightening proportions,” Information and Communication minister, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, told IPS. “We cannot allow this to continue because it will destroy the hard-earned peace and stability we now enjoy.”

Many pundits believe the radio wars helped to bring the APC to power after 15 years in the political wilderness. During the 2007 election campaign the radio platform was used to mobilise grassroots support for the APC and to discredit the then ruling SLPP. Now the opposition is employing the same strategy to stage a political comeback.

“I don’t see anything wrong with our broadcasts. We are simply putting the APC government on its toes and creating awareness among our members,” claimed Jacob Jusu-Saffa, the secretary general of the SLPP.

But the ruling party has accused the opposition station of preaching hatred, tribalism and violence.

“One of their programmes, Inside the Papers, is simply used to ridicule anything meaningful that the government does. This, in no small measure, drives away investors and creates a platform for civil unrest,” charged Victor Foe, the APC secretary general.

Even before the banning of the two radio stations, there have been public calls, especially from ruling party sympathisers, to take them off the air. Comparisons have been drawn with the role that radio stations played in the Rwandan genocide.

But the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) has been quick to condemn the clampdown.

“It is not the job of the vice president to ban radio stations. We have the Independent Media Commission (IMC), which is the regulatory body for the media, and so we condemn the action and call for an unconditional lifting of the ban,” said SLAJ president, Umaru Fofana.

He described it as a bad omen for the country’s fledgling democracy and an attempt to muzzle freedom of speech. The journalist body has indicated that it will be engaging the authorities to lift the ban.

The constitution of the IMC allows for a ban to be slapped on a media house only after a thorough investigation of alleged misconduct and breach of the media code of ethics. It makes provision for the government to ban a radio station in the case of a national emergency or a state of war but it does require that the IMC do a thorough investigation before such action is taken.

Civil society too has joined the fray. Charles Mambu of the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations has also condemned the ban.

“This move to ban the two radio stations is a reversal of our democratic gains. It is unjustified and unacceptable. We will press for an urgent reversal of that decision.”

This is the second time that Radio Unity has been taken off air. Last year the government claimed the opposition mouthpiece was not properly registered and temporarily closed it down. Its headquarters have also been vandalised. Radio Unity resumed broadcasts after the government caved in to pressure from civil society groups and the media fraternity.

Notwithstanding the democratic posture of rights activists and civil society, there are many who support the move to shut down the two radio stations.

Margaret Sesay who lost five members of her family during the war opined: “I don’t want another war. Already, I am an impoverished widow looking after four children. A fresh war would only kill me.”

Political analyst, George Thomas, too expressed fears of a return to civil war. “If these two radio stations are not banned, the country may well slip back to chaos and civil strife. There is no doubt that they are calling their supporters to arms and are helping to split the country apart.”

Sierra Leone fought a bloody civil war from 1991 to 2002 leaving the country’s infrastructure in ruins and the economy paralysed. More than 50,000 people were killed, thousands amputated and a quarter million of the population displaced. The process of reconciliation has been painfully slow and difficult and the radio wars have exacerbated tensions in a country that is still highly polarised along ethnic and regional lines.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Oct 24 2008 (IPS)

The first West African conference of the African Socialist International has ended in Freetown, with delegates calling for reparations to be paid to Africans for 400 years of slavery.

A presentation by Ismail Rashid, a Sierra Leonean professor of African History at New York’s Vassar College, captured the mood when he insisted that it is long overdue for the West to pay for the “heinous crimes committed against Africans for our enslavement and dehumanisation.”

“Asking for reparations is no favour demanded from the west,” the radical pan-Africanist exploded. “It is our right because through slavery, the West stole our labour, dignity and resources. It is repayment for our labour, our looted human resources.”

The meeting brought together African socialists from around the continent, Europe and the United States to discuss this and other themes, against the background of the current financial crisis facing western economies.

“Reparations may come in the form of technology transfer and financial resources because slavery destroyed Africa’s early potential for growth and industrial advancement,” Rashid added.

The issue of reparations has long been a subject of debate in intellectual circles around the continent and participants at the Freetown meeting agreed that the effects of slavery still hamper Africa’s growth.

Luwezi Kinshasha, a Congolese delegate at the conference, argued that “neo-colonialism is a by-product of slavery.”

“Western Europe enslaved Africans for 400 years, shipping out our people as human commodities to work on plantations in the west and help develop Europe. The trend continues even after independence, with the West propping up surrogate regimes which seek to promote their interests,” Kinshasha says.

He adds that only socialism will unite the mass of African people to take control of their destinies and move forward. According to him, African workers and masses should take power because this is the only way the continent’s resources will be properly utilised for the benefit of the African people.

As general secretary of the African Socialist International, an outgrowth of the African Peoples Socialist Party founded in the United States in the 1970s during the struggle for Black Power, Kinshasha told IPS the conference aimed at uniting and mobilising Africans to step up the campaign for reparations.

“This conference is a starting point. We must organize and unite the African people so that our call for reparations will be heeded by the West,” the Congolese activist laments.

“There’s been more talking in the past. We need to move a step forward and really engage the West in our quest for reparations,” he says, adding: “Even before that, we must demand that the West first openly accept guilt for slavery by apologizing to Africans and then move on to settle for reparations.”

A local pressure group, the Pan African Union (PANAFU) which also took part in the conference, says it has been exploring the subject of reparations and has a working committee charged with the responsibility of coordinating with similar organisations on the continent to push forward the fight for reparations.

Abdul Rashid, an activist belonging to the group, said PANAFU has been campaigning for reparations for more than a decade and that the Freetown conference adds impetus to the cause.

“The conference is timely. We need to organise such meetings across the continent, on periodic basis, so as to create awareness among the African people that reparations have to be paid by the west, a right of the African people and a moral obligation of the west,” Rashid told IPS. A practical way to push forward the campaign for reparation, he says, would be the setting up of an all African committee that would engage the West aggressively, through dialogue, to extract reparations.

Cherinoh Alpha Bah, the regional organizer of the African Socialist International, says a number of European companies and industries benefited from the slave trade and that these must be forced to pay back to Africa.

“Some companies and industries which helped Europe’s development no doubt benefited tremendously from the slave trade and some of their profits must go to Africa as reparations. Also, looted artifacts from Africa must be returned because these rightly belong to the African people,” Bah maintains.

Ismail Rashid, whose presentation was mainly on the trans- Atlantic slave trade and reparations, gave a historical background of slavery, highlighting the apparent collaboration of Africans as a reason why the trade flourished in the first place.

“It was the collaboration of Africans that helped fuel the trade and this collusion is still happening today as we see neo-colonial regimes on the continent directly serving the interests of their western masters,” Rashid opines, adding that this is today manifested in the continent’s debt burden and unjust trade policies.

He laments the fact that little is taught about African history in schools and higher institutions of learning on the continent and urged Africans to remember the horrors of enslavement, the dispersal of African people as commodities and their systematic exploitation and dehumanization.

This dehumanization, Rashid insists, still continues in the form of the prevalence of racism and the loss of self identity and confidence. He concludes that it was the resistance of the African people that helped end slavery and colonialism and urges that such resistance must continue if neo-colonialism, an offshoot of both despicable systems, is to be defeated.

Sierra Leone was a fitting venue for the conference because it was a major slave trading outpost, according to the conference organisers. The government here, through its ministry of tourism and culture, has pledged to preserve the historic Bunce Island slave fortress, off the coast of Freetown, from where thousands of Africans were taken into slavery, as well as other relics of the trade. It has also set up a Relics and Monuments Commission, charged with the responsibility of identifying other slave outposts that had long been neglected and made unattractive to tourists.

A statue of Sengbe Pieh, slave name was Joseph Cinque, the leader of the Amistad slave revolt off the coast of the United States, has been placed at a prominent round-about in west Freetown and is daily visited by ordinary passers-by as well as tourists.

Last year, the country celebrated the bi-centenary of the abolition of slavery and the founding of Freetown as home for freed or liberated slaves. Activists say they would put pressure on the government to add voice to the call for reparations, but this is yet to happen.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Oct 4 2008 (IPS)

Each morning, Mariama Kamara and her two teenaged sons walk to Freetown’s main rubbish dump. Their mission: to dig through the mounds of garbage in search of scrap metal.

Kamara, 38, lost her husband nine years ago, when rebels of the Revolutionary United Front invaded the capital Freetown, at the peak of the civil war. In the carnage that followed, hundreds of civilians were killed, among them her husband.

Since then, Kamara has had the sole responsibility of bringing up her boys, now aged 14 and 16, as well as looking after six other members of her family, including her elderly mother. The family is crowded into a rented two-bedroom shack located in one of Freetown’s sprawling ghettos, a half-hour walk from Bomeh, the capital’s dump site.

“We spend roughly eight hours each day sweating it out at the site in search of scraps. It is a very difficult and painstaking job,” explains Kamara.

“The kids plough through the garbage and when there is a find, I pile them up together and sell to scrap metal buyers. It is not all the time that we succeed; sometimes, we work the whole day without finding even a single piece.”

On average, Kamara and her boys make 30,000 leones, about $10 a day. This amount, Kamara says, is barely enough to feed the household, and pay rent. “It is definitely not enough to feed the family and then send the boys to school, so they have both dropped out.”

The huge dumpsite resembles one of the overcrowded diamond mining sites in the east and south of the country; but here, it is not gemstones that are being sought, but scrap metals which have become a thriving trade in the West African country.

Each day, dozens of families troop out to the dumpsite, armed with pick-axes, hoes and shovels. Youngsters aged between 13 and 30 are in the majority. The country has a youth unemployment record of more than 70 percent according to officials of the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

Sixteen-year-old Michael Tommy says: “I pay my own school fees because my parents cannot afford it. Both my mum and dad are unemployed; and it is through hard work here at Bomeh that I make some money just to survive.”

But the chairman of the scrap metal dealers association at Bomeh, Ballah Kamara, told IPS that children working at the site have more commonly abandoned schooling.

“Sometimes I am forced to turn away kids who are as young as 10. They all come here to dig for scraps, some with their parents,” he laments. “Many kids have stopped going to school because of the petty cash they make here.”

Kamara would not tell exactly how many kids visit the site. He admits, though, that on average, more than 50 go there each day. “I often face difficulties with their parents, sometimes we really get into nasty confrontations because they insist that’s the only way they can fend for their families and that I cannot provide for them if the kids are sent away,” he adds.

When confronted with the issue of child labour at Bomeh, the deputy minister of social welfare and children’s affairs, Jenneh Kandeh, told IPS her government is concerned about the development.

