Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698080759716.pdf (Sierra Leone)
163 Major Abu Noah (Rtd.)

Submission to the TRC.

May 2003.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 540 285.

286. manner.

The coup plotters assigned to themselves very important political offices as a result of their participation in the coup.

During the NPRC era, it was common to see Brigadiers and Colonels saluting their juniors (mostly captains and lieutenants).

The impact on morale and discipline in the army was devastating and negated the core foundations for executing the coup.
During the war years, the gates into the military were thrown open to good citizens, criminals, and hooligans alike in the hope of flooding the warfront with enough manpower to prosecute the war.

These undeserving individuals quickly exploited their uniforms and guns for personal, sectional and other selfish interests.

The ultimate result was the AFRC coup of May 25, 1997, which threw the entire nation into turbulence, lawlessness, chaos, anarchy and catastrophe.
It was reported to the Commission that a colonel in the army even argued before his colleagues that there was nothing wrong for a colonel to pay compliments to a the AFRC.

“That was how discipline corporal during disappeared and the entire officer corps decomposed.”164 the era of It wasn’t surprising therefore that both the officer corps and the rank and file of the army began preying on the civilian population right from the onset of the war.
There was no overriding national sentiment on which the army could be mobilised.

The military was national only in name.

By 1991 it was still hostage to ethnic and tribal sentiments.

These deepened with the onset of party politics in 1996 when the well intentioned efforts of the Government at reform of the army were labelled as ethnic persecution of Northerners.

The Sierra Leonean army has still not weaned itself of ethnic sentiments.

Those who harbour such sentiments are however in the minority.
The Government needs to move fast to consolidate the gains of the present restructuring and retraining efforts for the army.

The Civil Defence Forces (CDF) 286.

The term “civil defence” is not construed here exclusively to mean the group that became known as the Civil Defence Forces, or CDF.
In fact, the Commission identified numerous examples of groups that embarked upon initiatives to lend protection to their communities quite independently from the formal structures of the CDF and in many cases long before that institution was even conceived.

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We must, of course, acknowledge that in the minds of many Sierra Leoneans the CDF faction was to become associated with most of the official ‘operations’ carried out towards the cause of defending civilians against their attackers or oppressors.
A primary reason for this association is that the majority of those civil defence initiatives that had existed before the time of the CDF were eventually subsumed into the CDF’s structures of co-ordination.

Nevertheless, as a wealth of testimonies before the Commission confirm,165 between different 164 Major General Tom Carew, submission to the TRC.

May 2003.
May 2003.

165 The TRC has conducted statement-taking, public and closed hearings, investigations and research interviews in each of the twelve Districts of the country, as well as in the Western Area.

In every District, the TRC heard from representatives of local civil defence groups, including – wherever possible – from the leaders of the relevant local arm of the CDF.
One of the most striking points stressed by witnesses time and again was that the CDF was contrived as a formal endorsement, or an ‘institutionalisation’, of activities that had been undertaken at community level Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 541 288.

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Regions, between different ethnic groups and even between cultural sub-groups, there were substantial differences in the character and conduct of the respective CDF components, let alone of the autonomous civil militias and vigilante groups that had preceded them.

This chapter shall however deal with the CDF.

It is hoped that subsequent research will investigate the roles played by these other groups and the extent of their intervention in the conflict.
Civil defence evokes different images and memories depending on the part of the country from which one originates and the place or places in which one lived during the hostilities.

At least in the first few years of the conflict, the local populace of most communities felt a strong sense of ownership over the persons they had entrusted with their protection and thus they developed nomenclature in their own native languages to refer to these groups.
Hence the people of the Koinadugu District in the Northern Province, who are predominantly Koranko, Limba and Yalunka by tribe, knew the warriors, soothsayers and guides who mobilised alongside the Army as early as 1991 by the collective term Tamaboros.166 In the Temne-dominated Districts of Bombali, Port Loko and Tonkolili, there were Gbethes, the word having derived from the Temne term for hunters, which is also understood to carry an implied meaning of power or prowess,167 and Kapras.
The people of Kono referred to their local militiamen as Donsos, which also means hunters, but which was abstracted effectively to mean ‘fighters’, or any one who stood up in the face of the enemy.168 Finally, the people of the predominantly-Mende Districts of the South and East of the country – Moyamba, Bonthe, Bo, Pujehun, Kenema and Kailahun – mostly spoke of their own ‘local hunters’ or Kamajors.169 The last of these categories – the Kamajors – merits special attention in an analysis of the concept of civil defence during the conflict.
At the point when the Commission began the pursuit of its mandate, there existed a great deal of ambiguity and contention in the popular understanding as to who or what the Kamajors actually were.

To a great extent, it remained the case during the Public Hearings across Sierra Leone, as Kamajor witnesses proved to be incredibly reticent and in one District practically boycotted the Hearings on the suspicion that the TRC was simply a witch-hunt intended to expose their Society ‘secrets’.

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While such attempts to cast a veil of mystery over the character and conduct of the Kamajors were perhaps motivated out of a certain fear of the reception that a candid testimony might get from erstwhile compatriots or adversaries alike, they in fact did nothing to serve the cause of truth in Sierra Leone.

Only a very for many years previously.


Moreover, the Regional and cultural differences between the ways in which different civil militia groups described their roles was also a noteworthy feature of the TRC’s enquiries.

It would thus be neither accurate nor impartial for the Commission to restrict its analysis of civil defence to the activities of the CDF.
166 In interviews with the Commission, witnesses from the Koranko ethnic group translated the word ‘Tamaboro’ as meaning “come and take us out of trouble”; see for example James F. Koroma, elder of the community of Kondembaia, Diang Chiefdom; TRC interview conducted in Kondembaia, Koinadugu District, 15 August 2003.

167 Sheikh Ahmed Tejan Sesay, former ‘Tamaboro’ and CDF District Commander for the Bombali District; TRC interview conducted in Makeni, Bombali District; 17 August 2003.
168 Chief Augustine Safea Nyademo, Town Chief of Baiama and former ‘Donso’ commander; TRC interview conducted in Koidu Town, Kono District; 12 August 2003.

169 Kekura Brima Gbau, prominent community stakeholder and former Kamajor; TRC interview conducted in Pangoma Township, Kenema District, 17 July 2003.
Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 542 small handful of former Kamajors testified publicly about the full extent of their participation in the conflict; accordingly, the remainder of witnesses in that category did as much to confuse the Commission further with half-truths and convenient oversights as they did to assist in the creation of an impartial historical record.

There was a marked absence of public testimony from Kamajors pertaining in actual combat or military operations.
The Commission has depended largely upon closed testimony and confidential interviews to formulate its account of that aspect of the CDF’s conduct.

Moreover, very few witnesses were willing in any forum to discuss the details of their initiation ceremonies, which for many of them remain taboo.

their participation to 292.

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Indeed, there has been a generally unproductive effort on the part of some Kamajors to obscure the character of their faction.
They have tried to finesse a place for the Kamajors among the sacred secret societies that form an integral part of Sierra Leone’s cultural heritage.

This place is simply not their due: the Kamajors were created for the express purpose of war, albeit a war that they perceived themselves to be fighting in the name of a just cause.
The secret societies, including the Poro and Bondo Societies for men and women respectively, are essentially peaceful unions of citizens premised on common belief in the powers of spirits that dwell mainly in the “bush.”170 There was undoubtedly an underlying integrity to the manner in which certain individual Kamajors engaged in the struggle to liberate their homeland from the unconstitutional stranglehold of the People’s Army (comprising fighting forces from both the RUF/SL and the AFRC).
However only through a nuanced analysis of the evidence can it be possible to garner an accurate understanding of how the Kamajors, abstracted out of, yet distinct from any pre-existing tribal militias, turned a noble cause into a presence that proliferated the armed conflict in its latter stages.
The word Kamajors was used in testimonies to the TRC in essentially two different contexts: first, to describe certain among the locally-organised Mende militia groups of the early 1990s – by all accounts consisting mostly of those who had actually been hunters;171 second and much more commonly, to apply to the dramatically-expanded CDF that mobilised en masse from 1996 onwards.
There is, once again, an important disconnect between the two groups: the first attempted to capitalise upon pre-existing aptitudes among the local populace that would assist in rendering protection to the township; whereas the second has, upon rigorous inspection, proven to be a much more less discriminatory means of recruiting manpower with which to wage war.

