Saffa Momoh Lahai was just two years old when his father was killed during Sierra Leone’s civil war. Rebels attacked their family home in Kailahun District, in the eastern reaches of the country, and shot Lahai’s father when he tried to resist.

Saffa Momoh Lahai lost his father in Sierra Leone’s civil war and said justice prevailed when former Liberian President Charles Taylor was convicted. Credit: Mustapha Dumbuya/IPS

More than a decade later, Lahai went to the local seat of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown to hear the verdict read out in the trial of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia (1997-2003) who was convicted on Thursday Apr. 26 of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity and war crimes in Sierra Leone.

The verdict, which was read out by Judge Richard Lussick from The Hague, was televised live across Sierra Leone.

“I am so happy that Taylor has been found guilty,” Lahai told IPS after hearing the verdict, which was handed down in The Hague.

“It cannot bring back my dead father, but it feels good that justice has now prevailed over injustice and evil, and that makes me very happy.”

Many victims of the war in Sierra Leone were quietly pleased with the ruling, though the response was muted. Thousands across this West African country sat glued to TV sets or transistor radios to hear the court’s findings. Most simply went back to their daily lives after the verdict was read.

Haja Bintu Mansaray’s husband was killed by rebels in Koinadugu District, northern Sierra Leone, right in front of her.

“This verdict cannot bring back my husband, but my children and I can take solace from it,” said Mansaray, who added that she would never forget seeing her husband murdered.

Like many Sierra Leoneans, she said she has struggled to survive since the war, finding it difficult to pay her children’s school fees. While the conflict ended in 2002, the country has remained near the bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index, and much of the damage done is yet to be repaired.

Taylor was convicted of supporting the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel faction led by Foday Sankoh, which invaded the east of the country in 1991. The RUF unleashed 11 years of suffering on the civilian population, with mass amputations, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers characterising its campaigns. The RUF sought control of the rich alluvial diamond fields in the eastern part of Sierra Leone.

In Kono District, one of the longest-suffering regions during the war, survivors said they were happy with the guilty verdict, but were anxious to know what the sentence would be.

“I would give him a slow agony of a death, because he was the one responsible for the amputations, the killings, the destruction of lives and property,” said Eric Kellie, in Kono’s capital town of Koidu.

Kellie’s brother and mother were killed during the war, and his home was destroyed. More than a decade later, he is still trying to pick up the pieces.

“It has been very difficult for a long time,” said Kellie.

An estimated 50,000 people were killed during the war, with thousands more raped or suffering amputations. And since the war’s end, Sierra Leone has seen far less international support than neighbouring Liberia, which suffered a 14-year war after Taylor invaded the country with a small rebel faction in 1989. Taylor has not been indicted for any of the atrocities committed during the Liberian war.

Eldred Collins, the former RUF spokesman and current spokesman for the political party of the same name, said that Taylor was not to blame for the war, which he attributed instead to Sierra Leone’s long history of corrupt and unjust governance. In order to prevent another conflict, those conditions need to change, said Collins.

Abdul Rahim Kamara, director of Manifesto 99, a human rights organisation following the special court, said the trial had “sent out a loud and clear message, not only to Sierra Leone but to the whole continent: that the days of impunity are over.”

“This should be a warning to all sitting officials that one day they will be held accountable for what they do,” said Kamara.

In Freetown, Alhaji Jusu Jakka, the director of the War Amputees Victims’ Association, said he was “happy” and “relieved” after the verdict. But he pointed out that the Taylor trial cost a great deal when little has been done for the victims of the war. The trial reportedly cost 50 million dollars.

“The international community has spent more money on perpetrators, rather than victims, who suffered the atrocities perpetrated by these people,” said Jakka.

He said the judgment was a victory for victims, but he expected more reparations.

The verdict represents the first time a head of state has been found guilty of war crimes since the end of the Second World War. Taylor is the first former African head of state to be tried for crimes against humanity, and the case has been hailed as an end of impunity for African despots.

A sentence is expected on May 16. Taylor’s lawyers have said they will appeal.

*Additional reporting by Jessica McDiarmid in Kono District, Sierra Leone.

When the verdict against Liberia’s former President Charles Taylor for war crimes in Sierra Leone is handed down on Thursday, it will be of no help to the many former combatants of the country’s brutal civil war who have not been reintegrated into society. Instead, they will continue to pose a threat to Sierra Leone’s future stability.

Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier and UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War worries about the country’s former child soldiers. Credit: Mustapha Dumbuya

Taylor is being tried by the Special Court for Sierra Leone at The Hague. He is charged with crimes against humanity, mass killings, sexual violence and the use of child soldiers through his support of the rebel Revolutionary United Front in exchange for “blood diamonds”. Taylor is alleged to have masterminded the use of drug-fuelled child soldiers in combat.

Ishmael Beah is one of those former child soldiers. He was forced to join Sierra Leone’s 1991-2002 civil war at the age of 13, when he was recruited into the government army. While he has been able to turn his life around and was appointed the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) first Advocate for Children Affected by War in 2007, Beah worries about the country’s former child soldiers who are now unemployed.

“If Taylor is found guilty, it will be a great victory, not only for Sierra Leone, but for the whole of West Africa,” says Beah, who fought in the army for three years before being rescued by UNICEF.

“But if he is acquitted, it will be a big blow to everyone in Sierra Leone and the rest of West Africa.”

Beah says that with Sierra Leone’s elections approaching in November, the youth should be employed in order to avoid them being used by political parties to disrupt the electoral process.

“One of my greatest fears in Sierra Leone now is, if you have a large number of disgruntled and idle young people who have nothing to do with themselves, you have the possibility of sparking anything,” says Beah.

In September 2011, political violence in the southern city of Bo left one dead and 23 injured. The government’s Kevin Lewis Commission of Inquiry into the incident found that political parties were using ex-combatants as unofficial bodyguards. Political violence later erupted across the country in January after a by-election.

Unemployed youth are easy targets for recruitment, says Beah.

“The guy hasn’t had anything to eat for today, so he is not thinking long term, he’s thinking short term, about what he can eat now,” says Beah.

“I used to be in that position. You can’t expect anybody with short-term thinking to think for the future if you can’t provide them with the opportunity to have one.”

The U.N. estimates that 10,000 child soldiers were used in Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war. During it rebels cut off the arms of those who had voted in the country’s elections, and left more than 50,000 people dead.

The U.N.-brokered Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) process was meant to disarm and provide training to former fighters, and support them to rejoin their communities. Ex-combatants received vocational training in areas such as mechanics, driving and carpentry.

According to a 2005 U.N. report titled Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration and Stability in Africa, about 71,000 ex-combatants were disarmed and demobilised.

But many former fighters say that the programme did not work.

Tamba Fasuluku was known as “Rainu” when he was the commander of a rebel faction called the West Side Boys.

Fasuluku says that he was fortunate to be reintegrated into society and now works as a pastor. But he says that many of the young boys his forces conscripted have not been so lucky.

“It pains me now to see these young boys languishing on the streets without jobs,” says Fasuluku. “They have also become easy targets for greedy politicians who use these boys to cause trouble in society.”

He agrees that most of the political violence in Sierra Leone is perpetrated by ex-combatants. He says it is because they were given access to arms and exposed to violence at a tender age during the war. He adds that it is also because their families and society are yet to welcome them back as members of the community.

“If the government and other stakeholders do not come together to take these boys off the streets, they will continue to go astray, and that’s dangerous for peace,” says Fasuluku.

Dr. Alfred Jarret, the head of sociology and social work at Freetown’s Fourah Bay College, calls the DDR programme an “abysmal failure”.

Bobson Yappo Sesay, a former child soldier, agrees: “I was disarmed and never got any benefit from the DDR programme.”

“I can’t go home again,” Sesay says, explaining that he now lives as an unemployed youth in the capital, Freetown.

Jarret says ex-combatants were not well trained and because of Sierra Leone’s high unemployment rate many were unable to find work. According to the Ministry of Labour, the national youth unemployment rate was about 46 percent in 2008. The professor also says that former fighters face discrimination from potential employers and society at large.

Until the government revisits its policy on ex-combatants and tries to engage them, it will pose a serious threat to the country’s security, says Jarret.

The government itself says it offers no support to former fighters. Ibrahim Satie Kamara is the spokesperson for the National Commission for Social Action, the government agency responsible for the reparation programme for victims of the conflict.

Kamara says that the government’s reparations programmes cater for victims, such as amputees, the severely war-wounded, and children affected by the war.

