J\ 2.Z COUF 5THN1C W ?
FONDAZIONE GIANGIACOMO FELTRINELLI
COMUNE DI CORTONA PROVINCIA DI AREZZO
REGIONE TOSCANA
FORUM INTERNAZIONALE SULLA DISUGUAGLIANZA,
SUL MULTICULTURALISMO E SULLA VIOLENZA ETNICA
Paul Richards
Youth War in Sierra Leone
Pacifying a monster?
ELEVENTH INTERNATIONAL
COLLOQUIUM
ETHNIC CONSTRUCTION
AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
CORTONA CENTRO S.AGOSTINO
JULY 2 - 3, 1999
302838891%
YOUTH WAR IM SIERRA LEONE
Pacifying a monster ?
Paul Richards
Department of Anthropology
University College London
Youth war
Young people figure prominently
in all wars , but the extreme
youthfulness
of combatants in recent wars in Africa is a matter
for especial concern . In the Sierra Leone civil war forty to
eighty per cent of fighting forces are estima ted to be under the
age of 18. Apparently
lacking any higher political purpose the
war in Sierra Leone is now infamous for the bizarre forms of
cruelty deployed by the young fighters .
Background to youth war in Africa
There are straightforward
demographic
and social reasons for the
preponderance
of the very young in African conflicts . Africa is
the youngest continent
with more than half its population under
(
the age of 18, compared to only a quarter
in Europe ).
It is
the
poorest
continent ,
experiencing
also
world 's
rapid
urbanization
agrarian
of what was once a predominantly
society .
city
migration
or
mine
Labour
to
from
impoverished
and
underdeveloped
rural areas has shaped the lives and expectations
of many young people in sub-Saharan Africa for a generation
or
more .
Some children cut loose from the home environment
even
before reaching teenage , convinced there is little their parents
or the rural milieu can further provide . These vulnerable young
people - many living an existence as street children or youthful
drop -outs - are especially liable to militia recruitment .
Street violence in Sierra Leone
Youthful recruits to the war in Sierra Leone are no strangers
to
violence . Street life is a struggle for survival . But it also
violence .
theatre
for political
Especially
during
the
civilian
one -party regime of Siaka Stevens
(
t
h
u
g
g
e
ry
1967 -85)
p
o
s
t
was prominent
i
n
s
t
r
u
m
e
n
t
o
f
as an
-colonial
statecraft .
Young people from the street were mobilised at election times to
keep an increasingly
unpopular
one-party
regime
by
in power
intimidation .
Recent even ts continue the pattern , but now other backers
have
begun
game
the
of
chartering
to play
the
young
and
disaffected . Quite who these other backers are , and what their
motives might be , are still matters of controversy .
Diamonds and youth war in Sierra Leone
Civil war began in Sierra Leone in 1991, apparently
as a spill over from the war in neighbouring Liberia . Struggles to control
the
country 's rich
diamond
resources
clearly
have
a major
bearing
as
on the conflict , though there are social as well
economic factors behind the war .
smuggled
and
Sierra Leone is particularly
rich in readily
marketed
diamonds .
During
the 1950s
gemstone
and
'60s the
diamonds were mined through two systems - a formal mining sector
dominated
by multi -national
capital and an informal system of
/
alluvial
mining
involving
tributors
and small gangs of young
working
labourers
with hardly more capital items than bucket /
spade and sieve . The sponsors of alluvial mining were mainly
partnered
Lebanese
businessmen , typically
by
Sierra
Leoneans
from the political and military elite . The diggers labouring in
young
the
bush
were
invariably
males
dropping
out
of , or
excluded
from , education
and formal employment
- the sort of
youngsters who might otherwise have been at a loose end , roaming
city streets .
encroaching
on the
Alluvial
miners
concessions
of
the
multina tionals
the
best
creamed
off
stones ,
and
the
multinationals
quit (
during the 1970s )
.
The 1980s - a decade of
gangs
economic
difficulty
saw
tributor
fan
out
to
the
zone chasing increasingly
extremities
of the alluvial
marginal
deposits .
operations
Some set up clandestine
in the isolated
forest reserves that form a major segment of an unpoliced
and
roadless border between Sierra Leone and Liberia .