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The latter Kamajors group was not in fact a hunting society, nor did the majority of its members have any unifying pedigree as local hunters or traditional ‘bush warriors’.
On the contrary, the Kamajors of the ‘mass mobilisation’ era were mostly hurriedly assembled youths from rural communities; spirited into action 170 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission made a principled decision not to undertake any of its own analysis regarding the possibility of violations and abuses of human rights taking place within secret societies in peace-time Sierra Leone, precisely because of the de facto detachment of these groups from the militias and armed factions that prosecuted the war.
The role that such belief systems play in society in general was perceived to have been of greater relevance to the reconciliation component of the Commission’s work; hence the production of the internal research paper entitled: Traditional Belief Systems and Customs of Ethnic Groups and their implications for Reconciliation; 26 March 2003 171 TRC interviews with Kamajors from the Kenema, Bo, Pujehun and Bonthe Districts; conducted in each of those four Districts of the country between July and September 2003.
Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 543 296.

297. through an initiation ceremony that made the illusory promise that they were endowed with supernatural powers; then sent to conduct sensitive and serious operations without adequate training or any recognised system of discipline.

It is to this expanded group of Kamajors, comprising the overwhelming bulk of the CDF membership after 1996, that nearly all of the violations citing CDF in the Commission’s database are attributed.
In addition to the above-listed geographically-specific groupings, there were also diverse mechanisms for civil defence that sprung up in different parts of the country under generic terms such as ‘vigilantes’, ‘community defence units’ or CDUs, ‘auxiliaries’ and ‘watchmen’.

Each of them played its own distinct role in Sierra Leone’s history and the Commission is mandated to capture such contributions to the greatest extent possible.
Character and Conduct of the Kamajors There is a great deal of merit in assessing the leadership of the Civil Defence Forces, particularly as regards the intricacies of its structures, according to a phased approach: first, from the attainment of power by the SLPP Government up to the point of the 1997 military coup and the establishment of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) [that is 10 March 1996 to 25 May 1997]; second, during the period in which the SLPP Government was in exile in Guinea, which is also known as the inter-regnum [that is, 25 May 1997 to 10 May 1998]; and third, after the restoration of the Government to power until the final cessation of hostilities [that is, 10 March 1998 to 18 January 2002].
These distinctions are vital in piecing together an accurate understanding of the means by which decisions were made and, either as a result of those decisions or due to other militating factors, operations were carried out during each of the periods in question.

298.

The erstwhile National Director of Operations for the CDF, in his public testimony before the Commission in Pujehun, appeared with hindsight to belittle the importance of a title or official rank within the movement.
His testimony – whilst couched in parables - further lends credence to the deduction that power and effective command in the CDF appeared to be relatively centralised.

“Giving me the power as National Director of Operations was like you giving me a goat and then you continuing to hold onto the rope; if you’re going to hold onto that rope, what would be the point of giving me the goat in the first place – how could I benefit from it?
You have to bear in mind that there were so many of us, all vying for power or position.

There were certain people among us who always tried to interfere; to undermine; to grab the position of the next man.

You can’t work properly under those kinds of conditions; but those were the conditions in which we were being asked to work.
Nobody was reporting to his compatriots or to his commanders further up the chain of command; our attitudes to leadership and organisation were negative.”172 172 Joseph A. S. Koroma, former CDF National Director of Operations and Member of the War Council at Base Zero; testimony before TRC Public Hearings held in Pujehun Town, Pujehun District, 24 June 2003.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 544 299.

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301. in direct contravention of On a somewhat lower level, Kamajor fighting units seem to have organised themselves around fairly arbitrary, ad-hoc criteria.

It is indisputable that many groups of Kamajors, a substantial number of who had not been formally ‘initiated’ into the Society or who had been through false initiations, acted in excess of their collective mandate.
The Commission’s research suggests further, however, that on an individual level, combatants also acted beyond and the often circumstances, effective command the commanding officers at the lower level; the unit commanders whose groups were smaller, well known to them and therefore more manageable.
Several witnesses before the Commission used the terminology of gang violence to describe the ways in which Kamajors moved through the townships they patrolled.173 According to one of those civilians who observed the Kamajors most closely in the Bonthe District: responsibility was vested their superiors’ instructions.

In in “[A] battalion commander could conceivably be against a lot of the things that happened, but he [would not be the one] to have absolute control over ‘his’ Kamajors.
It was something like a clan system; every group had its own identified leader.”174 The Civil defence Forces was established to defend the communities against attacks by the RUF.

Its base of support was in the communities.

For a group professing a “just cause”, the communities against that of defending unprovoked attack, it was inconceivable that it would attack the very people it was established to protect.

This was exactly what happened.


It may be tempting to explain away the violations committed by the CDF as collateral damage in a war situation as some witnesses suggested to the Commission.

However, such simplistic explanation does not contextualise how a just cause became indistinguishable from ‘rebel’ atrocities.

The following paragraphs are insights discerned by the Commission as rationale for some of the violations that were committed by the CDF.
CDF Initiation and Training The initiation process in the CDF was a very rigorous exercise that emphasised compliance with certain taboos that included sexual abstinence and non- appropriation of other people’s property.

Compliance with these taboos was expected to protect the combatant in battle, making him invisible to the enemy.
With numerous initiation ceremonies going on all over the southern and eastern regions, and with all kinds of people welcomed into the group, it became difficult to enforce compliance with these taboos.

The Commission received testimonies of harassment of the civilian population, especially those suspected of being RUF sympathisers.

Subsequently to a lot of people, membership of the CDF became a passport to free passage in the communities.

Membership became highly sought after.


Many of those who joined were not initiated neither did they receive any training in the mores of the group.

Initiation became a highly commercialised enterprise with people paying exorbitantly to go through the process.

Initiation fees ranged from Le2000 to Le10, 000 per person.

At times there were as many as 5000 men to 173 Locate testimony in the database and refer further to Father Garrick and others.
174 Reverend Father Emmanuel John Garrick; TRC interview conducted in Pujehun Town, Pujehun District, 26 June 2003; at page 7.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 545 302. initiate.

The initiators chose their times and locations.

With such numbers being initiated on a regular basis, discipline and control became lax.

The possession of a weapon became an important instrument for the new arrivals in settling old personal and family quarrels.
the movement and the massive numbers The establishment of the civil defence units in the communities had been on the initiative of the chiefs.

In the early days, the chiefs selected able-bodied young men from their communities and sent them for “training”.

With institutionalisation of that subsequently joined, it became impossible for the chiefs to control the membership.
Furthermore, while the chiefs’ retained symbolic authority in the communities, the control of men in arms created new levers of power in the communities.

The CDF was organised both as a military and an administrative entity.

Each district and town had administrators who were in charge.

The function of the administrator was to ensure the maintenance of law and order, settle disputes among people and encourage the people to continue with their daily lives.
The administrators had supplanted the government appointed administrative officers.

Increasingly the administrators supplanted the chiefs as points of authority and contact.

The administrator could override the decision of a chief on any issue.
He could punish a chief for “errant” behaviour or appoint a chief in any community or interfere in chieftaincy disputes in the community in favour of a disputant.175 Many administrators became drunk with power and began sending the troops out against perceived opponents.

The administrators wielded powers of life and death over people.