Ex-combatants, including former child soldiers, fell under the DDR process. There is no government reparation programme for them, he says.

Kamara adds that war victims are discontent with the amount of support being given to former fighters, who are often viewed as perpetrators who unleashed suffering on the people.

Beah says the former DDR programme worked well for some but others missed out or needed more help. And now there is nothing left to help them.

“You can’t just take the guns from them and then teach them how to fix a car and expect them to do miracles with their lives when they don’t have the resources.”

By Damon van der Linde, Mustapha Dumbuya, and - -
FREETOWN, Mar 20 2012 (IPS)

Sierra Leone is instituting major reforms to its education system after the country reported some of the poorest academic results in West Africa. It will start with adding an extra year to the end of secondary school beginning in 2013, and nearly doubling daily classroom hours.

Sierra Leone is instituting major reforms to its education system after the country reported some of the poorest academic results in West Africa. Credit: Damon van der Linde/IPS

Every year, Sierra Leonean students sit for the standardised West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in their final year of secondary school to determine their eligibility for college and university.

The WASSCE covers not only Sierra Leone, but also other Anglophone West African countries: Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and the Gambia. This makes competition for entry to international institutions even steeper.

In 2008, about one percent of Sierra Leonean WASSCE entrants scored above what the West African Examination Council (WAEC) considers a passing grade in five subjects, including compulsory English and Mathematics.

Sheriff Sapateh, the head of the Sierra Leone WAEC national office, said that if at least 25 percent of students passed the exam, he would consider that an adequate performance for the country.

“After I published the Chief Examiner’s Report, the government became worried and had to look into it,” says Sapateh.

The government reacted by creating the Gbamanja Commission of Inquiry to determine exactly where the education system went wrong, and what could be done to improve it.

Sapateh says the civil war in Sierra Leone also contributed both directly and indirectly to the poor results of the 2008 exams. Because the war lasted from 1990 to 2001, many students spent their formative school years studying in extremely difficult conditions, experiencing sporadic school closures.

To compound this problem, many qualified teachers fled the country, and those who replaced them were rushed through “crash” training programmes. Though conditions have improved in recent years, much of the residual wartime infrastructure, policies and practices exist to this day.

“Everybody contributed to the poor performance: the community, the home, the children themselves, the school, teachers, and even the government could have done more,” says Dele Sannoh, head of the Department of Education Studies at the University of Sierra Leone’s Fourah Bay College, and member of the Gbamanja Commission.

At the moment, students attend senior secondary school for three years. One of the recommendations that came out of the inquiry was to give senior secondary school pupils an extra year of school before sitting for the WASSCE exams, and increasing the school day from four to seven hours a day.

This means that Sierra Leone will not be holding a public WASSCE this year, keeping most students slated to graduate secondary school in 2012 out of university for an extra year.

The theory behind adding another year of secondary school has much to do with what education specialists call “contact time,” which simply refers to the number of hours students are in the classroom with a teacher.

“The rationale is that we found that there was inadequate work given to that level,” says Sannoh. “Let’s give them an opportunity to have more time in school. We’re hoping that this will work, but if they still waste time, or the teachers are not committed to their work, we’ll go back to square one.”

Ghana attempted a similar reform in 2008. The system was in place for a year, but Sannoh says there were political undertones to the reform and when there was a change in government, the new administration immediately reverted to the old system.

“I think if they had given it time, it probably could have given the results they wanted,” says Sannoh.

Not all schools are performing equally. The Annie Walsh Memorial Senior Secondary School consistently achieves higher than average results for the WASSCE in Sierra Leone. Principal Ophelia Morrison says that two-thirds of her 300 to 400 students regularly pass the exam.

“My school is a ‘Grade A’ school. I have high flyers in my school and I want to believe the recommendation of an additional year does not apply to my school; they should have come up with something else,” says Morrison. “My opinion is that principals should have been interviewed so that our views could have been looked into rather than coming up with a generalised trend.”

Sierra Leonean students will still be able to write the private WASSCE exam in 2013, but only if they pay for it. But, at a cost that comes close to a decent monthly salary of 80 dollars, it is prohibitively expensive for many students.

Imran Sesay is an 18-year-old student at the Muslim Brotherhood Secondary School, and will be a part of the first group of students to stay for an additional year. Because he pays for his own school fees – which are not covered by the government – and living expenses, he says he does not think he will be able to afford the additional costs. In Sierra Leone education costs 25 dollars a year in fees.