Political origins of the war
The political origins of the war lie in an attempt by a group of
students to overthrow the
Gaddafi -inspired school and university
one -party regime of Joseph Momoh . Some of the fighters of the
Revolutionary
United Front of Sierra Leone
(
henceforth
RUF /SL)
were trained under Libyan sponsorship in Benghazi and saw action
with Charles Taylor 's forces in the civil war in neighbouring
supporter
Liberia
from
1989 .
Momoh
was
a strong
the
of
Nigerian -led peace -keeping force opposed to Taylor 's interest in
the Liberian war . Taylor supported the infant RTJF /SL, in order
to destabilise Sierra Leone and hit at the Nigerians .
Economic Interests
Continuation
of the war in Sierra Leone owes much to a revival
of multi -national interest in Sierra Leonean diamond reserves .
by some of its own soldiers
in
The Momoh regime was overthrown
quickly
developed
1992 .
The new military
rulers
their
own
mining
reverses
activities .
Threatened
with military
in 1995
,
the
government
Outcomes
a
(
now
then
chartered
Executive
disbanded ) South African security -cum -mining company to help in
government
the war against
the RUF /SL .
A democratic
came to
power
Executive
in 1996 with the war unabated .
Outcomes was
replaced
by
security
company
related
but
British -based
a
security
Sandline International .
Sandline provided
for Branch
Energy , a subsidiary
DiamondWorks , a company
granted
a
of
by the new democratic
government
the
concession
to exploit
extensive kimberlite reserves in eastern Sierra Leone .
The rebels marooned .
Marooned
in the bush , by failure to gain popular support after
its enemy - the despised Momoh regime - had been despatched by
subsequent
army coup in 1992 , and by the collapse
of several
peace initiatives
, the RUF /SL has sought
(
most recently in 1997 )
its own survival by whatever means it can . Continuing to snatch
it
young people from areas under attack
and traxn vulnerable
developed a quite formidable guerrilla fighting capacity .
long
in
So
remains
the
as
it
bush /
unpacified
and
undefeated , the RUF /SL will always
be likely
to attract - the
interest
of external
with an agenda
backers
of their own .
Seemingly / these backers now include Eastern European interests ,
perhaps
seeking
DiamondWorks ' kimberlite
to challenge
diamond
concessions .
Minerals and the spread of African conflict
This element of external business rivalry for mineral resources
in the political
is a consistent
theme
economy
of African
conflict from the 1960s until today . From Congo to Sierra Leone
large mining companies have the capacity to operate as enclaves
protected
by
in
a
sea
of
, „
violence /
their
own
security
post -colonial
specialists .
African
violence
is
invariably '
? V^
^ ypresented
world
to the outside
as if it was the
"natural "
(
^
•
'
•
"
^
condition for a "barbarous " continent . The business rivals have
the power
stories
in the media , deflecting L
to plant
their
attention
from the possibili ty that it is the multi -national
actors who , by intriguing
with local polticial
interests / stir
up much of the violence
themselves .
What more effective
way
would there be to tear up a rival 's mineral
concession
than to
fund and arm a group
of dissidents
to undermine
the feeble
regime granting
Whether
the concession ?
or not this is what
lies behind the recent resurgence of the RUF /SL in Sierra Leone ,
and the apparen t involvement
of Ukrainian
mercenaries
assisting
the rebels , time will tell . But it can hardly be denied that
international
interests
know
mineral
only
too
well
how
to
exploit such situations .
The evolving social character of youth war in Sierra Leone
However , war also has its social dimensions . African wars are
alone .
not about mineral
concessions
The character
of the
current spate of wars in Africa reflects unresolved
problems in
the wider society . War in Sierra Leone is no exception .
Any fighting machine
is a social instit ution . A regular ,
army is an institution
of the stateT An
thni
militia such as
i" ,/i
'
^ '^
the Interahamwe
'
in Rwanda , or the Kamajo
h
u
n
t
e
r
m
i
l
i
t
i
a
s
•oT ^
"
"
fighting on the government
side in the war in Sierra Leone , can
be regarded as institutions
of civil society . A rebel movement
such as the RUF /SL - lacking widespread
civilian support - is
perhaps better considered a type of social movement .
