The market
in Kabala. |
Kabala
is the regional center of Koinadugu, one of five districts
in the north of Sierra Leone. Before the war erupted
in March 1991, this was a bustling town that showed
signs of becoming an economic center because of its
strategic location. Situated 75 miles away from the
Guinean border and 42 miles from the northern capital
of Makeni, Kabala connects the Kono diamond district
through Yefin. This eyewitness account was written by
David Tam-Baryoh, Executive Director for the Center
for Media, Education & Technology (C-MET), who visited
Kabala on Wednesday, March 28, 2001.
Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) Assaults on Kabala
An SLA Guard. |
Since
1991, Kabala has suffered 13 RUF attacks and endured
a rebel occupation that lasted five days in August 1999.
The rebels were dislodged by Sierra Leone Army (SLA)
troops under the command of then Lieutenant Colonel
Tom S. Carew, now the SLA Chief of Defense Staff.
On
August 17, 1998, the RUF mounted a full-scale attack
on the town in a bid to recapture it from a Guinean-backed
contingent of the SLA. During the two-day battle, 17
SLA soldiers were killed and the rebels lost an undisclosed
number of men. To prevent future RUF attacks, Guinean
soldiers planted several anti-personnel mines in the
surrounding hills, some of which were exploded by roaming
dogs according to local witnesses. Pointing to the graves
of his colleagues who died in that battle, Rev. MacDonald,
SLA Second Battalion Chaplain based in Kabala, said,
“This is the grave of Lieutenant S.M. Dumbuya,
and this one is that of my wife Hawa. She died of hypertension.
She could not stand the roaring of the guns.” Humorously,
he added, “Hawa, lie in peace, I am coming. Our
three kids are doing well.”
During
a subsequent attack on November 7, 1998, one-third of
the town’s infrastructure was destroyed, including
the police station, district administrative offices
and several government buildings. The RUF also vandalized
the electricity supply center, schools and the general
hospital.
Built
on flatland surrounded by hills, Kabala is not just
a town isolated by geography. The RUF is positioned
just 14 miles outside the city on the highway to Makeni
and not much farther away from the Guinea border. Their
presence requires that friends and family of Kabala
residents, government soldiers, British Forces, and
United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL)
troops all enter the town by air in helicopters.
The
rebels, who roam within and control six of the nation's
twelve districts, continue to render the majority of
the country ungovernable. This situation was so grave
during the 1996 election that President Kabbah had to
fly over Makeni - now commonly referred to as the rebel
city - to visit Kambia, Kabala and Bunbuna while on
his campaign trail.
Despite
the close proximity to Makeni, Lieutenant Colonel F.K.
Kamara, the Commanding Officer of the 700-man SLA contingent
based in Kabala, said that his men were deployed nine
miles outside the town and that they were sufficient
in numbers to prevent the town’s recapture by the
RUF. He acknowledged that the “RUF have been allowing
civilians to travel through their territory. It’s
only soldiers they don’t tolerate.”
The
153 "sobels" (soldier-rebels; former SLA soldiers
who joined the RUF) who are now being incorporated into
Second Battalion have also been given reasons not to
return to the bush. Private K. Samaura, a government
soldier who had previously fought alongside the RUF,
said he had joined the rebels because of a lack of provisions
for the army. “Now, I have two meals a day and
I have new uniforms and boots. I can no longer go back
to the RUF."
Brigadier
Jonathan Riley, Commander of the British Forces based
in Sierra Leone, told SLA soldiers in Kabala that his
government has paid for 25,000 uniforms and that by
the end of April 2001, each SLA soldier would have two
sets of uniforms. Brigadier Riley's remarks followed
a British Forces disbursement of food, rifles and assault
weapons that same day.
In
a statement that highlighted the constant RUF threat
to Kabala and the military's state of combat-readiness,
Colonel M.K. Dumbuya, SLA Director of Logistics, said,
“We are replenishing our weapon supplies in case
the RUF should renege on the Lome Peace Accord and begin
hostilities. We have a duty to defend the people.”