“If they add one more year I’ll have to drop out,” he says. “I’m on the street every day trying to find money for survival and at the same time paying my fees.”

This increase in contact time is part of a larger series of reforms, which include changes to teacher training and building teaching infrastructure like school buildings, libraries and computers. Teachers complain about being underpaid, while education administrations say teachers are undertrained.

Though the government says it has increased spending in public education by 36 percent since 2008, financial constraints remain a common complaint throughout all levels of the education system.

“There are so many facets to look at in the education system. You look at the equipment, you look at the quality of the teachers, and the calibre of the teachers. We are doing all of that simultaneously. We are improving the government resources made available to the school, within the limitation of what the government has to offer,” says Kamara.

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The launch of Sierra Leone’s first online mining database in West Africa comes with a promise to increase transparency and accountability in the country’s rich natural resource sector.

Sierra Leone’s mining industry has a long history of unregulated operations. Credit: USAID

“This system will stamp out all forms of malpractice in terms of licensing, financial management and general information pertaining to the mining sector,” said Minister of Mines and Mineral Resources Minkailu Mansaray. “The public should be aware of what mining companies pay to the government and what the government receives from mining and exploration companies.”

Launched on Jan. 19, the Government of Sierra Leone Online Repository System was funded by the European Union, and developed by the government and international donors, including the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), the United Nations Development Programme, the Revenue Development Foundation and the World Bank.

The purpose of the system is to have information on all revenue data for the country’s extractive industry – payments made for licenses, royalties, and contributions to local chiefdoms – collected, recorded and published for public accessibility. It also shows whether mining companies have been authorised to legally operate in the country.

For instance, the website shows Koidu Holdings, a South African company currently operating the largest diamond mining operation in Sierra Leone, made a cash payment of 200,000 dollars on Jan. 11.

Sierra Leone’s mining industry has a long history of unregulated operations, most notably the “blood diamonds” which were found to be partially responsible for fuelling the country’s 11-year civil war.

Apart from diamonds, Sierra Leone has significant depots of other minerals, including iron ore, bauxite, rutile and gold. In late 2011, African Minerals and London mining began the extraction of iron ore in the country for the first time in 30 years. According to the government’s projected budget for 2012, this mineral alone could contribute to more than 50 percent increase in the country’s GDP next year.

This Online Repository System is also part of the move to make Sierra Leone compliant with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which requires the timely publication of payments made by mining companies to government, as well as revenues generated from the projects.

Until now, information relating to mining agreement between the government and natural resource extraction companies was kept at the Ministry of Mines on paper documents that were neither secure nor accurate. In fact, old records were so poorly kept that the new system is only able to include information gathered after 2010.

“Before the advent of this system when licenses and payment details were handled with paperwork, some payment details (went) missing and receipts were not found,” said Alusine Timbo, the Manager of the Online Repository System.

Abu Brima is the Country Director of the Network Movement for Justice and Development, an organisation that has in the past taken a critical stance towards the extractive industry in Sierra Leone – particularly in regard to the transparency of deals struck between the government and foreign-owned mining companies.

He says that any move towards a more public record of mining activities is a step in the right direction, but is concerned about the mechanisms in place that will ensure timely and accurate posting of information.

“It’s what goes into the system that is recorded and is what people see. The actual people that gather the information, that collect the data, is what needs to be watched very carefully,” says Brima. “When you have the people on the ground collecting the data who are not being paid well and whose work conditions are terrible, you obviously run the risk of not getting the best out of the system.”

The responsibility for ensuring the information is collected and reported falls on the government’s Strategy and Policy Unit (SPU) in offices around the country, in cooperation with the mining companies themselves. Sierra Leone is yet to enact its Freedom of Information Law that would constitutionally guarantee access to government records, like the original documents regarding mining agreements and transactions.

“As much as the system is promised to address issues of corruption, I don’t think it will holistically address the problem when there is the tendency for the officials of the ministry to only upload information that is in their own interest and not crucial information that the public will want to know about,” said Mohammed Konneh, Secretary General of the Association of Journalists on Mining and Extractives.

“Without the law the system will not work well more so the people that are responsible to run the system will in some cases will be afraid to put certain information that the government considers confidential,” he said.

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