By Umaru Fofana
In Bumbuna right now is a woman beaten and shot by police during their violent crackdown against unarmed workers protesting over pay and conditions at the African Minerals site almost exactly two years ago. She urinates on herself without noticing. She has received no compensation, no medical attention unless that which she and her poor family can afford, and the perpetrators have been let off the hook - if ever they were on the hook.
On 16, 17 and 18 April 2012 Sierra Leone's rich mineral resources yet again came to symbolise death and destruction for its people. It came on the fig leaf of billions of dollars being bandied about - deliberately confusingly - by government officials and mining company spin doctors as benefits derived from what have become symbols of carnage to the masses and emancipation and prosperity to those in government.
Another lady, Musu Conteh was gunned down by police. The state, the police and the mining company have all apparently turned a blind eye to this agony. Nobody cares. It seems. As the woman suffers in misery. No partner. No one to help her look after her children. With society stigmatising her.
Like diamonds before and after it, Sierra Leone's ore has come to epitomise awe for the hapless poor who live around it. The events of April 2012 at Bumbuna - the concession area of the iron ore miner African Minerals, was an orgy of despicable proportions. It came in the back of similar incidents of death and butchery unleashed on innocent people in Kono simply because their land is rich in diamonds.
Despite huge amounts of money spent to investigate the cases, the subsequent reports are as good as toilet paper. Despite the thorough job done by the investigators and a government white paper issued, in the case of the Kono investigations, and the heavy-handedness for the sake of protecting Koidu Holdings or OCTEA Group as it has been rechristened, victims have been further victimised, with more victims having emerged since.
For this piece I will concentrate on the Bumbuna incident involving striking workers. Police opened fire against unarmed civilians as they so often do, without consequence. The events of April two years ago prompted a Public Inquiry by the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone, perhaps the most potent of all government institutions in the country that is yet to be swallowed up by partisan political bigotry. Their 124-page report is a splendid piece of work. It showed that not only did some senior government officials summoned to testify ignore the commission's call without consequence, their recommendations in this incident of gross violation of human rights have also apparently been ignored.
The report says "police overreacted to the protest action by African Minerals (SL) Ltd (AML) workers and used disproportionate force, including live ammunition, resulting in the death of one Musu Conteh, a young lady who worked for AML. Others were severely wounded; eight (8) of whom sustained gunshot wounds. Some people were also wounded through beating and other forms of manhandling."
Over one year since those findings were made public, no one has batted an eyelid. Meanwhile a Coroner's Inquest set up as an unnecessary parallel body has had its report kept somewhere with no one talking about it let alone acting on it.
The Human Rights Commission said in its report that public officials they were interested in meeting "neither attended the Public Hearing at Bumbuna nor did they submit any documents. They did not provide any reasons for failing to honour the Commission’s summons to testify. Under the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone Act, 2004, this is an act of contempt." They are Resident Minister of the north Allie D. Kamara and Minister of Mines and Mineral Resources Alhaji Minkailu Mansaray. Were they hiding something?
As if those killed or maimed are less Sierra Leonean, the Government did not oblige the ministers to attend nor did it reprimand them for failing to do so.
The violence unleashed by the police against defenceless people on the orders of their bosses led to the temporary displacement of many to other villages. This is a crime both under our municipal laws and international law.
Human Rights Commission says the police "subjected members of the Bumbuna community to arbitrary arrest and detention" and others to "inhuman, cruel and
degrading treatment through severe beatings, kicking, molesting and arresting two (2) family members attending to the corpse of a relative". They violated the right of citizens to privacy "by breaking doors and entering homes without search warrants in a house-to- house search of suspected rioters."
The property and other belongings of poor and hapless people were "destroyed and in some cases carried away" by police. If all this does not gall anyone, nothing else will.
A radio journalist, Rev. Daniel Bangura was arrested by "a combined team of Military and Police personnel, some of whom were armed even though he [the journalist] was unarmed and cooperative." Additionally, a vehicle that was owned by HAWK, a sub-contractor of African Minerals and driven by an AML worker, was unashamedly used by the police to arrest the journalist who worked for Radio Numbara. In sum total the "Bumbuna community was traumatized by the police operations and described it as a replay of rebel attacks during the war" according to the report which adds that the "relationship between the Police and AML is a cause for concern and suspicion to the people of Bumbuna and feeds the perception that the Police will not be impartial in situations that involve AML". One does not need rocket science to know that. A preceding incident at a placed called Kemedugu clearly illustrated. It is commonplace for police officers to ask for money from company officials hence making the citizens' lives are secondary.
In all this, and like with the findings of most other reports on rights abuses especially by mining companies, the government cannot care less. It and the police, if there is a difference, have ignored some basic albeit fundamental recommendations made by the commission. For example the police should investigate Supt. Samuel Benedict Vandi, Supt. Lamin Sesay, LUC Supt. Alfred C. Dassama and OC, ASP Konneh "for mismanaging the police response to the protest action".
They should also "identify and investigate all personnel involved in the police response to the protest action including a physically challenged OSD personnel (who walks with a limp), adversely mentioned by the community people and discipline those found culpable and where appropriate, prefer criminal charges against them." That has been completely ignored.
I understand some of these police officers, if anything were compensated by either being promoted or sent on international peacekeeping duties while their victims and their families continue to languish.
There is every need to force government and all its agencies named in this shameless orgy to comply with the recommendations contained in the human rights commission report. Or one can safely say that our compatriots were killed or maimed with the tacit connivance of those they elected to protect them.
(C) Politico 13/05/14