“We now have in place a child rights act which seeks to protect children and so using them as labour force is a crime punishable by law. We are trying to discourage parents from taking or sending kids to the mining fields, whether at Bomeh or the traditional sites, in the provinces,” Kandeh says, adding that a sensitisation campaign will soon be launched by her ministry to convince parents to stop the practice.

But Ishmail Dumbuya, 49, an unemployed father of six, believes the problem has little to do with awareness, and much more to do with the lack of job opportunities in the country.

“How can they stop the kids from digging [for scraps] at Bomeh? Let the government create jobs and see if anyone will send kids to the garbage site to search for scrap metals. After all, these kids are our breadwinners,” he opines. Dumbuya has three sons who dig for scrap metals at Bomeh and insists the entire family depends on income they bring back home for their sustenance. All of them have dropped out of school.

There are no regulations to mine for scraps at Bomeh, nor do government officials patrol the site. All it takes is for a willing person to identify a plot on the site and start digging. The scrap metal trade has become lucrative, with Indian and European buyers exporting an average of 40 containers out of the country monthly.

But if there is no shortage of buyers and work, the health implications are serious. Bomeh is where the city’s human excrement is emptied, along with the tons of garbage. The diggers take no precautions against possible injury or infection; they eat their food right on the site, surrounded by pigs, rodents and other vermin.

Jonathan Abass Kamara, the public relations officer of the ministry of health, told IPS the situation is pathetic:

“It is an eyesore to see humans digging through the waste just to eke a living. Of major concern is the health hazard these people are faced with because they do not use any form of protective gear,” Kamara says.

For the scrap metal dealers at Bomeh, though, it is all a question of survival. With living conditions getting increasingly tough in the impoverished country, it will take more than just persuasion to move these miners of the city’s rubbish off their hazardous field of operation.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Oct 3 2008 (IPS)

Her reputation as a fiery orator is enhanced whenever she takes the podium, her punch softened by her broad smiles and gorgeous attires in West African style.

Zainab Bangura: "A woman leading this country? Yes, I still believe in it. Only time will tell." Credit: Lansana Fofana/IPS

"It's been a difficult and challenging road," she told IPS. "What I have done is simply to inspire more women to step up and take prominent positions in governance, and take control of their destinies."

Zainab Bangura, who turns 49 in December, did not start out as a politician.

After graduating from the University of Sierra Leone in 1983 with a Bachelor's degree in political science and history, she joined a local insurance company as a claims and disputes settlement supervisor, and rose to manager of technical support services.

She married veteran politician Sheki Bangura and had a son, now at university.

But this was not enough for a woman whose vision and ambition transcended the corporate world of insurance brokering.

In 1996, when the first civilian government was elected after decades of one-party rule and military interventions, she founded the Campaign for Good Governance (CGG), a civil society organisation that advocated democracy, human rights, women's empowerment and good governance.

"It was time for civil society to act as the people's voice, putting pressure on public officials and the government to be accountable to the public," she says.

In six years, the CGG became a strong civil society actor and a reliable source for donors to measure good governance.

Abdul Tejan Cole, the current head of the country's anti-corruption commission, worked as human rights officer with CGG. "Zainab's organisational ability is terrific and her strength as an advocate for democratic causes remarkable," he told IPS.

In 2002, Bangura formed her own political party, the Movement for Change (MOP) and ran for president on a platform of fighting graft, guaranteeing women equal rights and ending poverty.

"I knew what I was up against in this male-centred society," she reflects. "But the fact is, women have to start somewhere and gradually we will make a significant difference. This is why I set the pace."

Despite the buzz generated by her candidacy, Bangura lost the elections and her party failed to win a single seat in parliament.

Her Achilles heel was her handling of the widespread practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), consisting in cutting the clitoris of teen girls as part of an initiation rite into the powerful women-only secret societies known as Bondo. Unicef estimates that 90 per cent of women in Sierra Leone have undergone the procedure – among them Bangura herself.

Her opponents claimed that she wanted to ban this practice, which is a valued element of the cultural heritage. Overnight, the anti-corruption champion became a traitor to tradition. Bondo societies turned against her; her campaign flopped.

Bangura, who denies that she ever wanted to ban FGM, told IPS that, "Some aspects of it must be modified or abolished. There must be age of consent. For instance, a girl aged 10 must not be forcefully initiated."

She would not, however, discuss the actual cutting or criticise it. "It was all lies peddled by my male opponents. They knew that was one way they could earn the votes of the womenfolk," she says.

Defeated but not vanquished, Bangura set up the National Accountability Group, a non-governmental organisation that campaigns for transparency in governance.

In 2005, she joined the United Nations Mission in Liberia as chief of civil affairs. There, she was again in contact with the person she most admires in the world, Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson, Liberia's president and Africa's first female head of state, whom she knew from her activist days.

But she wouldn't stay far from national politics for long. In 2007, the newly elected government of president Ernest Bai Koroma brought her home as minister of foreign affairs.

As the highest serving woman in the administration, she does not hide her feeling of accomplishment.

"I am the architect of Sierra Leone's multilateral and bilateral relations with the international community and this is a challenge I am prepared to shoulder," Bangura says.

Notwithstanding, controversy still dogs her. Prior to the Olympic Games in Beijing, she again made headlines when the media reported that she supported China's repression of the people of Tibet. China is a major donor to Sierra Leone.

Political observer Isha Kamara, who has followed Bangura throughout her career, says: "Zainab's political success lies in her controversial postures and frankness. She can discuss any subject under the sun no matter how little she knows about it. Nonetheless, she likes learning."

With four years to go before the next elections, Zainab Bangura is keeping her political cards close to her chest. But she has not ruled out her presidential ambition.

"I still have a long way to go in politics. The idea of a woman leading this country? Yes, I still believe in it. Only time will tell."

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Sep 29 2008 (IPS)

Magnus Kamara is a school inspector with a difference. He has been hired to find schools that don't exist.

Assembly at a Freetown school: widespread fraud deprives students like these of vital resources. Credit: Lansana Fofana/IPS

Kamara is working as part of a verification exercise ordered by Sierra Leone's ministry of education. In one village, in the north of the country, there were eight registered schools for verification, he says. "But we never saw a single structure, nor the teachers and the list of pupils was so long, but when we asked to see them, there was no one available."

The Education Minister, Minkailu Bah, is moving swiftly to end the fraud.

"It is a carefully planned operation aimed at depriving the government of revenue, through the activities of fraudsters in the educational system," he says.

Corrupt officials

Bah accuses officials in his own department of collusion with their counterparts in the Finance Ministry, which pays out salaries to public workers to defraud the government of tens of thousands of US dollars in salaries and subsidies paid to non-existent teachers, schools and pupils.

"This syndicate works because staff of my ministry, including supervisors and education secretaries, connive with officials from the accountant general's office, to carry out the act," Bah adds.

IPS could not get any willing official from the ministry of education and the accountant general's office to comment on the minister's allegations.

The phantom school syndicate has been revealed by a countrywide school verification exercise by the minister, to ascertain how many genuine teachers are on the government's payroll and how many schools and pupils exist in the country.

The minister also hints at tough measures he would take to address the problem.

"I am going to close down, for a start, eight 'ghost schools' that I personally discovered in the district of Tonkolili, in the north. While there, I asked to see the teachers, of a particular school, on verification day, and of the 20 young men and women that appeared, not a single one was a genuinely employed teacher. There was also no school structure, to my dismay. "

The proprietor and staff immediately fled the scene when they realised police were about to effect their arrest, the minister added.

Limited progress since 2002

Sierra Leone's schooling system was crippled by a bitter civil war, that lasted from 1991 to 2002. The conflict devastated infrastructure and displaced pupils and teachers.

"The proliferation of so-called ghost teachers, ghost schools and ghost pupils predates the war," opines Thomas Kobba, a social analyst and educationist. "This all has to do with corruption that has eaten into the fabric of society, but became rampant after the war because of massive poverty and the decline of morals and standards in the system."

On top of this, low wages for teachers and school authorities helped fuel corruption in the schooling system, thus paving way for the ghost syndicate to flourish. An average secondary school teacher's monthly salary is no more than $70, not enough to maintain a household.

With funds provided by UNICEF, World Vision and other non governmental organisations, the Sababu Project has assisted in the construction or rehabilitation of primary and secondary schools, in major towns and villages. These, too, have left much to be desired.

In some of the project sites, the school structures are available but there are no benches and desks, nor learning materials. Some of the buildings are yet to be occupied because they are either incomplete or shoddily built.

The current government of President Ernest Bai Koroma, which assumed office last September has made no secret of its determination to fight graft in public service. The current school verification exercise is directly linked to the fight against corruption.

But it is a Herculean task. The government is yet to pay hundreds of newly-recruited teachers their salaries; the backlog is as long as six months in many cases, and the affected teachers have been threatening to down tools if their emoluments are not paid, soon.

Education Ministry officials say the delay in the payment of salaries of new teachers is directly related to ghost salaries which have been significantly soaking up funds at the ministry.

One of the so-called ghost teachers, who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity, said he was convinced by local education authorities to present himself for verification, even though he was not officially employed.

"I was told a list had been sent to the verification team and that once I filled in one of the names, I will get something. I am not employed and find it hard to make ends meet, so I took the chance," he said.

The minister says he is still compiling the list of "ghost schools to be banned and says no arrests have been made. He is yet to publish the full details of the verification exercise.

Official figures suggest that Sierra Leone has a total of 33,165 teachers, a figure the minister vehemently disputes. "I don't believe this country has that number of teachers; that is why I insisted on the countrywide verification exercise."

Bah could not give exact figures on the revenue loss to the government but believes it is significant. "If you take into consideration the subsidies we pay for these non-existent schools, non-existent teachers and inflated roster of pupils, then it is easy to surmise that the government loses tens of thousands of dollars, every month."

Meanwhile, the minister has told IPS that the entire education ministry will be overhauled after the verification exercise, especially in the area of personnel, so as to stamp out massive corruption which has caused the country's anti-corruption commission to label it as "one of the most corrupt departments of the government."

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Sep 2 2008 (IPS)

Sierra Leone has been a major recipient of foreign aid since the end of a devastating 11-year civil war in 2002. But government, donors and citizens are all questioning how effectively this aid is being used.

Patients in a Freetown hospital: civil society is demanding an end to conditionalities on aid needed to build badly-needed social infrastructure. Credit: Manoocher Degati/IRIN

Allegations of misappropriation of donor funds, both by government actors and NGOs threatens this inflow. One of the government's principal partners, the British Department for International Development, withheld aid in protest against such anomalies, for most of 2007 and early 2008.