Some of them like Kosseh Hindowa in Bo protected CDF militiamen accused of killing innocent people and shielded them from law enforcement officers.
This created a culture of impunity that membership of the CDF put you above the law.
The Commission has received testimony of CDF troops being sent out to murder opponents or seize their property, even after the conflict was over in 2001.176 In a letter of complaint to the Commission, a petitioner accused Kosseh Hindowa of ordering the destruction by Kamajors of his compound in Bo valued at over Le50Million, and the removal of valuable property including steel windows and doors, roofing and other building materials which were then taken to the CDF store in Bo on 16th February 1998.
The petitioner had complained to the CDF Coordinator in Bo at the time, Alhaji Daramy Rogers, the National Coordinator, Chief Hinga Norman and the then Vice president, Dr. Joe Demby.

None of them intervened to facilitate the return of his property, pay him compensation for the destruction or punish Kosseh Hindowa for his actions.177 303.

After the expulsion of the RUF from power, the Kamajors launched an operation on the town of Koribundo in Bo district, “to punish the people for supporting the AFRC”.
This support was an apparent reference to the fact that an army garrison had long existed in Koribundo.

The town was completely destroyed.

On the basis of reports made to the Commission, an event specific hearing was organised in Freetown on the destruction of the town.

Witness after witness narrated to the Commission that after the destruction, the National Coordinator of town and the CDF, Chief Hinga Norman, visited congratulated the boys for “a job well down”.
When confronted by the town’s people he was alleged to have told them that his instruction was actually that no building in the town should be left standing, but that he noticed that his boys had spared the local church.

He told the people that the destruction was a the 175 Testimony at Bo Public Hearings 176 Confidential interview with an ex-CDF combatant in Bo, 5th June 2003.

177 Petition to TRC dated 20th December 2002.


Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 546 304. punishment for the support extended to the AFRC and warned them from such conduct in the future.

The CDF became a law unto themselves in all the districts and communities they controlled.

While there were police stations in some of the districts, the police officers were hamstrung and could do nothing in the face of the overwhelming powers of the CDF.
Police officers were summarily beaten for not obeying the orders of the Kamajors.

Testimonies abound of people arrested on all kinds of charges and it was left to the district administrator or the local commander to determine the fate of the person.

For such purely civilian matters, no code of conduct had been laid down for the rank and file.

It all depended on the momentary idiosyncrasy of the local commander whether one lived or was killed if arrested on any charge by the CDF.
As witnesses told the Commission: “They take the laws into their own hands; they have the feeling that they are the people in charge in the country so they will act however they wish.”178 “The complainant was a businessman who had lived in Bo for many years, with his family.

The Kamajor leader in Bo without any lawful excuse or justification raided his house, beat him up and took up his goods on many occasions.
He reported the matter to the police in Bo who tried to safeguard him and his properties, but the Kamajors in Bo repeatedly beat him up and took his goods away.

Later the police decided to send him to the CID Freetown for “protective custody”.

The CID Freetown decided to keep him in Pademba Road prisons without any justification or lawful excuse.
He was there for six months without release when his wife and mother came to our office to complain.”179 The police sent a citizen into detention for six months, yet it was their constitutional duty to offer him protection.

The police authorities could not bring his persecutors to account even after the war had ended.

“The seizure of my Honda motorbike took place at Bumpeh, on the Bo – Mattru Road on the 17th October 1997.

I met a Kamajor at a checkpoint in Bumpeh town with a gun.
He stopped me and demanded the Honda keys from me.

He then took me and the Honda bike to his boss, Mr. Moses Lamina alias Gbokambama.

Moses Lamina told me that he acted upon the order of his boss, Mr. Allieu Kondewah, the Kamajor High Priest, that all vehicles used on that road should be confiscated and brought to him at his base – Talia in Bonthe district.

I became helpless and my Honda bike was forcefully taken away.

I continued my journey the next day walking 20 miles on foot from Bumpeh to Serabu.
In the attempt to retrieve my Honda and to test the veracity of Moses lamina’s allegation, my brother, James Farma of Kaniya and I walked 60 miles to Allieu Kondewah to his base at Talia on the 30th October 1997.

He admitted passing the order to seize all vehicles and send them to his base.

He promised to return the confiscated vehicles to their owners after the war but he never did.”180 178 Rev.

Fr.

Garrick, testimony at TRC Public Hearings in Bonthe District, July 2003.

179 Office of the Ombudsman.


1st Annual Report 2002.

OMB 3921/2002 page 23-24.

180 Mr. Henry Moriba, Petition to the TRC, dated 11th March 2003.

As at the time of the petition, the motorcycle had still not been returned.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 547 305.

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There were contradicting testimonies from members of the CDF on the nature and length of the training they received.
Most of the witnesses talked of “a few days” for the initiation after which they were drafted to the war front.

They also claimed that they were not even trained in how to handle a gun.

A combatant was expected to learn how to use a gun himself.

Other testimonies talked of training programmes lasting from between a week to one month.

Such witnesses however could not recollect or discuss in detail the nature of the training offered them during that period.
It seems obvious that some training was offered at least at Base Zero.

It is however doubtful the nature of any training offered the combatants who underwent initiation in their various chiefdoms.

Even while at Base Zero, the Commission was told that the combatants it worthless or unnecessary.181 Without adequate training, it was no surprise that the combatants took liberties with people as they liked.
The Commission was invited to compare the behaviour of the Kamajors with the Gbethes whose leader M. S Dumbuya invited the ECOMOG forces to train his men.

It seemed therefore that for the Kamajors, a lot of emphasis was placed on the initiation as if it was the solution to all potential problems that might be encountered by the combatants.

training considering to undergo refused For many CDF combatants, wielding a gun provided a context to appropriate property.
Numerous testimonies before the Commission talk of Kamajor local commanders taking over the private property of individuals without the payment of compensation, and apparently for no cause.

Many of the properties taken over have not been returned even now that the war is over.

By 1999 the Chief Initiator, King Kondewah was telling the Kamajors that everything was over.
This was interpreted to mean that they were freed from all injunctions and taboos, and further that from thenceforth, they were to fend for themselves.182 The scale of violations dramatically increased as the Kamajors began a spree of looting that was not markedly different from the RUF.

Houses were unroofed and the materials converted to the personal property of the commanders.

The CDF had been very popular as a concept.


It would have been logical to assume that its leadership at the communities would derive from an amalgam of all the groups and interests present in the communities.

Many middle class persons and members of the political elite supported the movement in various ways.

Yet it’s fighting forces and the administrative arm were led by people with very basic education or none at all.
Lacking knowledge of human rights principles or the laws of armed conflict, it is not surprising that brazenness and arbitrariness subordinated common sense and intellect in decision making within the movement.

The government seemed unable or unwilling to rein in the CDF.

Very prominent witnesses informed the Commission that they brought to the attention of the government the grave violations that were being perpetrated against the civilian population by the CDF.
In one instance, a witness said the President confessed to him his inability to call the National Coordinator of the CDF, Chief Hinga Norman to order about the behaviour of the combatants for fear that he might turn the CDF against the government.183 Hon.

Richard Lagawo, majority leader 181 M.S.

Dumbuya, interview at the TRC Office, Freetown, October 2003.

182 Confidential interview with ex-Kamajor combatant in Bo.

5th June 2003.
5th June 2003.

183 Confidential interview with a member of the CDF War Council at Base Zero, TRC Office, Freetown, November 2003.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 548 in parliament and former National Chairman of the CDF has described Chief Norman as “a strong man” who could not be controlled.184 All of this took place in a situation where the national army had been effectively disbanded by executive fiat.
Defence of the country and even peacetime defence activities fell to an armed faction that had not been trained in the basic rudiments of how to relate to civilians.

