Atrocities, Diamonds and Diplomacy Page 16

  Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay asked about the recent executions, inferring that more could have been done to stop them. I took the opportunity to relate the story of the 86-year old woman whose son had been killed and his penis cut off in front of her. When she started to cry, the rebel had cut out the boy’s heart and stuffed it into her mouth and then chopped his head off and gave to the woman to hold. The rebels then burned down the woman’s home and threatened the rest of the villagers not to help her. She was found three days later by an Ecomog patrol sitting in the smouldering rubble of her home, still nursing her son’s head. I told MacKinlay that the rebel in question was one of those who had been executed.

  Towards the end I was asked by the Chairman if there was anything I wished to add. I noted that in Sierra Leone there was a genuine civilian democratically elected government, which was a phenomenon, compared to most of Africa. The people of Sierra Leone had courageously stood against the junta for ten months seeking its restoration, which had been achieved thanks in large part to the role played by Britain. What the people of Sierra Leone could not understand was why we in Britain seemed to be regarding what we had done as a scandal instead of a huge success.

  After nearly four hours of questioning, the Chairman wrapped up proceedings. It had not been a pleasant experience. In later years I was to watch Dr David Kelly go through a similar experience with the same committee in connection with the Iraq Inquiry. I could see on his face the same puzzlement that I had felt, namely, what was I doing here?

  Ann Grant appeared before the committee the following week. She was accompanied by Craig Murray, who stuck to his version of what had transpired at the meeting with Spicer and defended his decision not to pass my memo of 2 February to HM Customs and Excise. They both acquitted themselves well in the face of the often belligerent questioning; more importantly, they had defended their ministers.

  The final session of the FAC on Sierra Leone was with Robin Cook on 16 December. He was accompanied by Tony Lloyd and two officials from the African Department. The two ministers were hauled over the coals by members of the committee for over two hours. Donald Anderson MP commented, ‘Everything which could have gone wrong seems to have gone wrong in this sad affair,’ and Ernie Ross MP suggested it was the longest running farce in Westminster.

  The Foreign Affairs Committee tabled its 400-page report before the House of Commons at the beginning of February. It included a number of recommendations on the workings of the Foreign Office in dealing with arms sanctions and contact with private military companies. Although the senior officials in the Foreign Office, Sir John Kerr, Ann Grant and Richard Dales, were criticized in the report and, notwithstanding the fact that the committee accepted the ambiguities of the sanctions orders, I was the one who was singled out most for criticism. There had been an attempt by one member of the committee, Sir John Stanley MP, to include another conclusion which read:

  We conclude that Mr Penfold’s consistent advice that a peaceful restoration of President Kabbah was only likely to be achieved if the junta faced a credible threat of military force was both realistic and in accord with the British Government’s policy objective of a peaceful resolution.

  However, this was rejected by the Labour members of the committee.

  Although there was some criticism of Tony Lloyd, the ministers emerged virtually unscathed. It was perhaps best summed up in the ‘La Bimba’ cartoon that appeared in the Sunday Times, which showed a caricature of Robin Cook saying, in answer to the comment ‘The Commons committee was highly critical of the Foreign Office on the arms to Sierra Leone affair’, ‘It was completely wrong to have unelected officials take the blame – but, better them than me!’

  The tabling of the FAC report should have been the end of the whole sorry affair. In fact, it continued. It was revealed that a member of the committee, Ernie Ross MP, had passed a draft copy of the FAC report to Robin Cook before it was tabled in Parliament. For this, Mr Ross was suspended from the Commons for ten working days. Also, the Chairman of the committee, Donald Anderson MP, was forced to publicly apologize for leaking some of the contents of the report to an FCO official prior to publication.

  With the FAC inquiry out of the way, I was permitted to return to Sierra Leone to resume my duties. But before doing so, I was given my annual report. This was conducted by the new head of the African Department, who had been brought in, together with a whole new team, to sweep away the cobwebs of the Sandline Affair. As he had only been in his post for a couple of months, it was somewhat surprising that he felt able to report on my performance for the whole year. He gave me the worst report I had ever received in my thirty-five years of service. Out of a rating scale of 1 – 5, I was given a ‘box 4’ – an unsatisfactory performance requiring improvements to bring up to an acceptable level. I was criticized for not understanding HMG policy, for failing to provide timely and detailed reports and for failing to send the accounts back on time. I was given a low marking for ‘adaptability and resilience’. The report concluded that I was not fit for promotion, that I should not be given another posting but instead should be sent off to some academic institution to write a paper.

  As the countersigning officer, Ann Grant – who had been promoted to Director for Africa – endorsed all the findings of the report. (John Everard had been promoted and posted to Peking; Craig Murray had been promoted and posted to Accra.) It was a most damaging report and would effectively signal the end of my career. So much for Robin Cook’s claims to the House of Commons that there would be no scapegoats and that no officials involved in the Sandline Affair would suffer.