The lack of accountability and coordination is felt by Sierra Leone's most vulnerable people. The country’s educational and health sectors are in dire straits, despite being priority areas for both government and NGOs.

The government is currently conducting a verification of to weed out so-called "ghost" teachers and non-existent schools that account of misappropriation of donor as well as state funds.

At the end of the civil war, dozens of NGOs sprang up, many lacking adequate monitoring mechanisms or accountability. The questionable performance of some of these NGOs led the government to review its NGO policy. The Sierra Leone Association of Non-Governmental Organisations also introduced new oversight and monitoring mechanisms.

Fatmata Kamara, 23, is a double amputee who spends her time daily begging on the streets of Freetown, the country's capital. She lost both her legs in January 1999 when rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) invaded Freetown and committed horrific atrocities against civilians, including mass amputations.

"Before my amputation, I was being trained as a hair-dresser and was hoping that after graduation, I would open a salon of my own and train more youngsters," Fatmata says.

She has not yet given up that hope. In her small village of Kosso on the outskirts of Freetown, where she resides, Fatmata solicits clients who pay small fees to do their hair, money she uses to supplement income – normally not enough – she accrues from begging.

"This is what I use to take care of myself, two children and the kid who moves me around. It is really difficult and all my hopes that I will be assisted by philanthropists to set up my own business have been dashed."

Apart from tiny mud houses for a few amputees in Kosso, built by the NGO Norwegian Refugee Council, the bulk of them rely on begging to upkeep their families. It is the case of the amputees, for instance, that the effectiveness of aid is been questioned, even by implementing partners.

John Caulker, the executive director Forum of Conscience, which works to support the rule of law and respect for human rights, told IPS: "With the lack of proper accountability and monitoring of donor funds, a lot of the NGOs folded up as donors quickly withdrew funding for a good number of these NGOs some of which were described here as "briefcase NGOs" because they were centred around one individuals or a few with just the motive to make quick cash."

The Paris Declaration commits governments and donors to meeting certain standards of public financial management, open procurement policies and transparent assessment of the effectiveness of aid.

Sierra Leone's government has set up a public procurement unit and established regional budget oversight committees to improve aid distribution and effectiveness. The impact of these measures is yet to be fully measured, with a change in government barely a year ago.

However, according to Tennyson Williams, the country director of international anti-poverty group ActionAid, the current aid architecture as a whole needs revamping if it is to have a positive impact on the recipient nation.

"The aid packages come along with conditionalities such as ensuring the recipient – government – gets 37 percent for its reserves, another 37 percent to finance its debts and only at liberty to spend just 26 percent of the total package. This does not give the necessary flexibility for the government to spend," Williams laments. According to him, donors emphasise macro-economic stability at the expense of social stability.

Williams says that with limited spending, the recipient falls short of delivering the targeted services and this, he says, could lead to unrest and social strife. He also questions donors' insistence on bringing in technical experts for implementation of projects, and asks: "Has technical assistance done us any good?"

Williams also believes the sizable chunk of funds going to servicing the experts eats into the value of the package itself, sometimes rendering projects a disaster.

The problem here, though, is that the government lacks both the technical teams and the necessary credibility to make aid effective. Corruption in public offices has seen the misappropriation of foreign aid to the extent that donors insist on flying in their own personnel to help with implementation.

Matthiew Dingie, the director of budget at the ministry of finance, acknowledges that resources generated domestically are not enough the run the economy and state machinery. Nonetheless, he blames the conditionalities and benchmarks set by the donors for the ineffectiveness of aid.

"The major problem is the timeliness for disbursement of the aid package. For instance, if money meant for infrastructure such as construction of roads comes in at the rainy season, work won't go ahead," he says. This timeliness, he opines, impacts negatively on distribution.

Dingie adds that the aid received as budgetary support is most effective because it comes straight into the government's coffers and can be spent with flexibility.

"The government will have a free hand to spend it more effectively in areas like health, education and other social services. Where I see the ineffectiveness of aid is the bilateral disbursement. Here, the government does not have control of the recipients who are mostly NGOs and UN agencies, a situation that sometimes leads to duplication in distribution," Dingie adds.

His argument is that the government may have budgeted for a specific project, something the NGOs may also have received funding for, but they proceed with their work independently of the government.

The government established the Development Assistance Coordination Office in 2004 with the task of tracking development assistance coming into the country from various sources, both bilateral and multilateral as well as through NGOs. But this too has been less than effective because of the lack of transparency, reporting and capacity at both the donor and government level.

The government has also set up district budgetary oversight committees throughout the country with the task of monitoring projects. Dingie says this is working. "This is the best way of tracking anomalies and ensuring projects are thoroughly implemented."

However development economist Jacob Saffa says a lot more needs to be done. "Development assistance has to be well coordinated to ensure equity of distribution among sectors and regions and proper monitoring mechanisms put in place."

Saffa agrees that "channeling pledged resources through NGOs and UN agencies without the knowledge of the recipient country is problematic because the bilateral players decide where to spend and on which activity." Saffa also questions the wisdom behind the "flying in of experts" which he says is unacceptable and "must be resisted" by recipient countries.

He also urges that the government must have in offices strong technocrats capable of articulating the views of the government, both at the level of negotiating aid and its implementation, instead of relying exclusively on "imported experts."

Saffa concludes by saying that the monitoring of development aid continues to be a major challenge for Sierra Leone and that a thorough framework of monitoring both recurrent and development activities must be put in place. "Strong institutions for such monitoring must be set up at district and national levels and citizens allowed to report on project effectiveness in their communities."

The real failures – and some successes – of aid effectiveness are the subject of a major gathering of donors, governments and civil society organisations taking place in Accra, Ghana at the beginning of September.

The High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness aims to bring new voices into a review of how aid is managed, and to sketch out a course for greater transparency, accountability and ultimately impact on the lives of the world's poor.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Aug 28 2008 (IPS)

Sierra Leonean rights activists have served notice on the government that they will campaign against any attempt to retain the death penalty in the new constitution and insist the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are fully adopted.

Murder and robbery with violence should continue to be capital crimes in the revised constitution, the currently-sitting constitutional review commission has advised the government.

But the death penalty for treason and mutiny should be abolished, as long as no loss of life is involved.

The recommendations are believed to reflect the government’s position on the death penalty. They are expected to be incorporated into the country’s revised constitution which will be presented to parliament for ratification shortly.

“It is not enough to restrict the death penalty to cases of murder or aggravated robbery,” Brima Sheriff, Amnesty International’s director in Sierra Leone, told IPS.

“The death penalty must be abolished in its entirety because it has never been proven to be a deterrent. Its maintenance on the statute books violates the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).”

John Caulker of the rights monitoring group Forum of Conscience agreed. Nothing less than full death penalty abolition was acceptable to activists, he told IPS.

“The government says it is committed to the implementation of the TRC’s recommendations yet it is backtracking on one key issue – the abolition of the death penalty. This sends conflicting signals.

“The time is now to mount our campaign … mobilising abolitionist campaigners and civil society to continue this campaign. The constitutional review commission must be made to understand.”

At the end of the 11-year civil war, the TRC was set up in 2002 to investigate the reasons for the conflict and recommend ways of preventing a re-occurrence. Its goal was to lay the foundations for reconciliation and healing.

The TRC argued that since 1971, the death penalty had often been used by governments to eliminate political opponents.

The last executions in Sierra Leone were in 1998. Twenty-six senior military officers, convicted for their alleged roles in a coup that ousted civilian president Ahmad Tejan Kabba a year before, were executed by firing squad.

Attorney General and minister of justice, Abdul Serry Kamal, has denied that that the maintenance of the death penalty would be a rejection of the TRC’s recommendations.

“When you consider that we have come out of a war that consumed many lives, I think it is appropriate some of the punitive laws are kept on our statute books, though with some adjustments.

“The death penalty cannot altogether be abolished because crimes like murder are still being committed,” he said.

Activists have accused the government of failing to implement other TRC recommendations on the welfare of prison inmates, including those on death row.

“There are no facilities for recreation and skills-training for death row inmates. This is inhuman and degrading. Once in the cell on death row, you are isolated, deprived of basic services and psychologically tortured,” Caulker said.

But the government, which came to power a year ago, would do everything in its power to reverse the situation, he said.

Rights activists say the prison food is poor. Inmates are not issued with clothing or shoes. Cells are cold in the rainy season resulting in frequent outbreaks of diseases such as pneumonia and malaria.

But the acting director of the prisons department, Moses Showers, said all prisoners were being treated according to the rules.

“They all get normal rations of meals, toiletries and supplementary diets. In fact, the prisoners on death row get better diets than ordinary convicts. The prison laws do not discriminate against death row inmates.”

The minister of the interior, Dauda Sulaiman Kamara, has agreed that prison conditions are “deplorable”.

“There are no workshops, no libraries or recreational facilities for inmates and this in no way helps the prisoners to be reformed,” he told IPS.

Sierra Leone’s maximum security prison at Pademba Road in Freetown holds all the country’s 14 death row inmates. Eleven of these were sentenced to death in 2003 for treason. They are still awaiting a decision on their appeals.

“We consider it mental torture and a clear denial of their rights to a speedy dispensation of justice,” said Sheriff. “Justice delayed is justice denied. These people must have their appeals heard or be released without any further delays.”

Kamara has promised the government will do its best “to ensure that death row inmates are not treated like lesser mortals”.

But he said he would not support the TRC’s call for death penalty abolition.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Aug 26 2008 (IPS)

In December 2007, unrest broke out in the diamond mining region of Kono in the east, between kimberlite mining corporation Koidu Holdings and locals in the lease area. The company had promised to relocate hundreds of community residents to make way for its mining operation but the slow pace of implementation of this pledge, coupled with the repeated blasts of dynamite in underground mining sites set the company and its hosts on a collision course.

The confrontation resulted in the deaths of two persons and injuries to many others. The government was forced to close down the company's activities, amidst public protests. Koidu Holdings is yet to resume operations.

Under the existing mining laws, exporters of diamonds, for example, pay three percent of their export earnings to the government. This is the standard royalty levied on mining profits across the continent; it has been roundly criticised by activists who see this as insufficient enough to address the needs of the host communities. Of the three percent tax, barely 0.75 percent returns to the mining communities for infrastructural and community development, as well as rent for the leased lands.

Last month, the Sierra Leonean government set up a presidential task force to review the country's mining policies, but activists are complaining that their voices are not being heard.

