Atrocities, Diamonds and Diplomacy Page 19

  Sankoh had been flown to Conakry the day I had arrived there. With the UN’s assistance he was put in touch with Bockarie by radio and they spoke for about an hour. Sankoh told him that the killings and burning of Freetown were not what he wanted and called for a ceasefire. The conversation came to an abrupt end when it appeared that the location from which Bockarie was talking, possibly around Port Loko some 70 miles from Freetown, came under attack from Nigerian jets. Sankoh was returned to Freetown.

  A ceasefire was due to come into effect the coming Monday, but I warned London not to put too much faith in it.

  HMS Norfolk had arrived in Conakry with Brigadier David Richards and a military team on board. Together with the commanding officer of the Norfolk, Bruce Williams, our Honorary Consul Val Treitlein and Patrick O’Brien, who had come down from the embassy in Dakar on board the Norfolk, we all called on President Conte of Guinea.

  This was the first time I had seen the Guinean President since the return of President Kabbah in March of the previous year when I had sat just below him and shared his ashtray. I reminded him of this and he produced an ashtray for me while he chain-smoked his way through our meeting. President Conte was extremely concerned about events. Hitherto the Guineans had been somewhat ambivalent about the situation in Sierra Leone, for which they blamed the weakness of the Kabbah government as much as the rebels. But with the increased support for the rebels coming from Charles Taylor, President Conte now realized that we were dealing with the stability of the sub-region, and that if Sierra Leone fell to the rebels, then Guinea could be next. A number of multimillion dollar mining contracts were about to be signed by the Guinean government with some multi-national companies and the fighting in Sierra Leone was putting these in jeopardy. Conte urged more support for Ecomog and welcomed the assistance coming from Britain.

  We were still out of contact with the High Commission but thanks to Francis Okelo’s visit to Freetown, he was able to confirm that the buildings did not appear to have been damaged from the outside. London agreed that HMS Norfolk should enter Sierra Leone territorial waters. In the midst of all this chaos, we still had to follow diplomatic protocol. Formal diplomatic clearance from the Sierra Leone government was required. I typed up a letter and gave it to Francis to take in to give to President Kabbah. My letter came back with the President’s agreement scrawled on the bottom. This was a marked change from the problems we had experienced the previous year getting permission for HMS Monmouth to go into Freetown, but then Tom Ikimi, the former Nigerian Foreign Minister, was no longer around.

  I also arranged to get a satellite telephone into Solomon. When Francis Okelo went in to see President Kabbah with my letter seeking clearance for HMS Norfolk, he was accompanied by a couple of the British members of the UN Military Observer force, and they dropped off the telephone. It was therefore a great relief to receive a call in Conakry from Solomon Lebby.

  He reported that the compound and residence were undamaged in spite of four days of intense fighting by the rebels to dislodge Ecomog from their Wilberforce headquarters, situated between the office compound and the residence. The situation in the western end of the city had now eased. But it was still tense and there were still pockets of rebels in the central and eastern end of the city. I asked about the staff. As far as he knew none of them had been killed, but he still had not heard from everyone, especially those living in the centre or east, such as Cecilia or Osman. He said that the biggest problem was food. Many of the staff were starving. They had been stuck in their homes for so long. The price of rice had gone up from 200 to 1,200 leones per cup. I told him to requisition all the food in the houses on the compound and to take all the cash from the office safe and buy what more he could for them.

  Electricity power had come back to parts of the western end of Freetown, but there was no water up the hills in the area around the compound and residence. This also affected the President’s lodge and the Ecomog headquarters. The fire service tanker had been destroyed by the rebels, our water bowser was therefore being used to ferry water not just to our properties, but also to the President and to Ecomog.

  The blanket curfew was being relaxed from 9.00 am to 3.00 pm in the west, during which time people scurried around trying to buy food. In the rest of the city it was relaxed for only two hours because of the presence of pockets of rebels. There was a heavy concentration of them still in Calaba Town. The Moslem holiday marking the end of Ramadan was coming up but people were advised to say their prayers around their homes rather than congregate in the mosques.