This state of affairs could only worsen the climate of impunity that prevailed in Kamajor camps, as they were indeed beyond control by the government.
In one instance it took the intervention of ECOMOG to arrest the Chief Priest, King Kondewah over the murder of a civilian.185 After a few days in detention he was released and the matter has not been resurrected.

The behaviour of the Kamajors provides important lessons in managing civilian militias when they deploy violence on behalf of a national government.

FACTIONAL FLUIDITY IN THE CONFLICT 309.


To the extent that the violations committed by the RUF are a permanent, underpinning characteristic of the conflict, the Commission has identified the RUF/SL as the foremost single influence on the course of the conflict from its outset until its cessation.
Indeed, due to the transient presence of some fighting factions on the territory - for example, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) or the Ghurkhas, both of whom entered but subsequently left Sierra Leone - and to the initial non-existence of some factions which came to feature prominently in the conflict - for example, the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) and ECOMOG, the Sierra Leone-mandated Monitoring Group of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) - it is possible to surmise that the RUF/SL was in fact the only faction that featured in the conflict from start to finish.
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Whilst certain combatants of other affiliations fought throughout, some of them continually against the RUF/SL, the capacity in which they were fighting changed, in some cases many times over, depending on such factors as shifts in political power or leadership, force of circumstance or sheer adversity.

The biographies of individual fighters over the course of the conflict testify to its unfathomable complexity and an astounding factional fluidity.
The Commission has, for example, heard from certain combatants who first took up arms as members of the RUF, later joined a civil militia group to fight against the RUF and now serve in the reformed Sierra Leone Armed Forces.

Others began as soldiers fighting for the Government, later joined the junta and turned against the Government, formed their own splinter groups in the bush, found favour with the Government again to assist in eliminating the RUF and are now sitting in prison.

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None of the above ought to imply that the Revolutionary United Front itself had anything akin to a fixed identity, or identities, from the point of its conception to the point of its effective elimination.
On the contrary, the RUF is most fittingly described as a 'movement' - a set of loosely bound objectives, some of them divergent or even contradictory, afforded a military dimension and finding their expression in the actions of people from across a wide spectrum of backgrounds, many of whom associated themselves neither with the objectives of the movement, nor necessarily with one another.

184 Interview with the Commission.

TRC office, Freetown, May 2004.


185 TRC Confidential interview with an ex-Kamajor combatant.

Bo 5th June 2003 Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 549 312.

Indeed, as the ensuing analysis demonstrates, the scale and nature of atrocities committed by members of the RUF appear to have their roots as much in dissension within the ranks, the nature of their training and in any shared agenda among them.
The RUF were not rebels without a cause, but nor can we ascribe a common cause to 'the rebels'.

In reality the movement attains its defining character from the differences - sometimes subtle, sometimes fundamental - behind the various causes for which RUF members fought.186 The Chameleonic Character of the Combatants 313.

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315.

The conflict was prosecuted largely by unconventional fighting forces among and between themselves, certainly in its second and third phases.
Even during the first phase, when the factions aligned themselves to a more conventional brand of warfare, there was a marked absence of head-to-head battlefront confrontations.

Militias and armed groups, including the Sierra Leone Army in its various incarnations, generally concentrated their strategic planning and resources on carrying out ‘operations’.
Whether or not couched in the rubric of offensive and defensive missions, these operations were predominantly geared towards the destruction of life and property.

Civilians, as individuals and in groups, were often the express targets of participant militias and armed groups rather than merely the unfortunate victims of ‘collateral damage’.
To the extent that it retained at least a semblance of conventionality in its command structures, ranks and rules of engagement until the bulk of its soldiers were subsumed into the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in 1997, the professional Sierra Leone Army was something of an exception in the conflict as a de facto conventional Army.
The norm for the militias and armed groups whose formation or transformation was essentially premised upon participating in the conflict was to structure and organise themselves in a mode and manner that was irrevocably reflective of the social order that reigns in Sierra Leone.

The Commission identified an astonishing ‘factional fluidity’ among the different militias and armed groups that prosecuted the war.
Both overtly and covertly, both gradually and suddenly, fighters switched sides or established new ‘units’ on a scale unprecedented in any other conflict of which the Commission is aware.

These ‘chameleon tendencies’ spanned across all factions without exception; they say much about the character of the general ‘breed’ of combatant who participated in the Sierra Leone conflict.

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316.

On an individual level, the biographies of ex-fighters who testified to the Commission attest to the relative frequency of the peculiar scenario whereby combatants could be allied to a particular faction for several years before joining their proclaimed archenemies.

186 It should be noted that compulsion was one of the most common causes that drove conscripted civilians into fighting for the RUF.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 550 317.

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On a collective level, almost entire ‘factions’ switched ‘sides’ on at least two occasions during the conflict.

First, after 1994, the membership of the so-called ‘Action Group’, a component of the RUF/SL in the Pujehun District, largely abandoned the RUF/SL and became Kamajors fighting for the pro-Government CDF.
Second, upon the creation of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) as a junta regime, the majority of officers and private soldiers in the Sierra Leone Army transferred their allegiance away from the incumbent (de jure) Government of Sierra Leone to ally themselves with the RUF/SL under the banner of the ‘People’s Army’.
In every single case recorded by the Commission, including those cited above, the dynamics of factional fluidity were complex and somewhat anomalous, but nevertheless remarkable to even the most experienced of military observers.

Research carried out by the Commission has been able to proffer the following possible explanations for such factional fluidity.
Broadly speaking, for each of the different factions, the composition of the ground forces was almost identical – young, impressionable, disgruntled ‘youth men’ eager for an opportunity to ‘assert themselves’ and see that no harm was done to their own people (‘people’ here to be understood restrictively to mean the same close-knit either community) whilst fighting against perceived injustice.
family or perhaps members of immediate Due in part to the prevalence of organised hierarchies in Sierra Leonean society – sometimes referred to as bra-ism and a related culture of dependency– groups of combatants were more inclined to remain loyal to particular commanders than to overarching causes or societal interests.
Thus, where an influential commander (or a bra, a big brother figure) declared that the whole unit was now to follow orders from a new source, or to ally themselves with a different set of fighters from another ‘faction’, there would invariably be wholesale compliance without so much as asking questions.

During the conflict, the declarations and suggestions of a bra carried all the more persuasive weight because they were backed up by threats of summary punishment for non-conformists.
in-depth the investigation Upon conducting a Commission has found that there are subtleties to the collective switches (like the examples of the Action Group and the People’s Army described above) that preclude their being described accurately as ‘defections’, ‘sell-outs’ or transformations of character.

the circumstances, into in tendencies the consistency of the contrary, chameleonic the conflict are actually On representative of the underpinning objectives and motivations of the combatant factions.
For example, where a local militia like the Momoh Konneh (Ndorgboryorsoi) component of the ‘Action Group’ (purportedly) sought sincerely to protect and/ or promote the interests of the indigenous people in the face of scourges like bad governance and corrupt leadership, they originally found a vehicle in the shape of the RUF/SL; after the RUF/SL reverted to guerrilla warfare and moved out of the communities in question, the ‘Action Group’ (Ndorgboryorsoi) members identified a new means of fulfilling their objective – through the local civil militia concept embodied in the CDF.
A further example of the subtleties of an apparent collective ‘switching of sides’ is found in the case of the Sierra Leone Army and its various incarnations.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 551 ‘Blurred lines’: various phenomena relating to perpetrator identity 323.
In the second phase of the conflict in Sierra Leone, there grew among the public a widespread subscription to the theory that soldiers of the Sierra Leone Army were ‘behaving like rebels’ or indeed ‘working together with the rebels’.

The concept that soldiers generally could not be trusted with the defence of the civilian population became popularly understood under the rubric of ‘sobels’.