According to Abdul Sanu, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Mineral Resources: "The government deemed it fit to review all mining arrangements with the aim of improving them so as to serve the best interests of the country and its people and also to avoid confrontations between corporate mining entities and local communities, incidents which have resulted in unrest and loss of lives in the past."

Sanu says that his ministry is determined to make the new mining laws attractive both to investors and the country's population. "The government has as its primary interest the people, especially the host mining communities."

But Leslie Mboka, the national chairman of the Campaign for Just Mining, a civil society organisation that has been in the vanguard of campaigning for an improvement in the mining sector is not satisfied.

"It is not just about setting up a selected 'Task Force' that does not take into account the concerns of organisations monitoring the extractive industry as well as the views of the affected communities.

"A lot of factors touching on the interests of land-owners, the adequate payment of royalties, lease agreements, corporate social responsibility and a host of others, have to be taken into consideration."

Theophilus Gbenda, chair of the Association of Journalists on Mining and Extractives, one of the partners in a coalition of activists monitoring mining and the extractive industry, told IPS, "The task force must review and make public all mining contracts, ensure environmental protection is treated seriously and involve communities and civil society in all matters relating to mining."

Leading civil society organisations gathered in a conference in Freetown last week which focused on the review of the country's mining laws. In their position paper, they urged the government to solicit the input of a broad range of civil society in formulating new policies.

At present, only three CSOs are included in the presidential task force, the most outspoken one being the Network Movement for Justice and Development. It too is finding it hard to put through the general position of activists in the extractive industry, according to its representatives.

The civil society position insists that "no political or other undue pressure or interference is exerted on members of the Task Force, whether by government officials or mining companies."

It also calls for suspension of further negotiations of mining agreements until the task force's review has been completed and published.

It is not clear when the review of mining policies will be completed, but the coalition says sufficient time should be allowed and a specific channel be set up for soliciting contributions from civil society and residents of mining communities.

The key minerals mined in Sierra Leone are diamond, gold, rutile or titanium oxide and bauxite. The agreements signed with transnational mining companies have often proved unfavourable to the government and people, with the state often accused by activists of colluding with the mining companies.

According to Mboka, the main rutile mining company in the south, Sierra Rutile, bagged an exclusive deal with the government in 2003, that grants the company a tax holiday till 2014. This exemption from a range of tax obligations, according to the activist, was only discovered via a leaked memo. Officials of the Mineral Resources ministry have declined to comment on the issue.

The coalition frowns at these "stabilisation and confidentiality clauses" which are not open to public scrutiny, but believed to be widespread in the industry. Activists argue that such agreements prevent the state from generating more revenue from mining and hampers transparency in the mining sector.

Mboka insists all mining rents or leases should be paid per hectare as opposed to flat annual fees and that taxes should also be reviewed in order to meet the demand and value of all minerals.

Meanwhile, as activists challenge the presidential task force on reforms in the mining sector, industry players who are left out of the review process also express concern.

Banu Jubateh, a large scale alluvial miner in the eastern district of Kenema told IPS: "I hire a caterpillar machine for $1000 for eight hours, to open up mining sites and have to care for dozens of my miners and their relatives. So any adjustment in the laws that are unfavourable to us miners would simply discourage me. It is not that one always finds diamonds, sometimes I run at massive loss."

Exporters, too, are worried. Kassim Basma, a Lebanese national who has been exporting uncut Sierra Leonean diamonds for more than 15 years says business is not as good.

"Before the 11-year long civil war, fought between 1991 and 2002, we had more than 14 exporters. Now, there are less than six; so this tells you how the business is going. Any more taxes or conditionalities put on the way of exporters may well be too much and discouraging," Basma laments.

The government is currently training mines monitors in readiness to police the mining regions and border posts when the new mining laws come into effect. The aim here is to minimise smuggling and help the government generate more revenue.

There are also efforts to harmonise mining policies taking place at regional level, through the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). A mining code has been drafted and several meetings to solicit comment from civil society have taken already taken place.

This policy development is being driven by Oxfam America, which controversially signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ECOWAS in April to develop the new mining code.

While Oxfam insists that it is merely as a facilitator of the process, the Accra-based Third World Network Africa (TWN) questioned the international NGOs role. A strongly-worded letter to the ECOWAS president condemned the MOU as "colonial and patronising", saying that the arrangement threatened to both undermine ECOWAS' relations with citizens and civil society in the region and fail to benefit from ongoing review of regulation of the mining sector elsewhere on the continent.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Aug 7 2008 (IPS)

Final arguments in the lengthy trial of three former commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) have ended in Freetown, making way for judgment which is expected by the end of this year.

The three – Issa Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao – have been on trial since July 2004, following their arrest and indictment by the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone on an 18-count charge of war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian laws.

The former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, is also being tried by the Special Court, accused of having provided support to the RUF in exchange for so-called "blood diamonds". For security reasons, his trial is taking place in the Hague.

Four years into the trials, public interest is still high, as the people wait for justice to be dispensed. The court earlier this year sentenced two sets of militia leaders, two from the pro-government civil defence force (CDF) and three from the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a splinter group from the national army that ousted the elected civilian government in a May 1997 coup, remaining in power for nine months before it was itself toppled by a Nigerian-led regional intervention force.

Jabati Mambu, a 25-year old who had his right hand chopped off at the wrist by rebel forces when they invaded Freetown in January 1999, is still bitter.

"I want to see justice done to the three RUF commanders. I was a school going boy at the time when I was captured by the rebels and mercilessly amputated. Now, most of the rebels have been rehabilitated and given skills training while I and other amputees languish with our scars. We know of huge donor assistance coming through for us but we never receive it. This is just too unfair; and so if these people are punished, that will be justice for us the victims."

Some of the testimony by witnesses has been horrific, reporting mass murders and rape, to mutilation of body parts and cannibalism. Witnesses have spoken of fighters disemboweling pregnant women, attacking civilians and hacking off limbs, locking whole families in their houses and set ablaze, with anyone attempting to escape shot immediately.

In 1999, the RUF signed a peace deal with the government of then-president Ahmad Tejan Kabba and transformed itself into a political party; but failed miserably in multi-party elections three years later, losing the presidential race and failing to secure even a single seat in parliament.

A reconciliation process was set in place, with all factional fighters granted blanket amnesty. But a deal agreed between the United Nations and the Sierra Leonean government in 2002 saw the setting up of the "Special Court," with the mandate of prosecuting "those who bear the greatest responsibility" for heinous crimes committed during the civil conflict.

The president of the Coalition of Civil Society organisations, Charles Mambu, in an interview with IPS, laments: "The people of Sierra Leone indeed need reconciliation. However, the atrocities committed by the RUF deserve maximum punishment. This country cannot condone impunity anymore because we do not want a repeat of our immediate ugly past."

There is hardly any support for the RUF in the country. A few of their leaders who have avoided indictment by the special court today appear apologetic. Eldred Collins, a former spokesperson for the movement, appeals for clemency for his colleagues in detention.

"We agreed to a peace pact and the war was brought to a close. I don't believe the trial of the three gentlemen at the special court is in the good spirit of national reconciliation. I believe they should be released and let bygones be bygones," Collins says.

Collins, though, hardly dares express such views openly; not whilst the nearly 10,000 amputees and war wounded are exasperated by the fact that the ex-combatants were compensated by the government and donors with skills training, while the victims are yet to benefit from any such programme.

The two earlier trials of CDF and AFRC personnel resulted in sentences of between six and fifty years.

The court's spokesperson Peter Anderson remarks: "The (special) court has an agreement with some countries in the region which have promised to provide detention facilities for those convicted. These facilities have to meet international standards and as far as it is now, Sierra Leone's prisons are not up to such standards so those found guilty would have to serve out their sentences outside of Sierra Leone."

Sierra Leone’s prisons do not meet international standards such as in the areas of food, accommodation and recreational facilities. Anderson also points to the many jail breaks that have taken place in the country, in most cases involving armed rebels or renegade soldiers who broke into prisons to free their colleagues. The fear of convicted war criminals escaping resonates wiith many Sierra Leoneans.

Abdul Sesay, a 45-year old auto mechanic who lost four relatives during the rebel attack on the capital Freetown, in January 1999, says, "I don't think it is wise keeping those people in our jails. They are very dangerous and we have witnessed many incidents where the prisons are broken into and hard core criminals set free only to unleash terror on us. Let them serve their sentences somewhere else; that will make me feel good."

The court is expected to end its work in the first half of 2009.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Jul 25 2008 (IPS)

Nineteen suspects, including eight men from Colombia and Venezuela, have appeared before a Freetown High Court on charges of smuggling illegal drugs into the country.

The court appearance follows the seizure of a Venezuelan-registered aircraft on July 13, when it crash-landed unannounced at Sierra Leone's international airport. The crew abandoned the aircraft and fled in a vehicle which had crashed through a fence to get them. But they were caught shortly after by state security. A total of 45 suspects will be prosecuted on charges that also include unlawful possession of firearms and malicious damage to government property.

Since civil war broke out in the early 1990s, Sierra Leone has been used as a transit point for traffickers in hard drugs like cocaine and heroin from South America to Europe and the United States. In just the last eight months, dozens of arrests have been made at the airport, involving British, American, Nigerian, Dutch and Asian nationals. Many more have managed to escape with the alleged collusion of airport officials and security operatives.

"It is a serious national security problem," says Francis Munu, the assistant inspector general of police. "We have made several arrests but the fact is, the airport lacks adequate surveillance equipment to deal with the problem."

Munu says the airport requires sophisticated modern techniques like metal detectors and sniffer dogs and that the security forces at the airport must be armed with the necessary logistics to deal with this highly co-ordinated network of drug smuggling.

The drug monitoring agency of the Economic Community of West African States has described both Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau as the major routes for trans-shipment of hard drugs in the sub-region. In both countries, the security apparatus is weakened by lack of resources, corruption and widespread poverty that makes it easy for traffickers to coopt poorly-paid security personnel.

"Both Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone share similar histories of conflict with weakened state institutions, massive corruption and poverty," says journalist and social commentator Richie Olu Gordon, "which makes it easy for traffickers to ply their trade through these routes."

Gordon says says Nigeria was foremost in the illegal trans-shipment of narcotics in the 1980s and 1990s, but the breakdown of civil authority in several countries in the region has created an opportunity for drug traffickers.

The laws in Sierra Leone on drugs are pretty lax. No matter the quantity of drugs impounded, a suspect can plead guilty and get off with nothing more than a $1000 fine, or a light prison sentence. This has allowed hundreds to escape the net because drug traffickers are easily able to pay for their release.