Civilian
Life in Kabala
Although
malnourished and worn down from the rebel siege, the
people of Kabala continue to endure and remain positive
about the possibility of a lasting and permanent peace
in their future. However, because of the long siege
and RUF attacks, Kabala's entire infrastructure is in
ruins; with no resources, citizens do not know where
or how to start rebuilding their lives. According to
a Muslim elder, Alhaji Sheik Bakarr Sillah, “We
have plenty of free medicine from MSF [Medecins Sans
Frontiers] but very little food." Primary and secondary
schools are presently closed.
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Children of Kabala cheering for peace.
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Ironically,
meat is abundant and cheap, in comparison with Freetown
prices, because it is impossible to export much of the
livestock that is being raised in the area, while the
staple, rice, sells for an unaffordable Leone 250 per
cup. Petrol is sold at an astronomical price of Leone
8,000 per gallon.
Trapped
within the hills, life in Kabala appears grim. A former
journalist, now enlisted with the SLA Second Battalion,
said, “The people here are engaged only in a few
things. They eat, they get sick and they produce kids.
That is the life of the town.” In a close-knit
society whose members are suffering from prolonged isolation
and claustrophobia, everyone appears to know every other
person. The presence of strangers in the town is greeted
by long queues of onlookers. On all sides, pot-bellied
children cling to mothers’ breasts that probably
have no milk to offer.
Military-Civilian Relationship in Kabala
A
nursing and underfed mother pensively watches a robust
British soldier carrying a gun and then begs of him
in Krio, “Gi me moni.” The soldier smiles,
looks away, and sadly shakes his head. Such exchanges
are common in Kabala these days. The soldiers have secured
a tenuous peace but so much still remains to be done.
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A
village elder.
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Speaking
to a group of elders at the center of town, Brigadier
Riley said, “My government knows about your plight.
My Prime Minister knows about Kabala. We will not abandon
you.” Brigadier Riley's visit is not just reassuring
to the civilian populace. It also sends a message to
SLA soldiers that, isolated though they are from Freetown
and Benguima, where British Forces are training other
SLA soldiers, they are, nonetheless, very much a part
of the redirected army overseen by the British Forces.
The
presence of heavily armed soldiers does not appear to
be a source of fear for the inhabitants of Kabala. The
recent SLA move to establish a working relationship
between themselves and the civilian populace is being
pursued vigorously in Kabala. The irony here is that
the SLA, which many Sierra Leoneans had previously viewed
as adversaries, are now peacemakers in Kabala.
In
the absence of any formidable civil authority such as
chiefs or local and magistrate courts to settle disputes,
the SLA Second Battalion Commanding Officer has become
the sole recognized authority and arbiter of justice.
Cases of theft, larceny, and civil disputes are all
brought before him for resolution. SLA Training Officer
Lieutenant A. K. Conteh, commenting on civilians’
increased confidence in the army, said, “In a situation
where there are no chiefs, our commanding officer is
so overwhelmed with civil complaints that we would love
to see the chiefs return here soon.”
Guinean bombings
Though
civilians feel safer under the protection of the military,
the sounds of Guinean bombs going off within Sierra
Leone, in the vicinity of the border towns of Krubola
and Sanguilia, threaten to erode Kabala residents’
renewed sense of security.
“We
hear of bombs being dropped by the Guinean soldiers,
and if you are up in the hills you also see the smoke,”
said Umaru Koroma, a secondary school teacher. “We
know these bombs destroy houses and vegetation, but
our government says nothing.
The
dropping of bombs by Guinean soldiers into Sierra Leonean
territory in an attempt to forestall RUF attacks into
Guinea has become a thorny issue of late. During a press
briefing shortly before he was dismissed from his post,
former Foreign Minister Dr. Sama Banya told journalists
that Sierra Leoneans should be happy that Guinea was
doing exactly what the Sierra Leone government should
have been doing, namely, pursuing and killing RUF rebels.