324.
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While appearing at first glance to be testament to the ‘chameleonic character’ of combatants (purporting to be one thing while acting like quite another; ‘soldiers by day, rebels by night’, etc.)

these ‘blurred lines’ in fact reaffirm the adage that a ‘soldier is a soldier’.

325.

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327.

328.

329.

The loyalties of the soldiers have always been transient and malleable to the political agenda of those in power.
The disharmonies and internal conflicts between soldiers in this conflict appear to have arisen primarily due to the mixing of military and political concepts of ‘power’ in an unsophisticated fashion.

The NPRC administration of Captain Valentine Strasser consistently caused offence to senior officers who resented having to receive directions from their ‘juniors’ who occupied State House.
‘Power’ was sought and wielded in an even more crude form under the AFRC regime of Major Johnny-Paul Koroma; such was the unconventionality of the AFRC hierarchy and the lack of coherent (far less unified) military or political strategy that its reign in Government and, especially, the imposed state of flux that resulted from its dislodgement both created a propensity towards violence against civilians they identified as loyal to the SLPP Government.
In the end, it is difficult to answer the question, why the combatants fought the war.

If they claimed any overriding agenda, the fluidity in their membership and their transient loyalties make it difficult to perceive, much less understand their agenda.

The Commission is left with the regrettable and uncomfortable conclusion that the war was a naked pursuit of power clothed in the garb of revolution.

The original agenda for radical system change had been aborted in 1988.
What the people of Sierra Leone were served from 1991 was a counterfeit.

They have paid a terrible price for a fake product.

It is easier to understand the motivations of those who engaged in a just war, to resist the enslavement of their people.

However, the Commission is unable to understand or justify the whole scale condemnation of the civil populace as collaborators or supporters of the RUF by those who claimed to be liberating them from the RUF scourge.
How else should the Commission interpret the indiscriminate attacks on people by the CDF?

Despite the achievements of the CDF in the conflict, Sierra Leoneans must feel terribly disappointed and let down by the CDF record on human rights.

Sierra Leoneans gave all their possessions denying themselves even basic services to feed and cloth their assumed liberators.

Indeed, the thought must be shocking to them that between the CDF and the RUF, the difference on respect for people’s human rights is marginal.
Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 552 PERPETRATOR RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE VIOLATIONS 330.

In the statements received by the Commission, the AFRC is responsible for 14,646 or 36.4% of the total of 40,242 violations.

These violations were committed primarily in the third phase of the conflict, with the greatest number occurring in early 1999.

The second highest number of documented violations, 13,657 or 33.9% were attributed to the RUF/SL.
These violations were carried out prior to the RUF alliance with the AFRC junta regime and include abuses by the NPFL.

Smaller numbers of violations are attributed to the SLA (6.0%) and the CDF (6.0%) and other forces (1.5%).187 331.

The other perpetrators include local civil forces such as the police and SSD, and international parties such as the ECOMOG and the Guinean Armed Forces (GAF).

Both the ECOMOG and GAF account for less than 1% of the recorded violations.
1991-1996: The First Phases of the Conflict 332.

Throughout the first two phases of the conflict, the groups responsible for the highest number of violations were the RUF and to a lesser extent, the SLA.

The RUF is responsible for 13,657 or 74.6% of the 18,308 documented human rights violations while the SLA accounted for 2,025 or 11% of the violations.

1997-2000: The Final Phase of the Conflict 333.

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335.
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335.

In the final phase of the conflict, from 1997 onwards, the character of the war changed markedly.

Though active previously, the CDF groups mobilised to a much greater extent, committing thousands of violations and abuses, especially in the South.

In Bonthe the civil militia is the dominant perpetrator, with the statements describing more abuses committed by the Kamajors than by any other party.
Furthermore the national army that had previously been charged with defending the country formed an alliance with the RUF after the AFRC coup.

Both the GAF and the ECOMOG intervened more forcefully into the conflict in its final phase, with the latter driving the AFRC/RUF forces from Freetown.

In the bush the AFRC soldiers adopted the behaviour patterns of the RUF fighters, committing atrocities on a massive scale in the Northern region.
Slightly more than two thirds, 14,646 or 66.8% of the documented 21,934 violations committed from 1997 onwards are attributed to the AFRC, the RUF or a combination of both.

The next major perpetrator is the CDF accounting for 1893 or 8.6% of the violations.

Both the ECOMOG and GAF bear a measure of responsibility for the abuses during this final phase of the war.
It is important to note that numbers for violations committed by ECOMOG troops do not purely relate to involvement in the fighting, but the alleged commission of violations against the civilian population.

Thus, it is most unfortunate to record that forces intended to bring peace to the country, comprising professional soldiers, contributed to the violations against the people.
187 It should be noted that many violations had no specific perpetrator attributed to them, while violations may have been shared among several perpetrators.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 553 336.

Many statement givers were unable to determine or recall those responsible for the violations against them.

Consequently many abuses have unknown perpetrators.

The proportion of violations and abuses without an identified perpetrator increases as the conflict progresses.
Between 1991 and 1996, 2,342 or 12% of the 18,308 documented violations have unknown perpetrators.

In the final period, they make up to 4,411 or 20.1% of the 21,943 documented violations.

This is an indicator of how over time, it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between the various fighting factions.

CDF Militia Responsibility 337.

The militia groups in the North of the country were not comparable to the Kamajors in terms of the scale of their abuses.
The Kamajors account for 2188 or 90% of the 2419 violations attributed to the CDF.

The next largest group, the Gbethes, accounted for 143 or 5.9% of CDF violations.

The Tamaboros, Kapras, and the Donsos are responsible for 15 or 0.6% of the documented CDF abuses between them.

In 78 or 3.2% of the violations, the statement giver indicated that the CDF was responsible but did not specify which militia.

ECOMOG 338.

339.

The violation with which ECOMOG forces were associated was killing.
To comprehend the killings in which it is alleged that ECOMOG actors were responsible, a special coding exercise was undertaken.

The total number of statements in the TRC database involving killings by the ECOMOG forces is 72.

Out of these a random sample of 55 statements were studied.

As such, the results can be considered as representative of ECOMOG violations in the TRC database.
The statements indicate that abuses by ECOMOG forces primarily occurred in the Western Area – 90% of the killings in the sample were in Freetown.

This supports the notion that abuses by the ECOMOG force are concentrated in the Western Area.

Taking evidence from the database as a whole, less than 1% of the abuses are attributed to the ECOMOG forces.

However ECOMOG actors are blamed for less than 3% of the abuses in Freetown in 1999.
Indiscriminate Killing 340. in the deaths studied the Special Coding exercises were Some of indiscriminate, due to bombing, shelling or cases where the victims were caught in a crossfire.

Of these 'accidental' killings, the majority (63.5%) were caused by stray bombs.

The issue of cross fire has been discussed earlier in this chapter.

It is now important to deal with the issue of bombing.

In general it is forbidden to carry out aerial bombing in urban areas.
The dangers of civilian casualties are just too great.

It is important to set out the applicable international humanitarian law norms to the bombing of military objectives.

Article 51 of the Geneva Conventions protects civilian populations against dangers arising from military operations.

It sets out rules that give effect to this protection.

The rules are additional to other applicable rules of international law, which should be observed at all times.
The rules include that the civilian population shall not be the object of attack.

Acts or threats of violence designed to spread terror and indiscriminate attacks are prohibited.

Indiscriminate attacks are those not directed at a specific military objective; those which Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 554 employ a method of means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by the protocol.
In consequence such attacks could strike at military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
The article further defines indiscriminate attacks as an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
Civilian objects are all objects, which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 2 of the section.

The attacks ought to be limited strictly to military objectives.

Military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose the total or partial destruction, capture or neutralisation, circumstances ruling at the time, offers a military advantage.
in Any attack therefore must demonstrate that there was a clear military objective being sought, and that some ‘collateral’ damage to the military objective was inevitable, and that tactics and weapons were chosen in order to minimise such collateral damage.