  The Arms to Africa affair had consumed a vast amount of time and effort on the part of Government, Parliament and the press. There had been three major investigations – by HM Customs and Excise, the Legg Inquiry, and the Foreign Affairs Select Committee – producing reams of documents and costing thousands of pounds. The actions and integrity of ministers and officials had been subjected to intense scrutiny and their careers put on the line. The story had dominated the UK media and press for months and months. And all for what? What had actually happened?

  The democratic government of a minor African country had been overthrown in a military coup. In support of efforts to restore the legitimate government the United Nations had imposed a ban on the supply of arms to the country. A British firm had negotiated a contract with the deposed African President to supply arms and assistance. The British envoy to the deposed government got to learn of the proposed contract. Through the efforts of an African force the legitimate government was restored. Two weeks later a supply of arms and ammunition supplied by the British firm had arrived in the country and was locked away. Was it really worth all the fuss?

  There was an ironic footnote. With the withdrawal of Sandline there was no one to fly the Ecomog troops around the country. To replace Sandline, an American private security company with the odd sounding name Pacific Architects and Engineers (PA&E) was engaged to operate a couple of helicopters and maintain a fleet of army vehicles for Ecomog. PA&E, who were based in Portland, Oregon, and had links with the Pentagon, had provided a similar service to Ecomog in Liberia. And who paid for some of the flying hours and provided the vehicles for PA&E? The British Government, with around £2 million of British tax-payers’ money!

  Although I was upset about my annual report, what concerned me most was the amount of time that had been taken up in dealing with all these inquiries. I had spent most of 1998 back in the UK instead of doing my job in Sierra Leone. The British Government’s attention had been directed towards the various inquiries in the UK instead of helping to re-establish stability and democracy in Sierra Leone.

  If we had done so I wonder if we could have avoided the terrible events to come, which would lead to further appalling loss of life, more awful atrocities, the establishment of the largest United Nations peace operation and the deployment of British troops?

  Chapter Eight

  Rebel Advances – 1999

>   I flew back to Sierra Leone on 15 December on a special charter flight that had been leased from Sabre Airways. This would be the first direct commercial passenger flight from London to Lungi for two years and was to be the forerunner of the renewed scheduled flights by Sierra Leone national airlines. Businessmen like Clive Dawson and Kevin McPhillips had been putting a great deal of effort into getting the flights up and running as a further sign of normality in Sierra Leone and to get business going again.

  Deteriorating Situation

  In the six weeks I had been away the situation in the country had deteriorated dramatically. The rebels had taken the town of Koidu, the diamond mining centre in the east of the country and the base for Branch Energy. The group of Lifeguard employees who had been providing security for the Branch Energy mine had been evacuated. There had been quite heavy fighting between Ecomog backed by a battalion of loyal ex-Sierra Leone army and the RUF. The tactical way that the rebels had taken the town and the manpower and equipment that they had used indicated a significant improvement in their capabilities. It became increasingly apparent that they had received substantial supplies of arms and ammunition and an influx of National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) fighters. There was even talk of white Ukrainian mercenaries fighting alongside the RUF. Charles Taylor had undoubtedly increased his interest in Sierra Leone.

  President Charles Taylor of Liberia had long supported the RUF, dating back to the 1970s, when he and Foday Sankoh had been among a group of Africans who had gone to Libya to learn how to spread revolution and mayhem in their respective countries. Sankoh had reputedly spent most of his time in Libya in his comfortable hotel rather than at the terrorist training camp in the Libyan Desert. When Taylor returned to Liberia to form the NPFL, Sankoh went with him. Most of the other RUF members, who had been disaffected students and teachers and who had gone to Libya, did not return to Sierra Leone. They went on to the United States, Canada or South Africa. This left the way clear for Sankoh to take over the leadership of the RUF by shooting the rivals to the leadership who had remained in the bush.

  Sankoh fought alongside Taylor in Liberia in the latter’s quest for power. Many observers felt that it was in Liberia that the RUF had learned the art of chopping off victims’ arms and legs. Undoubtedly the Liberian civil war was a brutal war in which hundreds of thousands suffered and were killed. It had lasted seven years. Around a dozen peace agreements had been torn up by Taylor. At one time there were five concurrent Liberian presidents. Finally elections were held. Taylor made it widely known that if the people did not vote for him, he would go back to killing them, and so he was ‘democratically elected’. Taylor was vicious and corrupt and could not throw off his roots as a ‘warlord’, but he was no fool. Unlike Sankoh, who had received only three years of formal education, Taylor had qualified as an economist in Boston and he continued to maintain very close links with the black caucus in the US Congress and with black US businessmen. At one time he had been arrested in the US and locked up but he had managed to escape. One of his close supporters was the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who was to involve himself in the affairs of Sierra Leone.

  As a quid pro quo for Sankoh’s support, Taylor continued to support the RUF, in return for which he benefited handsomely from the diamond wealth in Sierra Leone. Liberia had some diamonds but nothing on the scale of Sierra Leone. After Taylor’s assumption of power, the export of ‘Liberian’ diamonds increased twentyfold. The country remained poor and impoverished but Taylor’s personal bank account, according to press reports, grew to over $800 million.