Just as the first batch of suspects made their appearance in court on July 24, the country's Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abdul Serry Kamal, urgently tabled an anti-drugs bill before parliament. The new bill will impose mandatory custodial sentences in all drug cases, and impose tighter security measures at the country's only international airport. The bill is expected to pass into law within a few days, meaning that those standing trial, if convicted, will not escape with just paying fines, according to the attorney general's office.

What is worrisome to the authorities here is the effect the growing drugs smuggling network is having on the local population. During the civil war, drug traffickers were closely linked to warlords of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who traded so-called "blood diamonds" for drugs, weapons and ammunition. Drugs were smuggled into RUF strongholds from neighbouring Liberia, whose president then Charles Taylor – presently on trial in the Hague – was believed to be the main patron of the RUF.

Dr. Edward Nahim, Sierra Leone's only psychiatrist, told IPS that the situation of drug abuse in the country is alarming. "About 90 percent of all admissions in the mental hospital are drug-related. There is serious psycho-social disorder among the youths and the cases keep growing with the influx of hard drugs in the country, as a result of activities of traffickers."

Nahim says most of the drugs staying behind are as a result of local collaborators who get both cash and drugs for facilitating the activities of the drug traffickers: "The drug lords don't always travel with cash and so it is easy for them to transact business using drugs. This is why a lot of the drugs stay behind, correspondingly increasing local consumption."

President Ernest Bai Koroma, who took office in September last year, has vowed to pursue the latest drug scandal to its utmost conclusion. "I shall leave no stone unturned in pursuit of this matter. I cannot allow our country to be used as a transit point or final destination for narcotics," the president has said in the wake of the drug bust.

Sources at the Office of National Security here in Freetown told IPS the government plans to set up a collaborative partnership with its counterpart in Guinea Bissau to jointly deal with the problem.

Journalist and commentator Gordon says there are deep divisions in Guinea Bissau's security forces, which makes it hard to deal with the narcotics problem: "There are elements within the Guinea Bissau military that protect the powerful drug cartel and so it makes it difficult for the police to effect arrests in that country."

Gordon also accuses the Sierra Leonean security forces of collusion with smugglers.

"The latest cocaine hauls in Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau have drawn attention to the fact that West Africa is now a major trans-shipment route for South American drugs heading for Europe and the United States," Gordon concludes.

The court trials in Freetown are expected to be fast-tracked because of public anxiety as well as pressure on the government from its bilateral partners in whose countries the drugs allegedly end up.

The spokesman for the president, Alpha Kanu, has said the government will move fast to secure funds to procure modern surveillance equipment for the international airport as well as empowering the security forces there to be more pro-active.

"We now consider it a priority to upgrade our international airport so that traffickers who think this is an easy route will be tracked and dealt with," Kanu concluded.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Jul 17 2008 (IPS)

Sierra Leone’s women’s advocacy group "50/50" has expressed disappointment at the poor showing of women in the July 5 local council elections.

Advocates are calling for a return to a proportional representation system which guarantees places for women in party lists. Credit: Tugela Ridley/IRIN

Final results will only be announced on July 27, but it is becoming clear that women are likely to clinch less than 20 percent of all contested seats for the municipalities across the country. The 50/50 group has been campaigning for a 30 percent ratio in governance, both at state and municipal levels.

Rights monitoring groups claim one reason so few seats were won by women was harassment and intimidation of female candidates before and during the polls by agents of the the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) and the opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP). Across the country, a number of female candidates were refused the right to represent the parties they belonged to, thus forcing them to contest as independent candidates.

This deprived these women of campaign funds and other party backing, and their efforts were further hampered by threats and physical attacks which forced at least 30 female candidates to back out of the race. The incidents were documented by the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations whose head Charles Mambu says this is a setback for the country’s fledging democracy.

"We recorded several of these cases both in the run up to the elections as well as during polling time," Mambu laments. "Militants especially those belonging to the ruling APC were mainly behind these acts and we informed the appropriate authorities to take action. It is indeed a dent on our democratic gains."

There are reports that traditional leaders and local authorities in some provincial districts coerced female candidates to step aside. Juliet Conteh, an aspirant in the northern district of Koinadugu told IPS she was forced by the paramount chief in the area to step down for the candidate of the ruling party. "When I refused, I was harassed until I decided to contest as an independent candidate. Even then, the chief warned that I hands-off the whole elections thing which I did reluctantly."

Another candidate for councillorship in the Port Loko district, also in the north, Fatmata Daramy said she was intimidated by the member of parliament in the area not to contest against the ruling party candidate.

According to Harriett Turay, there is need to revert to the former proportional representation system of electioneering which made it mandatory for parties to field a certain quota of women as part of their list of candidates for election.

"The proportional representation system is woman-friendly as opposed to the first past the post. This is the only way we can be sure of having up to 30 percent female representation in decision-making," she opines. In the current parliament, which was elected a year ago, there are 17 female MPs as opposed to their male counterparts who total 103 . It is even worse for the cabinet which has less than 10 percent women ministers.

Results under the old system bear her out, as the 1996 and 2002 general elections both returned greater numbers of women to parliament.

The Sierra Leonean president, Ernest Bai Koroma, has said repeatedly that his government believes in empowering women especially in governance but has so far not met the expectations of women’s advocacy groups. But the incidents of attacks, harassment and intimidation of female candidates are viewed by advocacy groups like the Campaign for Good Governance, Centre for Coordination of Youth Activities and the National Elections Watch as a major setback to the government’s pronouncement of pursuing a gender equality agenda.

"We expect more from the government in terms of giving out positions to women because we believe there are very competent women out there who can perform just as men do; it is not just about pronouncements, I think our women are ready to serve their country," concludes Harriett Turay.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Jun 20 2006 (IPS)

Former Liberian head of state Charles Taylor was flown to The Hague, Tuesday, to face trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity associated with the conflict that took place in Sierra Leone during the 1990s.

The ex-president was previously held in that country’s capital, Freetown, where a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal has charged him on 11 counts. The Special Court for Sierra Leone is still responsible for trying Taylor, even though he will now be housed at the detention unit of the International Criminal Court in Scheveningen, near The Hague.

Taylor was transferred on the authority of the U.N. Security Council, in a bid to maintain regional stability.

“It is clear to us that Charles Taylor still does command massive support in the sub-region. We need to build on the hard-won peace here rather than prepare its collapse,” a British diplomat in Freetown told IPS, Tuesday.

The former leader was indicted while still in office on charges that include unlawful killings, recruitment of child soldiers, sexual violence and attacks on U.N. staff in Sierra Leone.

In the face of international pressure and renewed civil war that had seen rebels close in on Liberia’s capital of Monrovia, he accepted asylum in Nigeria in August 2003 – but was handed to the court in Sierra Leone in March of this year.

Taylor stands accused of bearing the greatest responsibility for atrocities that occurred in Sierra Leone towards the end of the last century.

The war crimes tribunal is specifically concerned with the period beginning Nov. 30, 1996.

This was the day that a failed peace agreement was signed by government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) which had launched its rebellion in March 1991, going on to kill, rape and mutilate thousands of civilians in the course of an 11-year war. RUF combatants became notorious for their practice of amputating the limbs of victims.

The rebels entered Sierra Leone from Liberia with the alleged backing of Taylor, who is accused of supplying them with weapons in exchange for so-called “blood diamonds”. His activities have reportedly also posed a threat to security in neighbouring Guinea, and Cote d’Ivoire.

“Taking Taylor for trial in The Hague is good. He is powerful and if tried here, his supporters may resurface and come finish us off,” said Lamin Jusu-Jaka, chairman of Sierra Leone’s amputee association, who had both his arms cut off by machete-wielding rebels.

A government spokesperson agreed. “This is a welcome relief,” the official said of Taylor’s transfer. “At least the people of Sierra Leone and the entire region (can) now go to sleep in peace.”

But these sentiments are not shared by everyone.

“The victims of the war, and for that matter all Sierra Leoneans, would have been delighted to see Taylor put on trial here (in Sierra Leone),” said John Caulker of the Freetown-based rights group, Forum of Conscience.

“He was indicted here and the alleged crimes were committed here. So the people have been deprived of seeing their number one tormentor being publicly tried.”

The Special Court for Sierra Leone, headquartered in Freetown, commenced operations in 2003.

To date, it has indicted 11 people. They include leaders of the RUF, the Civil Defence Force militants who fought alongside government during the civil war, and three commanders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council – the military junta which toppled the government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in 1997, and joined forces with the RUF.

The starting date for Taylor’s trial is still unknown, and he has made just one appearance before the court in Freetown, when he pleaded not guilty to charges against him.

Officials of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and several hundred witnesses will travel to The Hague to enable Taylor’s trial to be conducted. If convicted, he will be jailed in Britain.

Taylor’s rule in Liberia was also characterised by violence.

He won presidential elections in 1997 after having launched a bush war against Samuel Doe’s government that is said to have claimed upwards of 150,000 lives. In December 1989, Taylor and the rebel National Patriotic Front of Liberia entered the country from Cote d’Ivoire, eventually capturing large swathes of territory.

The Liberian civil war was marked by extensive human rights abuses, which continued after Taylor became head of state.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, May 3 2005 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day (May 3), Sierra Leonean journalists aren’t so much celebrating media freedom as girding themselves for a legal battle over press rights.

"We think the time is now to challenge in court the seditious libel laws which hang as a sword of Damocles over our heads," says Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ).

"These laws are inconsistent with the constitution of the republic which provides for freedom of expression."

The legislation in question, contained in the Public Order Act of 1965, criminalizes the publication, distribution and even possession of material that may cause "public disaffection" against the president and other officials.

Breach of the act is punishable by imprisonment of up to seven years and, in the case of newspaper owners and publishers, a possible ban on their publications.

Since its promulgation, this colonial-era law has been used by governments of various stripes – both elected civilian administrations and military regimes – to silence those who asked uncomfortable questions about leaders of the day.

The latest person to find himself at odds with the act is Paul Kamara, managing editor of a vibrant, independent tabloid called ‘For di People’.

Kamara is currently serving a four-year jail term at the maximum security prison in Sierra Leone’s capital – Freetown. His crime: publishing an article that questioned the integrity of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah while the latter was a senior civil servant in the 1960s.

According to the Vienna-based International Press Institute’s ‘2004 World Press Freedom Review’, Kamara’s paper challenged "the fact that the Speaker of Parliament, Edmond Cowan, had defended President Kabbah in Parliament after accusations.that the president had been found guilty in 1968 by a commission of inquiry into fraud."

At the time, the head of state was working as permanent secretary at the Ministry of Trade.