Rebel war as social movement
A soci^l movement is a group within society characterised
by its \
campaigning
objectives
and focus .
It is set apart
from the ' ^
^
wider society both by the distinctiveness
of its aims and by its [
"
modes of social organization
and resource mobilization .
Some social movements
- the Civil Rights Movement
or the
Environmental
Movement - are broad and inclusive . Other social
movements are narrow and exclusive , either by intent , or because
members have found themselves cut off from the wider society .
Exclusive , or
socially -excluded , movements
sometimes
called "sects ", but perhaps better labelled by the neutral
term
"enclave " - are often marked by a high degree of egalitarianism ,
and maintain
strong
themselves
boundaries
between
and wider
society .
Typically / they make
loyal members
through
arduous
initiation , and then exact strong penalties on those seeking
to
leave .
Paranoia
about
results
defection
often
in internal
violence , as is well known from classic
cases / such as the
sixteenth century German commune at Muenster or the siege of the
Branch Davidian sect at Waco / Texas .
Rebellion as enclave
The RUF /SL began to develop
"enclave " social features when its
brand of populist revolutionary
violence was decisively
rejected
by rural communities in eastern and Southern Sierra Leone in the
early phase of the war .
But by this stage several
thousand
young people from the border zone with Liberia had been forcibly
rounded up and initiated into the movement / often through being
forced to take part in horrific acts of violence against members
of their own communities and families .
It was with these young people that the rebel revolutionary
project was enacted , and not (
intended ) with the
as originally
wider society .
To draw attention
features
to resulting
- for example /
atrocity
violent
as
boundaries /
a
for marking
and
"tool "
maintaining
internal cohesion - is not to deny that the RUF /SL
may have been manipulated
(
or even created) by outside forces .
The point is to emphasise that / as with any fighting force / the
internal
social
dynamic
into
needs
to be taken
account
in
attempts
to deal with
by military
the movement / whether
or
peaceful means .
Enclave leadership
The RUF /SL is led by a charismatic
former army corporal / trained
by the British - Foday Saybana Sankoh . He is the main person of
the
older
generation
in
the movement '
s leadership .
Some
educated
civilians
were
incorporated
at
various
times
by
capture / and spoke for the movement during peace negotiations
in
1996 , but have since largely disappeared . The leadership at its
outset included a number of radical students - some exiled for
political opposition to Siaka Stevens . Their influence lives on
in the movement '
s revolutionary
appellation
and radical populist
agenda
(
first laid down in a text known as the RUF
"Basic
Document ").
But the student element either quit before fighting
began / or was finally stamped out in internal feuding during the
early phase of the military campaign .
Today / core members / in addition
to Sankoh / are nearly
all
footloose youths with a background
in the diamond districts
of
Sierra Leone and Freetown slums .
Some are chronically
homeless / in the sense of being long
detached
from
any
rural
community /
and
their
sense
of
helps account for some of the movement 's negative
rootlessness
attitudes to the rural poor / as well as its distrust of ethnic
factionalism .
The current
RUF /SL field commander / Samuel Bockarie
- a
Kissy
from the northern
part of Kailahun
District
along
the
Liberian
border
- is by background
typical of the movement 's
multi -ethnic
(
even
leadership .
multi -national ) "street "
A
diamond -digging son of a diamond -digger father / he quit the Kono
diamond town of Njaiama
allegedly
over a stabbing at a soccer
(
match ) and drifted towards the bright
lights of Monrovia , and
later Abidjan , where he worked in bars and clubs , before jumping
at a time the Ivoirian economic miracle was fading - into the
arms of the RUF . A truck of recruits passed by , and he joined ,
he says , on a whim .
Diamond
diggers
are
bom
gamblers .
Fighters , like
eight years of war
Bockarie , who have survived
(
in world
in
which surrender means summary execution ) have no fear to gamble
with their lives .
Diamond , camps
If we are to understand
the values of the RUF /SL as a social
movement
we must pay
closer
attention
to the social milieu
shaping
Bockarie
war
and
other
commanders
(
figures
such as
Eldred Co11ins and Dennis Mingo )
.
The key point is to grasp how tenuous and unstable are the
social worlds in which diamond diggers make their living .