Conversely, critics of the government believe that the
Guinean bombs have killed more Sierra Leonean refugees
than RUF rebels.
Disillusioned Youths
Added
to the stressful experience of living in a besieged
town, the youths of “this idle city,” according
to one expatriate, have yet to overcome their boredom.
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Self-demobilized
child combatants.
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Philip
A. Kamara is the spokesman for 80 former child soldiers,
all of whom have fought with the RUF for at least eight
years. He is now 23 years of age, while 14-year-old
Foday Mansary, the youngest of the group, is yet to
understand why he has given his AK-47 rifle to the Kabala
SLA Commanding Officer without receiving the promised
financial remuneration. “I have given them my gun,”
Foday said, “but like our leader Philip, I have
received nothing and we live on crumbs from the soldiers
here. They should either take us to Freetown to join
the Demobilization, Disarmament and Resettlement (DDR)
program, or soon the rains begin we are going back to
our RUF comrades.”
Memuna
Sayoh, 16-year-old with an infant daughter strapped
to her back, said she too is disillusioned and cannot
imagine why they have been encouraged by the soldiers
to surrender their guns, with suffering in Kabala as
the only reward. “I cannot go back to the bush
with this tied to my back,” she said, pointing
to her child, “and no man is ready to encourage
me just as yet. I am confused and stuck.”
Government Reaction
Commenting
on the plight of the self-demobilized, former RUF combatants
in Kabala, Minister for Information and Broadcasting
Dr. Julius Spencer said the DDR program would need to
be expanded and accelerated to avoid disillusioning
those who either have demobilized or are considering
demobilizing. “We can only set up a demobilization
center here or in Makeni if UNAMSIL had been deployed
here,” the minister said.
The
issue of deployment of the UN peacekeeping forces has
been a source of embarrassment for the Sierra Leone
government; there is ever-increasing pressure from the
public who are demanding that UNAMSIL peacekeepers either
deploy or pack out.
According
to Deputy UNAMSIL Spokesman Retired Lieutenant Commander
Patrick Coker, the eleven thousand peacekeepers currently
in Sierra Leone are now ready to deploy, and deployment
exercises in Lunsar, 73 miles from Freetown and Mange
(in the northern Kambia district), have been successful.
The Humanitarian Situation
With
only three medical doctors, one nurse and one logistics
officer serving the entire town and its environs, Kabala
seems like a town on the brink of final collapse. Dr.
Santigie Sesay, a local Medecins Sans Frontieres staff,
said that patients pay a Leone 100 registration fee
for medical treatment and that, “this town is too
big for just three doctors and one nurse. If cholera
or flu should become a menace here, we are finished.”
There
is presently no recognizable presence of an international
or domestic relief NGO in Kabala. Looking at the eyes
of the children, and beholding the hungry faces of the
self-demobilized RUF child soldiers, and keeping in
mind the anxiety of the SLA soldiers who have been trapped
in Kabala for four years, one can only conclude that,
if it were not for the resolve and resilience of the
people to survive, Kabala would be a city forgotten
by the rest of humanity. And fair enough, for absent
the visit of British Forces Brigadier Riley, Kabala
would still be another forgotten town.
Contact Information
Kakuna Kerina, Africa Program Director; International
League for Human Rights; 823 United Nations Plaza, Suite
717, New York, N.Y. 10017; Tel: 212-661-0480 ext. 103;
Fax: 212-661-0416; e-mail: kkerina@ilhr.org;
website: www.ilhr.org
David Tam-Baryoh, Executive Director; Center for Media,
Education & Technology; P.O. Box 267, Freetown,
Sierra Leone; Tel: 232-22-234030, 233774, 234042, 234033;
Fax: 234034; e-mail: c-met@sierratel.sl;
website: www.cmetfreetown.org
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