Kamara’s publication of the commission’s findings, in serial form, and his trenchant commentaries on the matter angered Kabbah – and ultimately resulted in the editor’s incarceration.

"In seditious libel, facts are no defence," says barrister Sulaiman Banja Tejan-Sie, who has represented Kamara in another, similar matter. "What the prosecution seeks to establish is how much public disaffection or chaos the publication is likely to cause."

The SLAJ is preparing to challenge the Public Order Act before the Supreme Court this week, with help from the Lawyers Centre for Legal Assistance (LAWCLA), which provides free services for poor persons. The centre also takes on cases that involve civil and individual liberties.

"The criminal libel laws are an abrogation of the right to free speech. It negates our constitution and impedes especially the work of journalists," says Melron Nicol-Wilson, executive director of LAWCLA.

"LAWCLA will offer free services to SLAJ because it is a justified cause: fighting against a draconian and an outdated law left behind by the colonial powers."

Government, however, is standing its ground on the matter – insisting that the Public Order Act is needed to protect citizens from journalistic abuses.

"The libel laws contained in the Public Order Act are very relevant because our government has the obligation to protect the rights of all Sierra Leoneans," says Frederick Carew, attorney general and minister of justice.

"Imagine a journalist has been paid or bribed to libel a government official or private individual who has spent dozens of years building his or her character and reputation?"

The attorney general has urged SLAJ to recommend measures that would help reduce what he describes as "irresponsible journalism".

A further statement by Carew has been viewed by some as an invitation to self-censorship by reporters: "We would prefer the journalists regulate themselves and try to be responsible."

Such comments anger Richie Gordon, editor of another vocal tabloid, ‘Peep’.

"The government talks about its democratic credentials and yet keeps the draconian libel laws in the books. I think those laws have to be expunged," he says.

Adds reporter Zainab Kanu, "I think the government is toying with democracy. It has to scrap these obnoxious laws and allow people to express themselves freely."

Tensions between government and the independent press are expected to heighten ahead of general elections scheduled for 2007.

For much of the 1990s, Sierra Leone was gripped by a civil war between rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), and a succession of presidents and coup leaders. The war was, to a considerable extent, fought over control of the West African state’s diamond resources.

Widespread human rights abuses took place during the conflict, notably the amputation of limbs by the RUF. Following a 1999 ceasefire, United Nations peace-keepers were deployed in Sierra Leone, and the war was finally declared over in January 2002.

Kabbah swept to power in elections held later that year, and in June 2004 a United Nations-backed court began trying persons accused of bearing the greatest responsibility for war crimes in Sierra Leone.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Apr 19 2005 (IPS)

‘’It is not an easy job. Sometimes I get booed and taunted. At crucial moments I get chased out of places where the practice is much more prevalent,” complains 34-year-old Ann Marie Caulker, who is championing the campaign to end the age-old tradition of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

‘’Here in the capital (Freetown), the practice is not widespread because of the cosmopolitan nature of the city. But in the predominantly conservative countryside, it is more or less a taboo to venture discussing FGM in public; a real tough challenge,” she says.

Caulker’s strategy is simple. Through her Katanya Women’s Development Association (KADWA), she has recruited hundreds of young girls, aged between 12 and 18, the prime target for FGM, and placed them in skills training centres. The girls learn tailoring, dyeing, weaving, soap making and embroidery.

This is a cover to promote her cause, because of the hostility faced by anyone who dares speak out openly against FGM. In between training sessions, she organises lectures and discussions about the harmful effects of FGM and admonishes youngsters to resist attempts at getting them initiated into the ‘Bondo Society’, the local name for FGM.

There is as yet no law on FGM in Sierra Leone. In fact, there is no statute on children’s rights. However, the fact that children played a major role in the decade-long civil war that ended three years ago, mainly as conscripted combatants, has jolted the authorities into action.

The children are traumatised, many forced into marriages by rebel fighters or gang-raped and enslaved. The ministry of gender, social welfare and children’s affairs has drafted a bill aimed at protecting children’s welfare.

Francis Murray Lahai, a child protection officer at the ministry, says the bill was drafted with the help of experts hired by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and has much to offer children in post-conflict Sierra Leone.

‘’In the bill there is an aspect dealing with harmful traditional practices like FGM, tattoos and any bodily inscription not in the interest of the child,” Lahai says. ‘’These will be proscribed and measures taken against people who may want to break the law.”

‘’The main components of the bill are survival, development and protection of the child as well as ensuring the child’s participation in all that is in his/her interest,” he says.

The bill is currently before the country’s parliament and legislators are expected to commence debate on its provisions before it is passed into law.

But there is fierce opposition to the bill. ‘’Female Genital Mutilation is an integral part of our culture. It shouldn’t be banned because it helps prepare our young girls for marriage and it curbs promiscuity,” rants 24-year-old Marie Bangura who had gone through the initiation ceremony.

She holds that the ‘Bondo Society’ and its ceremonial rites ‘’inculcates a sense of belonging in young girls, teaches them to keep secrets and be disciplined.”

Opponents, on the other hand, disagree, pointing to medical complications like infertility, persistent bleeding and deaths in some cases as consequences of such a practice. ‘’The initiators often use unsterilised blades to incise the genital organs and there is hardly any proper post-operation medication. I think this is the major problem,” says Dominic Sesay, a child rights activist.

‘’Even the spurious argument that it decreases the girl’s urge for sex, hence curbing promiscuity is a falsehood. We have seen more promiscuous women among victims of FGM than those who have not gone through the exercise. I think it’s all brainwashing,” he argues.

One major problem facing anti-FGM campaigners is the massive illiteracy standing at about 75 percent especially in the interior of the country where UNICEF estimates 90 percent of the women have been circumcised. There, it is a display of affluence and power. Family heads save for a whole year proceeds from the farming activities to spend lavishly on ‘Bondo’ ceremonies.

‘’Bondo Society is what hold us together as a community and keeps our traditional heritage. We cannot sit idly by and allow outsiders to destroy it. We will fight it out,” 56-year-old Ya Ndigba Thulla, an initiator in Makeni, the northern regional capital, told IPS in an interview.

On the campaigning side, for advocates against the practice, there is now a plus in the area of public sensitisation. A new movie on FGM, the first to be shot in Sierra Leone, has been screened. Titled ‘Sebatu’s Initiation’, the movie has been produced and directed by 32-year-old filmmaker Brima Sheriff.

The film pitches the two opposing sides to FGM and leaves the public to judge. Its major advantage though is that it vividly illustrates the harmful effects of FGM.

Sharing his thoughts on making the film with IPS, Sheriff says, ‘’It has not been easy. Even when we were on location shooting we had problems with locals in the village who are traditionalists. I had to keep confounding them about the theme so they were confused.”

Sheriff says screening the movie was also problematic. ‘’We were sabotaged and almost prevented from showing it to the public,” he says.

Sheriff’s contention may just well be true. The ‘Bondo Society’ and its practice of FGM is often used as a weapon of political campaign. Politicians from all sides win votes from women by extolling the virtues of the ‘Bondo Society’.

In the 2002 presidential elections, an influential female candidate, also a gender activist Zainab Bangura allegedly lost woefully at the polls because she was accused of campaigning against FGM.

So there is still a problem. Would the authorities have the political will to proscribe FGM and other harmful traditional practices, even as called for in the children’s bill?

Mohamed Sankoh, a rights activist, is not convinced. ‘’The elections are just two years away. So I don’t see our political leaders taking on this sensitive issue,” he says.

In the meantime, though, the campaign continues. It would probably gather momentum if and when legislators pass the children’s bill into law and make it enforceable.

Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Apr 5 2005 (IPS)

The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone may be preparing for the final pullout of its peacekeeping force by the end of the year, but it seems, the mission wants to leave behind a clean record, in so far as sexual exploitation and abuse is concerned.

‘’The mission has embarked on massive sensitisation of the peacekeepers in the area of sexual abuse,” says Ansumana Konneh, an official of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone’s (UNAMSIL’s) civil affairs department.

‘’The civil affairs department promotes harmonious relations between the peacekeepers and locals but also insists on punitive measures for those peacekeepers who may violate the zero tolerance policy of the UN regarding sexual exploitation and abuse,” he says.

The mission organises workshops that bring together peacekeepers and their civilian hosts and deals with issues like HIV/AIDS, post-conflict reconciliation and gender violence.

Two weeks ago, the UN deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette flew into Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown to re-echo the UN’s tough stance on sexual exploitation and abuse. While in Sierra Leone, she held talks with the military and civilian heads of the mission and sent out a strong message. ‘’There is no room for sexual abuse within the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone,” she said. ‘’Mechanisms have been put in place to prevent the incident of sexual abuse within the mission.”

Mission officials say a special training is organised on zero tolerance of sexual abuse for both military and civilian personnel before they join the mission. They also speak of ‘’an increased investigation capacity” for matters relating to sexual abuse. However, these measures, though well in place may be coming a little too late.

The UN mission will complete the pullout of its troops by the end of this year. Yet there have been plenty of cases of sexual exploitation and abuse in the four years that the peacekeepers have been staying in Sierra Leone. At the peak of its deployment in 2001, UNAMSIL had 17,500 troops, then the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world. Its troops were drawn from Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Then facing a hostile rebel outfit, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a guerrilla army that gained notoriety for hacking off the limbs of women and babies, the UN force is generally thought to have scored tremendous success in bringing to an end Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war. But that is just the rosy part of it.

The UN peacekeepers in Sierra Leone over the years have had a poor image in terms of sexual exploitation and abuse. Freetown’s magnificent beaches were turned into venues for sexual exploitation by peacekeepers. Girls, sometimes as young as 14, could be seen in the company of peacekeepers soliciting sexual favours in exchange for money.

Margaret Bendu, 19, a commercial sex worker at the Lumley beach west of Freetown, had been a regular client to peacekeepers at her beach hang-out. ‘’I’d met Bangladeshis, Kenyans and Nigerians (peacekeepers). Before now they used to be my major clients and it was purely sex for money,” she says.

Her friend, Marian, has a three-year-old child for a Kenyan peacekeeper who had left the mission and returned home. She is unemployed and does not even know how to contact her ex-peacekeeping suitor. She told IPS: ‘’When I met him (the Kenyan) he was pleasant and very generous. He assured me of his support for our baby even if he left UNAMSIL. But now, with no contacts and my present predicament, I feel very hurt.”

These are no isolated cases. Dozens of children have been fathered by UN peacekeepers, many of whom have completed their assignments and left. ‘’It all boils down to sexual exploitation,” laments rights activist Charles Mambu of the coalition of civil society organisations in Freetown.

