Foday Sankoh
Sierra Leone's Rebel with a Cause
by David Johnson
Rebel leader Foday Sankoh. (Source/AP)
BY MOST ACCOUNTS, the portly, cheerful, former army corporal seems
more like a wedding photographer, a former occupation, than the leader
of one of the world's more gruesome military organizations, which he
has since become.
But like many leaders, Foday Sankoh, 64, the Sierra Leonean
warlord, is a contradiction. Although he is affectionately known as
Papa by his troops in the Revolutionary United Front, RUF, Sankoh is
so widely despised in Sierra Leone, that
cheering, dancing people filled the streets as news of his May 17
capture spread throughout Freetown.
Captured and Reviled
Soldiers shot Sankoh in the thigh as he attempted to avoid capture,
according to the Concord Times of Freetown. The bleeding Sankoh
was surrounded by a mob that beat him, pulled off his clothes and
paraded him naked through the streets. He was eventually taken into
military custody. The international human rights organization Human
Rights Watch is urging that Sankoh receive a fair trial to reinforce
the rule of law in Sierra Leone.
His capture came nine days after he had disappeared from his home
where he had been detained under house
arrest. The rebel leader has been captured before. He was
sentenced to death in 1998, but his RUF forces responded with a
horrific invasion of Freetown. West African troops, led by Nigeria, repulsed the attack
several weeks later. Sankoh subsequently received amnesty in return
for signing the July 1999 peace treaty.
RUF rebels, believed to be about 15,000 strong, continued to
dominate much of the countryside however, including valuable diamond
mines. In their most recent reign of
terror on the country, the RUF captured some 500 peacekeepers in
the beginning of May. A number had been released prior to Sankoh's
capture and there has been speculation on how his arrest would affect
the release of the remaining hostages.
An Idealistic Start
Sankoh began his political career in the 1970s,
as a critic of widespread corruption. Sierra Leone's military and
political elite were plundering the diamond and other mineral
wealth of the tiny nation, whose people are considered to be among
the world's poorest.
After losing his job as a TV camerman for his anti-government
views, Sankoh was briefly imprisoned. Increasingly radicalized, he
joined other Sierra Leonean dissidents in Libya, where Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi was sponsoring
revolutionary movements throughout the world. He later went to
Liberia, where he joined forces with another young
charismatic—and ruthless revolutionary leader—Charles
Taylor, who became president of his country after a brutal civil
war.
Eventually returning to Sierra Leone, Sankoh was one of the
founders of the RUF. But the high-minded movement to eliminate
corruption soon degenerated, as impoverished young men sought to make
their own fortunes.
The RUF quickly earned a savage reputation, as they amputated limbs
of civilians, routinely raped women and girls and abducted boys to
join their army. Young recruits were often forced to rape or kill a
family member, thus preventing a return to their previous lives. RUF
young soldiers were often forcibly injected with cocaine before going
into battle.
Sources: BBC, New York Times, Washington
Post, CNN, Concord Times (Panafrican News Agency),
africana.com, Human Rights Watch
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