  After the conversation with Solomon I went to see Patrick Buckley, the dour Irish World Food Programme (WFP) representative, to brief him on the food situation in Freetown. Buckley said that there should not be any food shortages because there had been plenty of food stocks in the warehouses before the rebel attack. However, we did not know whether the warehouses, which were mostly in the east, had been looted or destroyed by the rebels. He said that a freighter was on its way loaded with rice donated by the Italian government. I urged him to get it round to Freetown, but he was wary of doing so until he was sure that the port was secure. I undertook to ask HMS Norfolk to check.

  James Jonah passed through Conakry from Freetown on his way to London, where he was hoping to see Tony Lloyd and Clare Short to seek more assistance from Britain. It was good to see him. Over a drink at the Camayenne he revealed more details of just how close the rebels had come to taking over completely.

  It was also good to see again Dave Thomas and the rest of the close protection team, Andy, Craig, Batch and Paul, who arrived back in Conakry from London in good heart. They had been frustrated sitting in the UK and were worried that the team would be stood down and sent back to other units. I had pushed hard for their return. I realized that if I was going to get back in quickly, I would need them with me. It was just good to see them anyway. A close bond had developed between us all; they shared my commitment to what we were trying to do in Sierra Leone and it would have been awful if we had split up before getting back in. Unfortunately, with so many people still streaming out of Freetown, the hotel was full. All I could secure immediately was one extra room so the team spent their first night back in Conakry all squeezed into the one room. But as usual they put up with this inconvenience uncomplainingly. Over the coming days we gradually managed to acquire individual rooms for Dave, Andy, Batch, Craig and Paul, plus Peter Norman, the MILO, who had also flown out to join us. I was less happy to see him back. I still felt that it had been his somewhat coloured reports that had contributed to us being pulled out of Freetown so precipitously before Christmas.

  In the meantime, HMS Norfolk had moved round to stay off the Freetown coast, and Brigadier Richards and Captain Williams had been able to fly into Freetown by the ship’s helicopter, where they had a meeting with President Kabbah. David Richards’ presence on the scene was good news. He went down to the national stadium from where he telephoned me in Conakry on his sat phone to report that there were 25,000 displaced people at the stadium. The most immediate needs were food and medicines. I informed Buckley. Frustratingly he would not advise the ship’s owners to get the Italian rice ship round to Freetown. They remained concerned about the security situation despite the assurances of the Norfolk that the port had not been damaged. Instead Buckley had brought the ship into Conakry port, where they were going to unload the rice and hold on to it until the situation eased.

  This attitude of some of the UN agencies and NGOs continued to annoy me. It was the very fact that the situation was unstable that led to the need for emergency and humanitarian assistance. Obviously one should not take unacceptable risks but if they were going to wait until the security situation was completely stable, we could wait forever. In the meantime people were dying. It seemed to me that the credibility of the international community to deliver assistance to people in conflict areas was on the line. They were good at sending in assistance after an earthquake or famine or flood but when it came to conflict
areas, it required a higher acceptance of risk. To be fair to the agency and NGO representatives sitting in their hotels in Conakry and Abidjan, many of them shared my frustration but were overruled by their head offices sitting thousands of miles away in Western capitals.

  By contrast DFID and Crown Agents flew in a plane load of food and medicines to Lungi, and an emergency DFID team flew in for a few days (staying on board HMS Norfolk). Once again we were the first to render assistance. Our medical supplies got the hospitals and clinics functioning and thanks to us some of the people had something to eat. Sierra Leoneans always appreciated our food assistance because we supplied rice, which they preferred to eat, instead of bulgar wheat, the food aid that was provided worldwide to WFP and NGOs by the Americans. The US Government generously donated vast amounts of wheat to agencies such as WFP but one could not help but believe that this was partly to subsidize their Midwest wheat farmers.

  With HMS Norfolk stationed off the coast and the close protection team back, now was the time to press London to let me go back in.

