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Home » Archive » Sierra Leone » wiedersehen

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Can  We  Say Aufwiedersehen* To  Justice?
 Josèmarìa  Jones.
 

Nearly a year after the signing of a  white sepulcre and much  cosmetic peace accord  with loudations from the western world the political impasse in Sierra Leone has increased with  daily new dimension.
In that  accord  ranks and duties were shared  among  elephants that rock horns. Sankoh is  made vice president of Republic of Sierra Leone; he is answerable to no one but president Kabbah himself. He is made chairman of the strategic mineral resources,this gives him right over  eighty percent of the country`s revenue; he is also a chieftain to the ruling council. While Jonny Paul Koroma, the man who first  made Kabbah  say aufwiedersehen to Hill Station (Sierra Leone president`s official residence) in a coup d’etat in 1996,and latter a rebel  leader of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and now a good boy to Kabbah’s octopus government is now in charge of  the so called Rehabilitation and consolidation committee. His office sees to it the payment of bonuses to the disarmed soldiers. 

The trio have pitched tents of loudations and sycophancy among Sierra Leoneans and friends; who see them as  president par excellent, rock of the nation, redeemers, and revolutionaries.The Times Concord newspaper of  Sierra Leone, a sycophant of Kabbah has taken to be addressing Kabbah as ‘’papa’’,`gray hair and wisdom’’; while the rebels and government`s oppositions are seen as personae non gratiae , treacherous persons or anti-patria  elements  by  the  media  organs in Sierra Leone that pretend to be liberal in much of government  controlled and sponsored news.In a country where one`s weltanschauung has to be in pari-passum to that of the rulers and the political hotshots; an orthodoxy and  a cankerworm that has eaten deep into the very fibre of the nation`s socio-political culture, a brain-watching machine for the masses of  the state by the dictators since the days of Siaka Steven.Whose government of  Mobutuism brought great woes, far lagging behind  in development  to a solid  mineral  riched country; yet Sierra Leoneans saw him as an incarnate of Bai Bureh or Nyugua. (Bureh was a Sierra-leonean who fought against  the introdution of hut tax by the British colonial masters in Sierra- leone. Bai Bureh  honour is the highest  mediale for gallantry.) Kabbah was in last year addressed as Bai Bureh traditional rurers in the north province.
 
On the other hand ,Elder Collins,an image-maker of the RUF has asked Sierra Leoneans to fall prostrate with the cry of hossanna before Foday Sankoh on his triumphant entry into Freetown  from kono; because he  Sankoh  has brought salvation with it`s ingredients-peace,equity,equality,freedom and justice to the country.He has in march this year addressed Sankoh as the Bai Bureh of the new millennium; declaring  that come political election anyone who fails to vote in the RUF party  ‘’is living in bondage and sin’’and ‘’an anti-sierra leone``;then one may ask, wo gibt’s der freiheit, frieden  und gerechtigkeit ? He  has described students of Bo  Teacher`s Training College`s action against Sankoh as `´ unfortunate and unpatrotic`´and promised the students a hellfire gift after the election.The students of Bo have rejected Sankoh`s gift of  some bags of rice calling it a bloody  offer from looting and illicit diamond mine. Collins is also  waging a  big war with the Freetown landlords who he has accused of sabotaging  against the RUF effort to win the next political party election.No landlord wanted  his house to be used as political party office by the RUF even when the RUF offered to pay triple the rent.
 Then, it become  absolutely  necessary for one to ask, wo gibt`s der freiheit, frieden und gerechtigkeit which the RUF supposed to be  campaigning for? 

So,live the shackles of brutal war that ended with justice denied on the  real victims of war.It remains an indelieble  mark in mental,spirit and body of  a Sierra-leonean. Sierra-leoneans were  in Lome, Togo denied of justice and a new weltanschauung of Machiavellism taught by Kabbah and Sankoh. For it reddens mind, and  Sierra-leoneans find  it hard to believe how Kabbah  offered  a blanket amnesty  to  Sankoh  and the post of vice-president,chairman of the strategic mineral resources ; and  his satanic movement of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) which went on inflicting  hardship of  sexual rape,maim,slavery ,abduction and killing of civilians both sucklings in the name of  revolution turned  and be  registered as a political party .Sankoh  a  persona non gratia to Sierra-leoneans is now  a political playmate of Kabbah  and a big brother to parliamentarians in Freetown, whom(the Freetown  political class, the bourgeoisie) he had vowed to eliminate  when he started 1991 his campaign``no slave,no master``.  Kabbah has been  called a homo perfidia  because ,by that  act of favour  on Sankoh to the detriment of justice and the state he has lost confidence  the citizens mighty have had on him; It is a great cheat and rape on the people  since he did this  power sharing with Sankoh  inorder for him to remain in power.He did the will of the RUF and it´s  Liberian, Burkinabe, Libya n and Western diamond  merchants (Belgium) supporters. (see Quo Vadis Sierra-leonia) and never the will of the citizens of Sierra-leone  who long for justice.

I have  tried several times to see reason to support the action of Kabbah  as means of bringing  peace and normancy  into the political impasse state but at every end something keep on asking  me `´what would  Anne, a three week old baby whose two limbs were amputatad,Abu Sesay,a one month old baby whose hand and leg  were amputated, Tessy,a five year old girl who was raped and forced  to watch her parents battered to death by the dischanted armed opposittion group,  N`Damba a six year amputee,who keep on asking her mother if her hand could grow again(cf JM Jones, poem, Echoe from the Forst,1999), Cynthia  who was raped several times (cf. Radio Netherlands, 06, march 2000), think of the society and life seeing the man who destroyed them offered the post of the vice president and possibly  future president. They will surely grow up and see RUF as a political party.Is it not more than draging someone to golgotha  .Do we think they would accept Kabbah`s kangaroo  peace accord or how does think these children  would look at the society in which they were born ? I think these  children would seek a revenge and this will create a catena of  unrest and anarchy in the state.

Every blame goes to Kabbah because he failed to know that punishment is an essential ingridient to bringing sane into a culprite. It serves as a derttering measure to others,act as a guide to the observance of law.`` Rewards and Punishments are two sides of an absract coin, normative prescriptions for order in a state`` cf Poiltical Order by Uriel Rosenthal, ph.D, Erasmus University Rotherdams,The Netherland ``. ``Government  new offer to Foday Sankoh will encourage the youths to do evil and it is a  big problem to the disarment``--Lisa Speiser. Kabbah`s request on the Sierra leoneans to forgive is an impossible act; because, a sanguine mea culpa is a conditio sinequa non to any forgiveness. We can never aufwiedersehen this fact.
Now that Sankoh is the vice president and chairman of  solid mineral resources ,do we think the child soldier  who has been in drug ,rape maim, killing, looting  will abandon his new life which Kabbah and Sankoh has taught him. He finds it hard to understand the words ``disarm,rehabilitation,or whatever that  which is contrary to the life of  gun which he the child was forced to choose. Sankoh will first say aufwiedersehen  to his quest for diamonds  and power before his boys would lay down their AK47guns. Sankoh  has only been  rewarded by the  President  Ahmed Kabbah government. It  is necessary and very urgent  for international  world crime tribunal be set up to try  and punish any crimme against humanity which is committed  within or outside  Sierra Leone by Sierra Leoneans or supporters since the beginning of the war in 1992.  
 
***A good leader speaks not from himself/herself  but from his /her people, not even from the bougeoisie but from the peasants; that is  vox populi and not vox caesae. 
(Sierra leone  celebrates her 39th year  freedom of Britain today, 27th April.)
 

*Auf Wiedersehen - German: bye, bye