Diggers rarely make much money , but dream always of hitting
the big time , ever moving on, following whims , rumours , hunches .
Many work for "supporters " from the political
establishment .
Thus they are intimate with a key secret of statecraft in Sierra
Leone , since they are the producers
of the magic money without
which the system of political patronage breaks down .
Some diggers have developed a quite detailed mental map of
the diamond -based landscape
of political
corruption
in Sierra
Leone . No one has more detail on this than Sankoh , who spent
many years of internal exile - after being freed as a political
prsioner
in the 1970s
the diamond
- tramping
camps of the
Liberian border
zone , selling his services
as a photographer ,
but also building up a detailed knowledge of what diamond deals
were being worked where by which members of the political elite .
Yet however
intimate this grasp of state secrets , diggers
live their lives far from the limelight , spending long periods
in remote and uncomfortable
diamond pits with the most meagre of
social facilities .
Some clandestine
diamond
encampments , through
longevity ,
turn into communities with families . But there is no desire on
the part of the political elite to equip such places with any of
the normal basic civic facilities , such as a road or school .
This would draw too much
attention
to a well -guarded
secret
about how the political system is funded .
up
Other
camps
remain
utterly
springing
ephemeral ,
overnight
at a chance find . There was one such place in primary
rain forest in the Gola North Reserve
in 1987 , miles from the
nearest settlement , at the Mogbai Stream . Each gang of diggers ,
equipped by sponsors with rudimentary mining gear and a shot -gun
to hunt for the pot , had built for itself a cluster of temporary
huts and shelters deep in the forest . The lads had headloaded
for miles
the rice supplies
necessary
of
months
for several
digging , and
ghetto -blaster .
the obligatory
were
No women
allowed .
It was thought
that this would
spoil the diggers '
luck . When raided by fores t conservation
officers the camp was
abandoned
as quickly as it had arisen . At its maximum it had
been temporary
"home " to about
1000 young
diggers .
Diamond , camp mentality
The RUF /SL entered Sierra Leone in a pincer movement around the
Gola Forest , sweeping up many of these highly detached youthful
labourers
in diamonds
its movement .
into
A defeated
rump
retreated
into the same forest
after advances
by government
troops in 1993 . The movement
licked its wounds and regathered
strength in the clandestine diamond villages of the Moro river /
the valley dividing the Sierra Leonean Gola Reserves
from the
Liberian Gola National Forest . This is a tiny and inaccessible
roadless tract of Sierra Leone entirely
screened
from the rest
of the country behind the curtain of the Gola North Reserve .
The values of the RUF /SL as a social movement reflect the
social worlds
diggers .
of footloose
The strongly
fortified
camps the RUF /SL built in forest islands throughout
the country
from 1994 onwards can be seen as a forceful projection
outwards
of a survivalist
and stateless mentality
inculcated by life in
diamond camps along the Liberian
border .
Before the war the
Moro valley diamond camps were inhabited by diamond -diggers who
routinely kept identity cards for both Liberia and Sierra Leone ,
and felt little loyalty or social commitment to either country .
To the rest of Sierra Leone , and to the world at large , the
RUF /SL has no political
philosophy .
But this is because
the
rest of the world has no knowledge of the social worlds beyond
the Gola
Forest .
In fact , the
RUF /SL makes
a carefully
calculated
appeal to all young Sierra Leoneans affected by the
kind
of
homelessness ,
rootlessness
social
and
exclusion
experienced
in such off-limits diamond
camps .
The movement 's
anthem
takes pride in social exclusion , by defiantly
warning
parents their children have gone into the forest and are lost to
them until a greater struggle is won .
Conversion by force
The movement
makes converts
diamond
camps
"by force ", raiding
and run-down
village
schools
for this purpose .
Youngsters
experience
induction into the movement as a kind of initiation .
This
regularly
atrocities
members
involves
against
of
the
mainstream
society , sometimes their own kith and kin .
This
feature
may
have
been
copied
from
Renam e
in
Mozambique .
But it is perhaps too easy to be cynical about a process that
appears strictly Darwinian
(
those who resist are killed .
)
There
is also a sense
the movement
in which
calculates
that only
through such horrific
experiences
will young captives come to
recognise a central "truth " that the pursuit of diamond wealth
leads to political power for a remote elite and social exclusion
for the broad mass of young people , many who end up with little
option than to waste their lives on the street or in a facility less digging encampment .
