Feature Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone’s contribution to ECOMOG. Te soldiers sent to Liberia were the best that the country had; as such, after their departure the borders of Sierra Leone were left largely unprotected. Momoh appeared too busy with other matters to envisage that there would be repercussions for such negligence. Of course in Liberia, “there was no peace to keep,” Bio said. “I really wonder why, given how tense the situation was at our own borders with Liberia, we were sent to ECOMOG at all.” In March 1991, Foday Sankoh’s Revo-
lutionary United Front (RUF) invaded Sierra Leone from Liberia, and overran the border regions in the Eastern and Southern Provinces. It was not until September that year that Bio and some of his colleagues were redeployed to Sierra Leone, in the Kailahun District. “We were part of a new battalion called
Gladio, under Major Anderson,” Bio said. “Tis battalion was hastily put together. SAJ Musa was a part of it as well. Tere were 600 men in all, but most of these were hasty new recruits, poorly trained, and not at all prepared for combat. It was a mishmash really, not a team. Within five minutes of our deployment in Kailahun, we were attacked by the rebels with heavy bombardment. Two-thirds of our battalion simply ran away. Yes, two-thirds. It was a disaster.” Te army was also poorly armed. Te
soldiers had guns from the Second World War: often the guns couldn’t fire. “Our weapons were no match for those that the rebels had,” Bio remembers. “We felt that we were set up to be slaughtered. Our guns were not firing at crucial moments. Tis was what created the myth of Rambo: the invincible rebel whose body was impervi- ous to bullets. Well, the bullets weren’t getting to him, you see.” At the time, it riled. Bio said: “I spent
four weeks with Gladio, and then I was transferred to Segbwema, where Prince Benjamin Hirsch was the commanding officer. Prince and I had trained together, and we were friends. We formed a team. We were both very bitter officers, very concerned about the rot that passed for our government in Freetown. Ten we started talking – there was really no plan at this point – we started talking about changing the system.” Many other young officers, it turned out, were doing the same thing. Strasser,
50 | April 2011 New African
who had also fought in the Kailahun area and had sustained a bullet wound in the leg (which partially disabled him), was now at Benguema as paymaster. But he was in touch with Bio and Hirsch; he visited them any time he could. “One evening, we were sitting at ‘Bo-
dehose’ in Segbwema – myself, Strasser, Prince and some others. We vented our bitterness,” Bio recounted. “We were not getting food, our [weapons] weren’t fir- ing, we were neglected. And here was this government which created the conditions for the war itself, seen as benefitting from the war. We were being killed for their crimes and profit. We knew Momoh and his APC weren’t interested in the multi- party business; they were trying to sit it out. We decided that they had to go. We wanted a clean slate.” Tat romantic language – a “clean
slate”, suggesting optimism about the depth of possible change – is unusual with Bio, who does not even use the word “com- rade”, preferring “colleagues” or “friends”. In the event, while Bio and Hirsch were
preparing to launch an attack against the RUF at Lalehun, Hirsch was murdered. “My hunch tells me that he was killed by
“ We were being killed
for the government in Freetown’s crimes and profit. We decided they had to go. We wanted a clean slate.”
ULIMO [an anti-Taylor faction that was being supported by the Sierra Leone gov- ernment at the time]. “Hirsch was very strict with soldiers
who engaged in looting; we were after all operating in his home district. He had apprehended a few ULIMO fighters that week while they were looting, and he was rather harsh with them,” Bio recalled. “He was killed close to a ULIMO checkpoint. He had left us on the way to Lalehun to collect some stuff in Segbwema. Te RUF was not active in the area. We found his bullet-riddled body, and ULIMO didn’t say a word. Tey simply vanished from the area.” Bio first met John Benjamin, the elder
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