‘’The UN’s zero tolerance policy for its peacekeepers is a welcome move. Some of these peacekeepers are irresponsible in their conduct, leaving us with the burden of unwanted babies and an increase in HIV/AIDS,” Mambu adds.

Impoverished by years of a murderous civil conflict, Sierra Leonean girls and women are an easy target for sexual exploitation and abuse. Many lost their husbands, parents and property and were thus forced into prostitution. Others are simply lured by money and gifts.

Maada Kamara, of the state-run National AIDS Secretariat, told IPS they were doing all they could to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS. ‘’We target not only the civilian population, but also foreign peacekeepers. Our campaign is nationwide and I think measures put in place by UNAMSIL would complement our work. I believe zero tolerance is the answer,” Kamara explains.

Unlike other countries in the sub-region Sierra Leone does not have an alarming rate of HIV/AIDS infection. It is officially put at under three percent of the active sexual population. But it is feared that by the time the peacekeepers finally depart, the figures might surge upwards.

The history of foreign peacekeepers and sexual exploitation in Sierra Leone did not start with the UN mission. Its predecessor ECOMOG, the military arm of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which was led by Nigeria, was even notorious for such misconduct. The hundreds of children left behind by ECOMOG peacekeepers have come to be referred to as ‘’ECOMOG babies”.

Some of the Nigerian ECOMOG troops, when leaving Sierra Leone took with them women and girls they had made relationship with. Mary Josiah told IPS her ECOMOG boyfriend called Isaju, took her to Lagos, Nigeria, in 2000 and abandoned her afterwards. ‘’It was a painful experience for me in Lagos. When we went to Lagos, I discovered he had a wife and three children. He could not accommodate me and I got forced into prostitution,” Josiah discloses.

The civil war in Sierra Leone was officially declared over in January 2002 by the country’s President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, after eleven years of killing, maiming and destruction.

And with the country coming to terms with its brutal past, and present economic predicament, the tough stance taken by the UN peacekeeping mission on sexual exploitation and abuse, may help eradicate a social menace that would have turned into a national disaster when eventually the peacekeepers leave.

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Excerpt:

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Jan 17 2005 (IPS)

There has been growing anxiety in Sierra Leone about the commencement of the trials of three high-profile war crimes indictees from the former military junta, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which seized power in a coup in 1997.

The three, Tamba Alex Brima (alias Gullit), Santigie Kanu (aka Brigadier Five Five) and Ibrahim Bazzy Kamara, have spent more than a year in the custody of the war crimes court, waiting for a trial chamber to be set up before their prosecution commences.

‘’The (special) court today (Monday) swears in three judges appointed by Secretary General Kofi Annan for a second trial chamber that will soon commence the trial of the three AFRC indictees,’’ said Peter Anderson, a spokesperson for the court.

The chamber is also expected to try Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president who is currently living in Nigeria, as part of a deal to end Liberia’s bloody civil war.

Taylor has been accused of supporting Sierra Leonean rebels who have committed terrible atrocities like the chopping of limbs and lips of civilians.

‘’The setting up of the second trial chamber will help expedite the trials and keep the court within its mandate. We also urge the Nigerian authorities to hand over Charles Taylor, who must face the court and answer to charges against him,’’ remarked David Crane, the American-born prosecutor of the court.

The three AFRC indictees were battlefield commanders. They were among the 17 ‘’renegade soldiers’’ from the national army that toppled the civilian government in May 1997. They are thought to have masterminded the Jan. 1999 invasion of the capital that resulted in the murder of thousands of civilians, rape and abductions, arson attacks on homes and looting of property.

Hundreds of civilians were mutilated with some having their arms, legs and other body parts chopped off.

There are high expectations about the trials of some of the country’s most hated wartime commanders.

‘’I think their trials are long overdue,’’ commented Marie Kamara, a housewife whose husband was murdered by junta forces during the 1999 invasion of the capital by rebel forces.

‘’The junta forces abducted my only daughter (about 16) and repeatedly gang-raped her. I want to see justice done and the ring-leaders of this cruelty be brought to book,’’ Kamara told IPS at the wreckage of her home at Kissy, east of the capital Freetown.

Another survival of the junta’s brutality Elvis Dumbuya, a civil servant testified: ‘’The junta forces beat all seven of us in the family home on allegation that we were collaborators of the ousted civilian government.’’

Dumbuya added: ‘’What followed was a tale of horror. Our family home and car were burnt down, my wife raped and two children, both girls abducted and turned into sex slaves. I will never forgive those who committed those despicable acts.’’

Such is the anger boiling over in Sierra Leoneans who endured the bloody reign of terror of the military junta for nine months. And this is notwithstanding the blanket amnesty provision in the peace agreement for all combatants, as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which recommended national reconciliation and tolerance.

The special court, set up as an independent tribunal jointly by the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone, effectively began functioning in 2002 with a mandate to end at the close of this year. But it seems that mandate will be extended because of the fairly slow pace of the trials and what now looks like a pattern of boycotts by most of the indictees.

The three AFRC indictees, soon expected to go on trial, face an 18-count indictment for war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law.

In addition to their group, there are three other indictees from the former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and three more from the pro-government militia known as the Civil Defence Force (CDF) or ‘’Kamajors’’ also on trial.

The court has to date indicted 11 suspected war criminals. Nine are in custody, two dead (Foday Sankoh, the RUF leader and his erstwhile deputy General Sam ‘’Mosquito’’ Bockarie) and two on the run: former junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma and former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

The special court is now faced with the problem of boycotts by indictees thereby slowing proceedings. For example, all three CDF indictees have for several weeks been boycotting court sittings on various legal and procedural matters. The most high profiled among them is the former national co-ordinator of the CDF Sam Hinga Norman, an ex-minister of defence. He alleges that the charges brought against him were carried out in a wrong procedural manner. Once he set off his boycott, the other CDF indictees followed suit.

Now, all three RUF indictees have joined the fray. They have been boycotting court hearings and the RUF interim leader Issa Sesay protested to the court last week what he described as ‘’continued detention’’.

‘’The war ended without a winner or loser. We negotiated peace and the peace accord gave blanket (amnesty) to all ex-combatants and so I see no reason for (this) special court,’’ Sesay argued. According to him, the special court was a deal between the Sierra Leonean government and the United Nations, excluding the RUF.

‘’We (RUF) were not a party to the court’s setting. We are being treated unfairly,’’ Sesay concluded.

Court officials admit anonymously that the pattern of boycotts may somehow affect proceedings.

‘’If all the indictees withhold their rights to appear before the court and refuse to co-operate with their counsels, as some of them are already doing, this will surely affect the trials making the whole process difficult,’’ a court insider opined to IPS on condition of anonymity.

The special court’s mandate is to bring to justice those who bear the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone since Nov. 30, 1996, halfway into the war and the date when the first peace accord was signed in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, between the government and the rebels.

The court is unique in that it blends Sierra Leonean criminal law with international humanitarian law and its judges include both Sierra Leoneans and international judges.

There are though doubts about the efficacy of the court in ending the cycle of impunity in this impoverished country, the expressed objective of the UN-backed tribunal.

The court also subtly faces threats from groups like former CDF supporters and RUF hard core sympathisers. But court officials dismiss any claims of threats against its operation saying security is well in place to protect both court officials and indictees in custody.

Some analysts and commentators speculate the court might turn into another flashpoint of renewed hostilities.

Charlie Hughes of the non-governmental think tank Forum for Democratic Initiatives (FORDI) in an interview with IPS said: ‘’Although there can be no justification for impunity, I think the special court is not the answer either. Sierra Leone’s conflict was unique and the fact that it was settled through negotiations, it is my view that a court like the special court might not help with national reconciliation; rather it will open up old wounds.’’

There is though a desire among yet another group of war victims, the hundreds of amputees to see justice done, like 25-year old Jabati Mambu, a student whose left arm was chopped off by rebels using blunt machete.

‘’The indictees must all go through the trials. I believe that way impunity will be ended in this country,’’ Mambu told IPS.

As outlined by the UN Security Council, the special court is a novel experiment in international criminal tribunals. It will thus remain an experiment until it achieves its task of punishing those believed to bear the greatest responsibility for war crimes committed in this country.

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By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Dec 14 2004 (IPS)

During Sierra Leone’s brutal civil conflict of the 1990s, rape was systematically used as a weapon of war. The conclusion of the conflict in January 2002 did not spell an end to this crime, however. In fact, some allege that rapes are becoming more frequent in Sierra Leone.

"Rape has steadily been on the increase since the end of the civil war two years ago, with our centre servicing hundreds of cases in the eastern province as well as the western area," says Amie Tejan-Kellah, programme officer for the Rainbow Centre.

This organisation, which operates in the capital, Freetown, and in eastern Sierra Leone, has been assisting victims of sexual assault for the past two years. It provides them with medical treatment and counselling, as well as free legal assistance in the event that the victim or their family chooses to take the case to court.

"It is disheartening," Tejan-Jalloh adds. "We recently serviced 198 victims in Kenema district in the east and here in Freetown. Our youngest client is three-and-a-half-months old."

Sierra Leone’s police force appears to share the Rainbow Centre’s concerns: it has set up 24 ‘Family Support Units’ (FSUs) in police divisions across the country to deal with the crime of rape.

"These FSUs are a sort of task force hot on the heels of alleged rapists," the officer in charge of the units, Superintendent Simeon Kamanda, told IPS. "I am confident we will minimise gender-based violence by the measures we have put in place," he added.

"The police force completed 58 recent cases of rape and sent them to court. We secured 19 convictions, among these jail sentences ranging between six years and 22 years," Kamanda noted further.

The Rainbow Centre has joined forces with FSUs and the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs to help women affected by rape and other forms of violence. To date, it has trained 150 school guidance counsellors in western and eastern parts of Sierra Leone. The centre has, in addition, provided clinical training for officials of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.

The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) also acknowledges that rape poses a considerable problem in the country.

Director Christiana Thorpe has set up a school where hundreds of rape survivors have received counselling – and an education to help them escape the poverty that can make women more vulnerable to rape. The institution also caters for girls who fall victim to other sorts of violence.

"It is a worthy cause. Many of these girls are traumatised and our job here at FAWE is to help rehabilitate them," says Thorpe.

Some of the pupils at the FAWE school are ex-combatants. During the civil war that erupted in March 1991, rebel forces and militias that supported the government abducted hundreds of teenage girls and women and turned them into sex slaves.

FAWE has also established vocational and skills training centres in other parts of Sierra Leone.