Where ECOMOG is unable to provide proof that military objectives were targeted, the aerial bombing of Freetown will be considered to be a violation of international humanitarian law.
In the Commission’s view, the use of bombs in largely urban areas violated the principle of proportionality.

In consequence, ECOMOG’s bombing campaign in Freetown did on occasion, kill entire families including children.188 341.

342.

Summary Executions 342.

343.

Of all the sample deaths, 58.8% were deliberate executions.

Of the 50 killings recorded, in the sampled statements, over three quarters involved some accusation that the victim was involved with the AFRC or RUF factions.
Where such an allegation was made, 70% of the victims were accused of being a 'rebel'.

The remainder were accused of being either 'rebel' collaborators or members of a family containing a 'rebel'.

This is consistent with the argument that elements within the ECOMOG force targeted and summarily executed suspected rebels and collaborators.
Regardless of the veracity of the allegation – or indeed the 'guilt' or 'innocence' of the supposed collaborator - such executions constitute a breach of international human rights law.

The method of killing was, primarily, execution by shooting at short range.

The deaths mainly occurred in public places and were witnessed by civilians.

The public nature of the violation suggests that it may have been intended as a warning to others.
In some cases the victims were first abducted from their home or workplace and brought to the point of execution.189 Summary executions constitute serious violations of international human rights law.

They amount to arbitrary deprivation of life, which is prohibited by the major human rights treaties.

In addition, they constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law.
For example, Common article 3 to the Geneva Conventions, which applies specifically to non international armed conflict, prohibits the 188 See statement Numbers 1156,2221,5041,5046.
189 See statement Numbers 1116, 1352, 1420, 1686, 1942, 2586, 2593, 5409, 7134 Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 555 carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognised as indispensable by civilized peoples.
The ECOMOG forces who perpetrated these acts are not sheltered by the amnesty of the Lomé Agreement, and should be prosecuted before the courts of their own countries in accordance with national and international law.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTEXT Understanding the Violations 344.

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It has been argued that the conflict in Sierra Leone was the worst in recent history and cannot be explained by reference to any existing phenomena in the country.
Many victims want to understand why the conflict was attended by so much violence and abuse.

To provide an insight into the psychology of perpetrators, the Commission commissioned some monographic studies in the hope of finding some explanation.190 Psychological perspectives on the process of enlistment In the Sierra Leone conflict, various violent acts were perpetrated by individuals, all of who underwent a process of enlistment, which was basically conscription into any of the fighting forces.
This process preceded the act of perpetration.

Specific procedures were methodically used to enlist and create a whole group removed from society.

This process was open-ended; in that under-aged children, youths, males and females were no exception.

The focus of enlistment is the destruction of specific social and psychological links between the individual and his community resulting in a bid to inculcate the new beliefs and ideas of the group in the individual.
There were diverse reasons why individuals were enlisted in the fighting forces during the conflict.

Some volunteered as a way to carry out revenge for previous wrongs.

Others were forcibly enlisted.

Left with no choice they became active fighters.

The reasons for enlistment were either personal, social, economic or political involves specific psychological processes that lead vulnerable individuals, especially young children, to commit atrocities.

in dimension.
in dimension.

But enlistment “I was living with my father and mother and was the elder son of the family.

At around 5.00am that day our village was attacked by the RUF in the South.

One of the commandos who knew my parents entered our house with a group of teenagers.

Three of us were captured since we were not able to escape.

The commando who was called K ordered his boys to gang rape my mother before my father and me.

They had to rape her by turns in front of my father.
This was 190 The TRC commissioned Handicap International to conduct a study of perpetrators to examine causal links between their initiation and the violence they subsequently perpetrate.

The Commission also contracted a private consultant to examine the relationship between the use of drugs and the violations that occurred.

The ensuing paragraphs draw upon the papers produced as a result of these studies.
Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 556 done as a way of revenge because my mother refused to marry K who had earlier asked her hand in marriage.

five of After the boys have raped my mother, she became unconscious and asked my father for help.

As the husband who was at this point under gun point attempted to move he was shot at point blank range.

I saw my father drop dead.

I cried for help but a gun was pointed at me.

I do not remember how many of them raped my mother later.
I was asked to follow them which I did.

We left my mother close to my father’s corpse.

Later, I saw our house on fire.

I cannot tell whether my mother also died after.

A bag of looted items were given to me to carry for that night.

I cried quietly along the way.

Soon one of my colleagues in the village who was also captured told me to keep quiet or else I would be killed.

This made me to stop crying.”191 348.

349.

350.


The traumatic transmission It is important to note that the representations/images of the initiator are transmitted to the future soldier in a traumatic climate.

This is not done unconsciously.

Through how it is transmitted, the mechanism is automatically put in place.
Victims of enlistment who have gone through the process therefore become representations of the same process like the one the torturer went through: a traumatic logic through traumatic initiations.

One example of this is that when a victim of traumatic violence is narrating the event, it provokes deep and uncomfortable emotions to the person listening to it.
The individual abducted or initiated into a combat faction goes through a deliberate process of disruption of the links and the marks that constitute the individual’s psyche.

It happens in the “torture” process and in some initiation rituals in traditional societies192 such as the initiation processes organised around the testing of abilities through trials.

The relationship between the future soldier and his leader/initiator is important to understanding the relation between torturer/victim.
There are two ways to transmit and to initiate: through pedagogy and through trials.

In the context of perpetrators, to traumatically initiate, one goes through this duplication.

The secret binds the initiated with his initiator193, emphasising and perpetrating the traumatic aspect of the initiation.

This aspect would therefore initiate the trauma, and push the initiated to transmit it by duplication, as a psychological way to cope with the traumatic image.
The initiation takes place in a secret environment that has also a function of demarcation between those who are initiated and the others.

It is as if it is conferring to the individual something additional, an “extra or supernatural power”.

However, it reinforces his identity with the group but also creates a gap between the two groups: those who were initiated and those who were not.
Those who speak are those who are disrupting their affiliation with the initial group and are in a process of affiliation with another group.

Finally there is often a need to finalize the initiation by perpetrating an act that they have been trained for.

By this concrete act, they are concretising their affiliation to the body.

191 Statement from a child soldier, S. 192 T.Nathan (1994), L’influence qui guérit, Paris, Odile Jacob.

193 L.Hounkpatin et T.Nathan, « Secret professionnel, secret initiatique.
Deux modalités de constitution de groupe professionnel de soins », Agora, 37, 1996.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 557 The altering of the initial identity 351.

This phase marks a deliberate process of disorientating and dissociating initiates from all previous attachments, beliefs or values.

He is cut off from all his usual works, which totally disorientates him.

One of the examples is that he loses all his contacts with his family or social marks (by being abducted).
“After a long journey we finally arrived at their base.

This place was called “Burkina”, it was very far.

I was so tired that I couldn’t recognise it.

We were put in a sort of cage till the next morning.

We were later called out and sent to the training field.” 352.

He is also systematically cut off from his environment.

They integrate him in another “mystic” and strange world that ex- combatants usually do not remember.

The location of training camps is carefully selected.
It is an excluded area, cut off from the rest of the society.

This is to ensure that there is no escape and to be sure that they are cut off from all usual marks and bonds.

Some of the ex-commandos called it “Burkina” or said that it is the training put in place in foreign countries: what this part of a myth, was it the part of the intentional disorientation?

“We were two dozen in number and each of us was given a cup of juice mixture to drink.

This drink was to help us go through the training.


During lunch a plate of porridge mixed with brown-brown was shared among us with gunpowder added to it.

Our trainer commando “S” told us that it will strengthen us to face the enemy.

On the training ground you are subjected to different exercises ranging from running, jumping, rolling and marching.

You are also expected to stand in one place for hours on end.