  Initially London was only prepared to let me make a flying visit from Conakry using the Norfolk helicopter. Leaving one member of the close protection team at the Hotel Camayenne to man the satellite telephone/fax machine, which I had brought back from the UK, the other four members and I made our way to Conakry Airport, where we waited for the Norfolk helicopter. Val Treitlein had smoothed arrangements with the Guinean airport authorities and within minutes of the naval helicopter touching down we were airborne and heading for HMS Norfolk, which was positioned a couple of miles out to sea off the Freetown coast.

  After a briefing on board the ship we set off again for Freetown, accompanied by David Richards and Bruce Williams. A team of Royal Marines had flown ahead to ensure that all was well. There were still pockets of rebels around Freetown and the helicopter flew fast and low, skimming the roof tops of the houses, many of them destroyed from the recent events. We landed at Hill Station Lodge, the President’s house, on a flat piece of concrete alongside the swimming pool. Several Royal Marines were in position around the lodge.

  We went straight into the large house. President Kabbah was in one of the reception rooms downstairs. He was alone and looked tired. We hugged each other warmly.

  I asked Kabbah about the security situation but he could add nothing to the briefing I had already received from David Richards. He asked me how we could attract investment to Sierra Leone. I found this question bizarre. Here he was, having only narrowly survived being overthrown, with half his capital city destroyed and rebels still around, and he was asking about investment! I replied: ‘Your Excellency, there is no way you are going to attract legitimate investors at this time. Your country has been half destroyed, the rebels are still around, factories have been burnt down, thousands of your people are displaced and starving. Sierra Leone has a reputation of being one of the most unstable countries in the world. Until that image changes, you will never attract investment.’

  President Kabbah was upset by my frank words, and said so.

  Inside the presidential lodge there was little indication of the perilous situation that the city was facing. The scene was eerily quiet and serene – no bustle of people, no telephones ringing. President Kabbah sat virtually alone on his hilltop while his capital burnt below. We spent about an hour with Kabbah partly trying to inject some dynamism in him but mainly comforting and consoling him. He had come so close to losing everything, perhaps it was not surprising that he should be subdued but I had not expected him to be so out of touch with reality.

  I looked in on the residence and the office and then drove downtown to the national stadium. The contrast with the scene at the lodge could not have been starker. Thousands of people were gathered around the outside perimeter of the Chinese-built building. All were in a dishevelled state, their grim faces reflecting the torment they had gone through. Most of those present had fled to the stadium from the eastern end of the city, but there were also many there who had come in from Waterloo and Hastings on the outskirts of the city. As I walked around the outside they started cheering and crying out, ‘Komrabai’ and ‘God bless the British.’ Many others chanted, ‘We want food, we want food.’

  I went into the stadium where more had gathered in the passageways under the stands. I met Zainab Bangura. She was with Julius Spencer and Allie Bangura, the Minister of Trade and Industry. Both men, I noticed, were wearing army uniforms. They all looked tired, but were busy giving orders and instructions. Other civil society representatives were present including Hassan Barrie of the Sierra Leone Trade Union Council and Mr Freeman of the Civil Defence Unit. With the government all but collapsed, it was this group of dedicated Sierra Leoneans who had taken over the running of the capital. All the civil society groups had banded together to form the Civil Society Movement (CSM). They had divided the city into 106 zones. Every other day representatives from these zones would meet to report on the situation in each zone and to identify where assistance was required, where victims were assembling, where stocks of food were available or where food was urgently required and where bodies were lying around posing a health hazard. Several of the zones were still occupied by rebels and the CSM representatives from these zones would bravely slip through the rebel lines to come to the CSM meetings and return again. In this way an accurate picture of the rebels’ whereabouts was built up and passed to Ecomog and the CDF forces. Members of the CDU mounted road blocks in their zones to help contain the movement of rebels. I was encouraged by the determination displayed by the CSM but it had few resources. Food was particularly scarce. Most of the warehouses where the stocks of rice were kept were in the eastern part of the city, to where it was still unsafe to go.