Young Jsaptives . have spoken about seeing how the movement 's
analysis
of social
"made sense " of some of their experiences
exclusion
and
educational
difficulty .
Sankoh 's philosophy
appears
to be to hold captives
long it takes
to
for however
undergo some kind of conversion
to the
experience . Conversion
movement
is reinforced by a camp life intended to manifest , at
least at a symbolic
level , some of the social virtues
of the
g. through strong emphasis on meritocracy
movement as enclave (
e.
)
and redistribution
of looted resources according to need .
The drama turgy of social exclusion
galvanised
by
violent
clue
Some
to the
"awakening " to be
already
apparent
among
young
induction
into
the RUF /SL was
Sierra Leoneans in the decade before the war in reactions to the
first film in the well -known Rambo trilogy . This American film ,
First: Blood , widely seen on video in diamond camps and the main
towns of the diamond mining region during the late 1980s , is
by many young Sierra
Leoneans
as a favourite
still regarded
film , or one that they regarded as particularly
educative .
by
off
Western
critics
Generally
written
as
"junk
in which Rambo
violence ". First Blood is indeed an unusual text (
is a Frankenstein 's monster , far removed from the gung -ho all American hero of the subsequent remakes ). The story concerned a
young American
post -traumatic
marine , from Vietnam , suffering
Arrested
stress , and rejected
at home .
as a vagrant , he has
flashbacks of his torture by the Vietcong and uses his guerrilla
training
to break out of jail and hide in the forests of the
all attempts to run him
There he survives
Cascade mountains .
struggle
mayhem
by his
to stay
alive , until
down , causing
society itself (
s
h
a
p
e
of
t
h
e
commander
w
h
o
t
r
ained him as
in the
o
p
e
n
guerrilla ) is forced
and
a tentative
to intervene
negotiation about his social rehabilitation .
this tale
an
Young
seem
to read
into
Sierra
Leoneans
point - the need to draw upon inner resources
in a
existential
world of social exclusion . The violence is secondary , but also
rejection
through
celebratory .
overcomes
social
his
Rambo
tricksy resourcefulness , just as the young cadres of the RUF /SL
superior
rejoice
in their cleverness
at beating
a numerically
and better armed "adult " opponent
(
the 11,000 Nigerian troops of
the West African peace -keeping force re-deployed from Liberia to
Sierra Leone in 1997 -8)
.
Pacifying a monster ?
The RUF /SL has surprised outsiders by the extent to which it has
leader Foday
maintained
cohesion , and loyalty to its charismatic
splits
and
internal
Sankoh ,
predictions
against
all
of
and
dissension .
see its violence
as opportunistic
Outsiders
driven by crude materialism . Thieves and bandits are supposed
manipulation
is
to quarrel .
that outside
While
not denying
important , the movement 's durability
over the past eight years
also requires
some explanation .
For this we have to turn to
sociological
analysis .
Most models of peace making assume that a bargain is being
struck between leaders , and that leaders are free , to an extent ,
to think
and negotiate
as individuals .
But it may be very
difficult to strike a bargain with the RUF /SL on such a basis ,
and not only because the major figures are poorly educated and
politically unsophisticated .
for
Anthropologists
would urge the importance , in preparing
of the RUF /SL
peace negotiations , of a correct characterisation
as a social movement , albeit
one made
up mainly
of deeply
traumatised youngsters . Their incorporation
within the movement
is not necessarily
simply in terms of a cynical
to be understood
use
of
force .
The
re-shaping
of
ideas
and
beliefs
and
behaviours
may have struck a deeper chord .
It must also be
understood , therefore , that
the
movement
has
an
internal
ideology shaped by the deficiencies
of footloose
life lived in
the diamond camps , and that this ideology chimes with the prior
experiences and understandings
of convert captives .
Peace -making
may
require
that the implications
of this
legacy be more fully grasped .
If there
is to be truth and
reconciliation
then there may have to be accountability
not only
for the youthful atrocity of the RUF /SL but also for the social
injustices
that
underlie
the
rebel
movement 's
sense
of
homelessness
and despair .