All this is done with the hope of testing your physical fitness and endurance.
During this period, you are given different forms of punishment if you fail to take instructions from the trainer.

Some of the girls are asked to carry out these punishments.

I felt the punishment was inhuman but there is no training wherein somebody will not die.

So any attempt by a trainee to escape is punishable by torturing you to death.” 353.

Then, they are subjected to harsh and humiliating trials in a bid to put them in a position of vulnerability.
New rules are introduced some of which can be illogical.

Some of the humiliating acts could be carrying food and other support items for the initiators, wives being raped in the presence of their husbands or girl children being used as sex slaves.

Some commented that in the training, they also had to walk naked during hours in the bush.

“The second phase is the use of the gun.

This also entails dismantling, assembling and firing to the right target etc.
You spend sleepless nights during this phase because the training instructor can give order any time for you to fire.

Failure means punishment.

We are also trained to lay down in one place for days without drinking neither eating nor moving.

We all went through this training naked.” 354.

As a way of making initiates more vulnerable they are deprived of any form of privacy.

Every action of the initiate is watched and monitored to increase his sense of insecurity.
For example, the doors were always open, everything belonged to everybody.

To emphasise the effect, the act is accompanied with deliberate exaggeration of superiority over initiates.

The initiate is reduced to Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 558 the level of universality making him believe that he is nobody.

All the usual character marks of his individual identity are deleted.

Every single difference between individuals are erased and not tolerated within the group.
He is placed at the same level with other initiates.

This is done to erase any previous link (with the family, community) be it formal or not.

At this point it is clear that initiates are in a position of nakedness, totally dispossessed of all former ties and completely vulnerable.

355.

The moment of natural selection is not ruled out wherein those who cannot survive the ordeal die.

On the other hand, any form of emotional breakdown or resistance or escape warrants instant elimination.
These fears suppress initiates and strengthen their resolution to move on.

In this state of extreme vulnerability, the ideals are reinforced to boost the morale of new converts.

“SJ tried to escape from the training, he was captured back and it was decided that he should be killed.

They covered his face with a bag and beat him.

Fortunately, a friend came to rescue him, as he was about to die.

Since that time, he had stopped crying each day he had the urge to undertake the training.” 356.
Two approaches are used to integrate and inculcate the new ideals to converts.

The psychology approach is based on the belief that the individual behaviour is influenced by subconscious and unconscious motivations.

The perpetrator uses this approach to motivate an individual by disturbing the equilibrium of his personality, making him feel uncomfortable, then offering him some course of action that will dispel this uncomfortable feeling.
The socio- cultural approach is by attempting to define or redefine the norms that are guidelines for the behaviour of groups.

It takes place most easily in unstructured situations where the norms have not yet been formed.

By these new approaches, new members are integrated and ideals/beliefs are resultantly inculcated.

At this juncture the initiates experience a feeling of annihilation and are resolved to stay.

“We normally go through different phases of this training.
Before each training period, you are asked to sing the national anthem of the movement.

At the end of each phase you are told why this type of training is needed.

Towards the end of the training you are frequently taken out of the camp to attack villages and towns.” 357.

Initiates are linked to members through an oath of secrecy with rituals and initiations.

They are based on traumatic rites, where the trials are to live or die.
The trials of endurance and courage continue in the same degree until all humiliating tones disappear.

This is a moment of total submission and a new person is formed.

They are based on traumatic rites, where the trial is up to the point that you live or you die.

The final phase 358.

New converts display their new identity in public through ceremonies.

This goes with a symbol of identification usually a ‘tattoo’.

These corporal marks which cannot be erased, explain their affiliation to this group.
This new identity is also reflected in some cases in their dress and behavioural codes.

The initiator will show some signs of recognition through acting also.

The closing ceremony follows the period of traumatic ritual.

This is done to recognise their ‘new identity’ that depicts values of ideal manhood.

With their newly acquired rights Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 559 and powers the new converts begin to implement their beliefs.
The individual is now focused on the full implementation of the ideas through continuous training and rehearsal for the execution of tasks and instrumental roles.

They consider themselves above the law that governs humanity and civilisation.

They act in very strange ways taking orders from above (commandos).

Orders are also taken from external commands that have been integrated in order to ensure cooperation, solidarity and total affiliation with other group members.

359.
359.

Another symbol of identification for new converts is the dreadlocks.

In times of their action, they are usually badly dressed with military trousers and T-shirts, worn out boots or slippers.

They do not care about what they wear as long as they are filled with the notion of being in control of the situation.

Everyone is under their command.

In this position they can get what they want forcefully.

Converts display sadistic behaviour to non-members.
This explains the nature of atrocities committed against civilians, which range from amputation, mutilation, arson and rape.

“After three months intense training, we were distributed among the different groups with different commanders.

Assignment made me to be brave.

I was involved in massive killing, raping, looting properties and abduction of people, even specifically in my father’s village.

In one of these missions, we faced an attack where my commando could not survive.
I killed an ECCOMOG soldier whose gun and uniform shirt I used.

I gave the short and boots to my other commando.” 360.

The act is usually inflicted on targeted victims.

The perpetrator consciously or unconsciously transfers all the humiliations and pains he has gone through to the innocent victim.

These acts are climaxed by celebrations with group members.
They rejoice at this moment because they feel that they are now above the common world, above its limits and laws and all codes of race and prohibitions that constitute it.

They dance, drink, take drugs, gang rape and this final stage is celebrated by the whole group in extreme ways after this initiation.

SJ explains this ceremony, which has to be understood as an effect of the traumatic aspect of the rite: “I went through the training in front of the whole group, I was so proud.
The test was on one of my members of the same age and consisted in a protection of bullet proof.

I didn’t dare him at the beginning but he first shot me on the foot and on the ankle, (he shows the scar).

I thought I was dead at a moment, but I realised that the bullet did not reach.

I was stronger than now.

So I decided to revenge when I realised that it was he or I. I killed him.

I was so proud, I was now a rebel.

Everybody was so enthusiastic, they screamed with joy (he makes an extreme face).
The end of the training was marked by a lot of ceremonies.

This I cannot explain because I took an oath.

They took me to a gorgeous party.

We drank, we danced and sang.

We were all so happy.” He was now affiliated to the group, with his war ‘brand identity’.

361.

New converts experience a sense of pride, fulfilment and purification having gone through the training successfully.

They are now new persons totally disorientated from previous beliefs and ideals.
They are part of a new set of beliefs and values, with a new identity.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 560 362.

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The individual is now superhuman; he doesn’t belong to the other world and is above all the laws, prohibitions and codes that used to structure the individual’s marks.

R.U.F.

rebels used to say “civilians don’t have blood”, they are the bad objects, we do not belong to the same race, and we are coming from a superior group.
This served to show their perception of humanity that they are above humans.

Ex-commando children expressed this as a beautiful and enjoyable moment and state and as a sort of second state.

Downfall and the end This is the breaking point of perpetrators, a moment to face reality and of retransformation.

The is being feeling of super human, questioned.

They are now targeted and sought after.

This is when they disguise themselves to mingle with civilians.
This does not prevent them from flouting accepted codes of behaviour.

They flee to areas where they could engage in savage activities.

Those who resist the law are killed.

Others surrender and are kept in seclusion where they are rehabilitated.

invulnerability “I attacked the villages, killed people.

I was the best, and especially with these drugs they used to give us or to directly inject in the brain.
My bravery made our commando send me to Kono as a bodyguard to Colonel “C” who was also the spokesperson of the RUF.

After a lot of involvement in different attacks and missions in which I played a leading role, I was made a commando at he age of 12 years.

I had six girls that were my wives.

Two were my uncle’s daughters.

As a commando, I had well over 10 adults, 10 boys who were my age group, ‘elders’ or adults; I was free to command, as I wanted.
The more I caught, the more I had men under my command, and I had five girls, two of whom were bodyguards to my wives.