  In the stadium the Christian Council of Churches (CCSL), under the leadership of its hardworking Secretary General, Alimamy Koroma, was distributing some meagre amounts of food and blankets. I went around talking to the people. I met the head man from Hastings village, who described how the rebels had attacked Hastings a few days before they entered Freetown, destroying most of the village, killing hundreds of its citizens and forcing all the others to flee. I promised him that I would do what I could for Hastings once it was safe for his people to return. Hastings would much later be twinned with its namesake in West Sussex and led to impressive efforts to help rebuild the devastated town.

  One ‘amusing’ incident occurred as we walked around the stadium talking to the people in their wretched conditions. As well as the close protection team, we were accompanied by a couple of Ecomog soldiers. As I was kneeling down listening to an old woman clutching her eighteen-month old grandson (the mother had been killed by the rebels), I heard a ‘clunk’ behind me. I turned round and saw a hand grenade rolling towards me. It had fallen out of the Ecomog soldier’s pocket. At first he did not realize but then he casually bent down, picked it up and put it back in his pocket. The close protection team and I held our breaths for a moment to see whether the pin had fallen out of the grenade. There was no explosion. The soldier appeared unconcerned and just walked on.

  A maternity ward had been set up in one of the upstairs rooms of the stadium. It was full of women and children. Many of the women were heavily pregnant. A toilet off the large room was being used as the delivery room. The only piece of furniture was a wooden table, on which lay a woman who was giving birth to a baby as I entered. A midwife was assisting. The baby was born screaming. There was not even a rag to wrap the baby up in. What a way to enter the world! Born in the toilet of a football stadium in a warring city in West Africa.

  I left the stadium feeling saddened and angry. I said that I would do what I could to help relieve the plight of those gathered there. I took Zainab, Julius and Allie back to the residence and gave them a meal. We discussed what the immediate priorities were. I went back up to the lodge, briefed President Kabbah on what I had seen at the stadium (he had not been there) and then climbed into the naval helicopter to start the laborious return trip to C
onakry via HMS Norfolk.

  On the next trip into Freetown I attended a CSM meeting at the Vine Memorial School at Congo Cross. I offered some words of hope and encouragement to these brave people and distributed some bags of rice, especially for the members of the CDU who were mounting the road blocks in order to ensure that the rebels did not manage to infiltrate back into the areas reclaimed by Ecomog. By sitting at a road block all day, the CDU personnel missed out on any food distributions taking place by NGOs such as CCSL; but the service that they were providing was vital for the security of the capital. DFID had also thoughtfully put gallons of disinfectant on board the first plane load of supplies to be flown in and we handed out a ten-gallon plastic container for every one of the 106 zones so that the areas could be sprayed to minimize the very real threat of a health epidemic.

  The close protection team and I continued these trips from Conakry for the next few days. However, there was a problem. Each trip necessitated carrying a number of heavy diplomatic bags for the team’s ‘equipment’. This started to arouse the interest of the Guinean authorities as we flew in and out of the airport each day. They wanted to know what we were carrying. I assured them that it was merely diplomatic material but the size and weight increased their suspicions and delayed our departure and return each time. London would still not give the green light for us to stay in Freetown, so we decided to move on board HMS Norfolk.

  Captain Bruce Williams and his crew made us very welcome on board but to say that conditions were cramped was an understatement. As a luxury I was given a cabin to myself alongside the captain’s. It comprised a bunk-bed, which I had to climb up into by holding onto the various pipes running through the ship. Under the bunk was a desk top and cupboards and in a corner a sink hidden under another flat top. There was one chair, which had to be folded away when not in use as it took up most of the remaining floor space. A sign was put up on the sliding door of my cabin: ‘British High Commission, Sierra Leone’. The hotel room in the Camayenne was a mansion compared to this. However, I was still far better off than the members of the close protection team. They were accommodated in odd corners of the bowels of the ship, some of them sleeping with their faces pressed to the pipes running around the ship.