  President Kabbah’s attempts to curb corruption and control the diamond industry did not sit well with Taylor’s plans. On a personal level the two did not get on well. There could hardly have been two more different heads of state of neighbouring countries both theoretically democratically elected. Kabbah was an honest, sincere but somewhat weak UN bureaucrat; Taylor was a cunning, corrupt warlord. Although Sankoh could not match Taylor’s guile and cunning, as another warlord he and Taylor made easy bedfellows. It suited Taylor much more to have Sankoh in power in Sierra Leone with him pulling the strings from Monrovia. Hence his decision to increase his support for Sankoh and the RUF.

  Flushed with their success of taking the Kono diamond fields with this influx of support from Taylor the rebels moved westwards taking the towns of Masingbi and Magburaka, burning villages along the way and creating thousands of displaced civilians. They launched attacks on Makeni and although this was Ecomog’s brigade headquarters for the north, its troops finally had to make what they described as ‘a tactical withdrawal’.

  Freetown remained peaceful and quiet as people started their preparations for Christmas. Both Ecomog and the Sierra Leone government continued to put out statements denying the rebel advances. There was nothing wrong in government trying publicly to stop people from panicking but in private they acted as if they believed their own propaganda. It did not help matters that Ecomog, and especially General Khobe, continued to either keep Kabbah in the dark or paint a rosy picture to him about the security situation. I had several frank meetings with the President and his ministers telling them that they should focus all their energies on stopping the fighting. They wanted to talk about development projects and arrange overseas ministerial visits. I told them that until there was peace and stability they were wasting their time discussing other issues. The civil society groups were also becoming increasingly disenchanted with the performance of government.

  Soon after my return there were a couple of rebel incursions at Waterloo, the gateway to the peninsula. They were beaten off by Ecomog, but it showed that at least some of the rebels were close to Freetown. These rebels were AFRC as opposed to RUF under the command of SAJ Musa, the former leading member of the NPRC government, who had returned from the UK where he had been studying at Warwick University with a scholarship given by the British Government as a reward for having stepped down in 1996. Musa had enjoyed widespread support from both the army and the people when the NPRC were in power. It was he who had started the programme of ‘cleaning day’, one Saturday in every month when everybody had to stay at home for a couple of hours in the morning and clean up their homes and neighbourhoods. Kabbah’s government had continued this practice.

  In the High Commission we too were preparing for Christmas. While I had been away Celia had dug out our Christmas decorations and the residence was looking very festive. For most expatriates who work overseas in so-called developing countries and who are prepared to live without the daily pleasures enjoyed by people back home in UK, times like Christmas are especially important. It is one of the rare times when you make that extra special effort to recreate the memories of home. For those like Celia and me who try to practice Christianity in our daily lives, Christmas of course had an even deeper significance. It had occurred to me just days before flying back that because it was a direct charter flight I could try to bring out some traditional Christmas fare, which would have been difficult to purchase locally. I had contacted the firm of King’s Barn in the UK, who provided a service for flying out frozen food to diplomatic missions. We normally could not use them in Freetown because by the time the consignment had been transhipped in Brussels or Paris and then left lying around in Conakry waiting for a flight, the food was far from frozen by the time it reached Freetown. However, the direct charter flight made it feasible and I arranged for a couple of turkeys, capons, gammon hams and ducklings on the flight, albeit at an exorbitant cost. We planned to use one of the turkeys and one of the hams at a Christmas reception at the residence on 22 December for all the staff and their families, members of government, the diplomatic corps, the British and the international community.

  By now London was getting increasingly nervous about the security situation. The RUF commander, Sam Bockarie, alias ‘Mosquito’, had issued a public threat to attack Freetown on 25 December. Such threats were not unusual. To the irritation of many Sierra Leoneans the BBC was regularly contacting Bockarie
on his satellite telephone and giving him air time on Focus on Africa. On a previous occasion he had announced his campaign to ‘Spare no Soul’, whereby he was going to kill everyone and everything ‘down to the last chicken’. It was disturbing that the BBC World Service should carry interviews from people that by law would not be allowed to be broadcast in the UK.

  London’s fears were fuelled by the attacks on Waterloo and the claims that there were ‘thousands’ of rebels in the hills waiting to attack Freetown. London, especially the Ministry of Defence, did not use my rule of thumb when assessing Sierra Leone numbers to knock off the last nought. ‘Thousands’ usually meant ‘hundreds’ and ‘hundreds’ meant ‘tens’ when referring to the strength of the rebels, certainly in terms of the number of trained fighters carrying a weapon as opposed to the ‘camp followers’.

  This was not to say that I was unconcerned about the deterioration in the security situation and the threat to Freetown. It merited reducing our numbers within the High Commission and the British community. The Americans had already ordered the withdrawal of their community and the closure of their mission. But this too was not unusual. The Americans always tended to jump early. In Sierra Leone they only had about seventy in their community to get out and their position was nowhere near as important and influential as the British.