Most of my missions were always successful.

This was due to the fact that I had a map of the country, which helped us.

I was feared by most of my colleague commandos because of my bravery and attacking skills.

That was why my colleagues called me young Rambo.

Soldiers or ECOMOG forces always occupied most of the villages that I captured.

These attacks were always bloody and horrible.


However after the signing of the peace accord, the international committee asked that child soldiers be handed over to UNICEF.” 364. is accomplished after a This brings to an end the process of enlistment.

From a position of passivity, the initiates gradually become active in implementing the group’s beliefs and conducts.
This long period of disorientation, dehumanisation, brainwashing, integration and implementation of new beliefs and values akin to that of the initiator.

At the end of this exercise a new human being is formed who implements what he has been trained to do based on the several traumatic stages that he went through, he will deal with these uncontrollable ways and act them on as a way to cope with it.

There will be the displacement of all the anguishes and anger on the victims and the atrocities committed.
He carries out atrocities with out remorse.

Vol Three A Chapter Four Nature of the Conflict Page 561 THE USE OF DRUGS 365.

366.

A number of researchers who have investigated the conflict have concluded that the only way to explain the violations that occurred must relate to the widespread use of drugs by the combatants.

The Commission has also interrogated the use of drugs in the conflict.

It must be noted that in every conflict, use of hard drugs is prevalent.
The Commission therefore looked for peculiarities in the use of drugs in the Sierra Leonean conflict as a way of explaining the level of violence that attended.

The Commission’s conclusions are that hard drugs were widely used in the conflict.

Each combatant group promoted the ingestion or injection of drugs to strengthen the endurance capacity of the fighters, make them bold and able to carry out orders.

Some of the hard drugs used included cocaine, heroin, ephedrine etc.
Hard drugs were widely administered on very young boys and girls.

Since the majority of the fighting forces for all the combat groups were young people, the use of these drugs widely affected their behaviour not only in battle but in their relationship with the civilians they encountered in the communities.

An ex RUF female testified that she was captured in Kenema in 1991 together with her sister Mbalu and little brother Musa.

They were taken to Kailahun.


She and other older persons were given marijuana to smoke.

Refusal meant serious beating or starvation.

She attempted to run away once but was captured and injected with a green liquid.

She felt “instant happiness and would go wild and become bold to challenge other rebels”.

She was raped multiple times, either sober or under the influence of cocaine.

She used to cook for them and she was given marijuana to boil with the sauce.

Her commander was called ‘Major’.


Under the influence of drugs they would raid villages and fire at will at civilians.

She also drank blood passed around without protest.

She was usually used as a decoy when they wanted to enter a village.194 367.

Abu Bakar Conteh was captured in Makeni in 1997 and forced to join the RUF.

His commander was called “sufferer”.

“We were given heavy boxes to carry.

Those who dropped their load were shot and left behind.
After three days all porters were lined up and injected with a white substance.

We were told that it would make us strong and tireless.

I suddenly became active and during the night journey never felt sleepy.

When we rested I felt scared and jumpy at the slightest sound.

I could be in this state for weeks.

In my present state we could raid villages, take their food and any resistance would mean death.

I wasn’t afraid.

I became bold.

I was marked with the RUF symbol and I never felt it.
They injected me saying I won’t feel the pain.

They rubbed cocaine into it saying it will disinfect the wound.

I immediately felt like killing someone.

They gave me some boys and asked us to go ‘jaja’ (loot).”195 194 Confidential Interview with the TRC.

Freetown, October 2003 195 Interview with the TRC.

Freetown, October 2003.

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Joseph Kamara was abducted on June 16 1997 at Wusum Lane.

He couldn’t run because of his partial deformity.


His commander was Colonel Gold Teeth.

“I kept his pistol and ran his errands, such as getting his cocaine from his drawer.

When I was captured, I was given a tablet that looked like ‘super appetite’.

I was sent to go and kill dogs for cooking.

The drugs made me tireless and unafraid of dogs.

I could grab a dog and strangle it.

The drug gave me energy to do so.

Colonel "gold teeth" gave me cocaine and under its influence I saw humans as ‘chicken’.
I can fire at will mercilessly.

I used to beat women or shoot them.

‘Colonel Gold Teeth’ acted as our doctor.

Whenever supplies were short, he would communicate by radio and someone would bring the drugs.

Not always the same person.

He spoke like a Liberian.

They had tablets that would last a week, five days, six weeks in the system.

When they want to go on the offensive they come to the doctor and select what they would need.

If you need the tablet or ‘injection’ it is given to you.
When under influence we could move from Kamalo to Sanda, Kamakwe and we clashed with Kamajors and took their food.

Supply is brought from Liberia through Daru and is included in the boxes of ammunition.

If you refused taking the drugs you are beaten by ‘junior’ (that’s his job).

The only thing that made us afraid of the Kamajors was the ‘controller’ an object fitted on top of their caps.

This could send us running away.” 369.


A witness Richard Abdulai Kamara, described his use of a cocktail of drugs: “I was captured in Makeni in 1997 and taken as a driver for Issa.

We had abundance of cocaine and brown brown with us.

We got this from Bo Waterside where we exchanged cocoa for cigarettes, cocaine, fuel, brown brown.

We also took a tablet called ‘blue boat’ (because of its colour) which is mixed with ‘mamanyini’ a very hard alcoholic drink brought from Liberia.
When these two are mixed, that is, blue boat and mamanyini the effect is drastic, instant intoxication.

It makes you drunk or intoxicated for two or three days.

In that state a lot of things could happen.

We would fight among ourselves at the slightest provocation.

we sniffed cocaine and talked a lot.

We became sleepless, jittery.

We could do anything under the influence of these drugs: kill villagers on impulse even where some of them cooperated with us.

We were merciless.
We were merciless.

The injection was not administered on everyone.

When a gallant male was captured, it is given to him to make him fall asleep.

It depended on the dosage.

Then when he wakes up he is no longer himself he does things our way.

He becomes ruthless, kills mercilessly in raids on villages.

The injection is sometimes blue or green in colour and the feeling is like being chloroformed.”196 196 Interview with the TRC, Freetown, October 2003.
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Foday Sesay was captured at Wusum field by ‘Captain Siwo’.

“They gave me a tablet to take and asked me to fire at women.

I refused.

They asked me to fire at a dog, I did.

At Sanda I was given an injection.

I was not myself after that.

I shot people who looked to me like ‘chickens’.

After taking these drugs we would raid villages.

We abused the villagers and took their goats, cows and food.
The effect of the injection lasted for nearly two months in me.

We were taken to kono, Kenema, Makeni, Sanda, and then Makeni.

All this time we looted and killed.

The injection given to us looked blue or green.

There was also another white tablet which we took anytime we felt like it especially if we wanted to attack the Kamajors.

It gave us the zeal to enter their territory without fear.

I didn’t even know what death was.

I didn’t care.”197 371.


Generally, such injections were common with the RUF and administered to make the combatants tireless, sleepless, energetic, and hyperactive, traits, which were very much valued at the battlefront.

The picture that emerges above is that all the combat groups widely administered drugs and other substances to their fighters.

In particular, the RUF bears overwhelming responsibility for the widespread use of drugs by its combatants.
The widespread use of drugs within the combatant groups convinces the Commission that it was a deliberate policy on their part to administer drugs to their fighting forces with a view to making them fearless in battle.

Unfortunately, there were very few battles between combat groups.

Most of the “battles” were direct attacks on the civilian population.
The leadership of the combat groups cannot claim ignorance about the potential impact of feeding thousands of their fighters with these mind twisting and hallucinogenic substances.

It turned them into brutes who viewed and treated the civilian population, to use the words of one RUF witness, “as chickens” or “ants”.

197 Interview with the TRC, Freetown, October 2003.

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