"In most of the rape cases reported here, children between the ages of six and 15 are the victims – and 40 percent of them have previously been abused," says sociologist Michael Tommy.

"The perpetrators have mostly been adults who prey on children by luring them with candies, petty cash or just bullying. I think harsher measures must be taken against these heartless people," he adds.

The social welfare ministry is also lobbying for tougher laws as far as children are concerned. Its child welfare department is currently working with the Law Reform Commission on ways of strengthening legislation concerning children’s rights.

For his part, Sierra Leone’s outgoing chief justice, Abdulai Timbo, has called for more consistent sentences to be handed down to those found guilty of rape. In addition, he has highlighted the need to expedite rape trails.

Now, the United Nations Development Programme has agreed to provide funding for 13 magistrates as well as transportation in an effort to have alleged rapists tried more quickly.

On the street, views concerning rape are sharp and uncompromising.

"They (rapists) should be castrated. It is a wicked act. I think no bail should be granted to rapists when taken to court," remarks Musu Mansaray, a mother of two whose 12-year old daughter was raped in Freetown.

Adds Bassie Sesay, a school teacher: "The only place for rapists is the maximum security prison. We’ve had too much of this menace around. During the war, it was forceful seizure of our children by rebels. Now that there is peace, the authorities must act tough."

Sierra Leone’s civil war pitted the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) against a series of presidents and coup leaders. The conflict, waged largely over control of the country’s diamond deposits, resulted in extensive human rights abuses. RUF rebels gained infamy for their willingness to amputate the limbs of civilians.

In June this year, a United Nations-backed court began trying those accused of bearing the greatest responsibility for war crimes in Sierra Leone.

RUF leader Foday Sankoh died of natural causes before he could appear in court, however. Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is said to have played a key role in the war by providing rebels with weapons, has yet to be arrested.

He is presently exiled in Nigeria, which has declined to hand him over to court officials.

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By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Oct 26 2004 (IPS)

Corruption. The word has a particular resonance in Sierra Leone, where endemic graft helped lay the ground for a brutal civil war that raged for much of the 1990s.

Last week, Transparency International – the Berlin-based corruption watchdog – ranked Sierra Leone 118th out of 146 countries surveyed for its annual ‘Corruption Perceptions Index’.

While a number of other African nations scored worse on the index (Nigeria came in at 144th place), graft clearly remains a problem of alarming proportions in Sierra Leone.

This fact was underscored earlier this month by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) when it presented its final report to the public after two years of work.

"We recommend that all those in the public sector practice a new culture of ethics and services as part of the fight against the scourge of corruption which saps the life-force out of Sierra Leone," the TRC noted.

The commission was set up in terms of the 1999 peace accord signed in the Togolese capital, Lome, between President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s government and the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Inaugurated in 2002, the TRC documented the causes of Sierra Leone’s civil war and the human rights violations that occurred during this conflict.

But, is government taking warnings from the commission and civil society about the dangers of graft seriously?

Four years ago, authorities set up an Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) with funding from the British government. Its mandate is to "investigate instances of alleged and suspected corruption referred to it by any person or authority or which has come to its attention, whether by complaint or otherwise."

The ACC’s mandate covers both the public and private sectors. Where allegations of graft are borne out by investigations these cases are referred to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, who decide whether there are sufficient grounds for prosecution.

But, this strategy has proved problematic.

"Political considerations greatly influence which ACC cases the government chooses to prosecute," says publisher Richie Gordon, who has turned his tabloid newspaper – ‘Peep’ – into a platform for battling graft.

"In its present form the ACC simply cannot eliminate corruption.It is ‘tele-guided’ and controlled by those in government who have a vested interest in allowing corruption to flourish," he told IPS.

At the very least, the current system of prosecuting graft has allowed a substantial backlog of cases to accumulate.

"By the end of 2002 the investigations department submitted over 40 cases to be prosecuted and up to a year later, only two cases were prosecuted," says James Kanyako, director of investigations at the ACC.

In addition, the commission itself has not escaped criticism – with some claiming that it is used by government to silence opponents.

The ACC has denied these claims. Instead, ACC head Valentine Collier accuses senior public officials of "apathy and indolence," claiming many do not cooperate with the commission to achieve its objectives.

Since October last year, three judges from Commonwealth countries have been attached to Sierra Leone’s High Court to hear cases involving corruption – an initiative funded by Britain’s Department for International Development and the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation.

The Commonwealth is an association of 53 states that are former British colonies, or which have historic ties to Britain.

"The establishment of a bench within the High Court to deal with cases of corruption has been a significant move towards mitigating the lukewarm attitude of the judiciary that had hitherto manifested itself," says Collier, noting that a special prosecutor is also needed to expedite corruption cases.

Gordon condemns the hiring of expatriate judges as "a waste of resources", and says that some of the funds given to the ACC would be better spent on strengthening the ability of the independent media and civil society to report on and otherwise expose corruption.

Scepticism about the effectiveness of the commission has also prompted a group of civil society activists to set up a parallel anti-corruption body known as the National Accountability Group (NAG).

"Our work is designed to complement that of the ACC. We don’t see the ACC as totally independent of governmental influence and so we come in as watchdogs," spokesman David Tam-Baryoh told IPS.

He argues that the current procedure of sending cases to the office of the Attorney-General for prosecution should be done away with.

"There should be an independent investigator and an independent prosecutor. As long as there is political interference, then corruption cannot be dealt with dispassionately," says Tam-Baryoh.

Even President Kabbah acknowledges that some reforms are necessary to streamline the fight against graft in Sierra Leone.

"The problems faced by the Anti-Corruption Commission are many and varied. I expect that the commission would be the first to accept that there are still shortcomings to be addressed," he said recently.

While Sierra Leone is richly endowed with diamonds, bauxite and other resources, it is amongst the poorest countries in the world. According to the 2004 Human Development Report, published by the United Nations Development Programme, about 57 percent of the country’s population lives below the poverty line of a dollar a day.

The civil war, precipitated by bad governance, was also fought over control of Sierra Leone’s diamond deposits. In the process, widespread human rights violations occurred – with the RUF gaining infamy for its willingness to amputate the limbs of civilians.

A UN-backed court has been established in Freetown to try those accused of bearing the greatest responsibility for war crimes committed during the conflict.

The court alleges that former Liberian President Charles Taylor is the pre-eminent suspect in this regard, for the role he played in arming the RUF in exchange for diamonds.

Court officials have asked for Taylor’s extradition from Nigeria where he was exiled in August last year after talks to end Liberia’s own civil war. Their request has been denied.

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By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Sep 7 2004 (IPS)

It’s another case of natural resources proving to be a mixed blessing. While Sierra Leone’s government gratefully accepts revenues generated by the country’s fishing industry, illegal trawling by foreign vessels is providing cause for concern.

“We’ve been able to generate close to four billion leones (about 1.6 million dollars) for this year alone compared to about two billion leones (just over 800,000 dollars) in 2002. This is remarkable, and would help shore up our ailing economy,” says Okere Adams, minister for fisheries and marine resources. The profits stem partly from fishing licenses and royalties.

For much of the 1990s, Sierra Leone was gripped by a civil war fought largely over control of the country’s rich diamond deposits. While the war was declared over in January 2002, years of conflict have left the economy in tatters.

“As well as being rich in the demersal (fish living on or near the ocean bottom) and pelagic (fish living at various depths) species, this country is home to shellfish varieties like shrimps and lobsters,” Adams told IPS. “We are now having many industrial fishing fleets flocking in to obtain licenses here.”

The demersal category includes snappers, and the pelagic tuna and herring. Sierra Leone records higher shrimp production than many other states in the region: an estimated 200,000 metric tonnes annually.

Fisheries analyst Mohammed Sesay adds that Sierra Leone’s octopus and squid are also sought after. “These are highly-priced commodities on the international market,” he said in an interview with IPS.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Russian trawlers figured largely amongst the foreign vessels that fished in Sierra Leonean waters. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a decline in the number of Russian ships off Sierra Leone, prompting a drop in fishing revenues – particularly from pelagic catches.

“Fish production figures declined significantly because these resources were not targeted after the departure of the Soviets. We now rely mainly on demersal resources,” Sesay notes.

However, Europe has its eye on Sierra Leone’s tuna populations. France now has 11 vessels licensed to fish in the West African country’s waters – and Spain eight. Greece has also shown an interest in the sector – mirroring the extent to which European waters have become dangerously over-fished.

Similary, Asian countries are staking their claim. With a total of 25 vessels, China currently has the largest commercial fleet off Sierra Leone, while South Korean firms have dispatched 12 vessels. These ships trawl for shrimp, oysters and lobsters.

But, Sierra Leone’s fisheries windfall has brought with it a host of problems.

Authorities have been struggling to cope with poaching and over-fishing by foreign vessels, as the country lacks the boats and personnel to mount effective sea patrols. Poaching occurs mainly in the outer limits of the waters designated as exclusive to Sierra Leone.

At present, the navy possesses only one vessel – the Alimami Rassin – which is often used to conduct surveillance operations that target foreign trawlers. However, the Rassin is not equipped to travel in waters that are more than 50 metres deep.

“What we require is a stronger and well-equipped vessel to cover the whole area of our territorial waters,” Adams says.

In a bid to discourage poaching, the government levies fines of up to 200,000 dollars on fishing vessels that operate illegally in Sierra Leonean waters. Both the vessels and their catches may also be impounded, and captains of the trawlers imprisoned.

To date, these measures have met with limited success. Crew members are said to bribe officials when apprehended at sea, a claim which fishing ministry officials refuse to comment on.

Authorities have also turned to a sub-regional fishing commission which comprises seven countries, including Guinea, Mauritania and Senegal, in a bid to cut down on illegal catches. These countries conduct joint surveillance operations through a co-ordination centre based in the Gambian capital, Banjul – a project partly funded by the European Union.

The commission also tries to enhance regional fishing management by creating the channels for member states to exchange information, and by organising workshops and research initiatives. In addition, it encourages responsible fishing methods.

In addition, Adams says that the United States has promised to assist Sierra Leone’s marine surveillance efforts by providing an extra patrol boat come 2005.

But, it’s not only ocean fisheries that are receiving attention from officials in Freetown. Government is also trying to set up on-shore fish farms, in a bid to ensure sustainable production on the part of the fishing sector.

A Vietnamese delegation led by Hanoi’s deputy director of fisheries, Huk Dien, recently visited Sierra Leone to discuss fisheries co-operation. Vietnamese officials have pledged to assist the country with the training of fisheries personnel – and the creation of fresh-water fish farms.

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