By Sallieu T. Kamara
To say that I am deeply disturbed by the growing political hypocrisy and mendaciousness in Sierra Leone is an understatement. Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans seem to be in the firm grip of politics. There is nothing many people do, say or think about nowadays without creating room for politics to rear its ugly head. Whether it is in football, in civil society, in the civil service, in the market place, in the colleges and schools, politics is made to take a centre stage. In all of this, there is no such thing as an objective argument; everything is coloured by the speaker whose stance is, most often, influenced not by his knowledge and life experiences, but by their political leanings. It is sad, to say the least.
Many Sierra Leoneans, particularly those belonging to the political class, see and interpret important national issues in diversely different ways. The saying that “what is good for the gander is also good for the goose” no longer holds true in the country’s political landscape. It is a common practice in Sierra Leone today to see and hear Sierra Leoneans hailing and heaping accolades to their compatriots for embarking on actions that are inimical to the well-being of the state and the people, whilst condemnations greet those that are doing the right things. Simply put, people are adjudged not by their actions, but by the side of the country’s political divide in which they belong.
In this article, I want to look at, arguably, the most topical and most widely discussed topic in Sierra Leone today – the request by family members for the holding of an inquest into the executions of 29 Sierra Leoneans by the National Provisional Ruling Council on 29 December 1992. The move by family members to intensify their demand for an inquest has generated interesting and, sometimes, heated debates across the political divide. The debate continues without any let-up.
The debate, it appears, is gradually taking a different turn; it’s being shifted from being a human rights issue to a political one. Whilst family members of the 29 executed people continue to see their action as one aimed at seeking justice, others, particularly those in the opposition, see it as an orchestrated plan aimed at throwing spanners on the way of their political party to State House ahead of the November 2012 elections.
Both sides have convincing arguments to support their view points and they are all eloquent and unequivocal in advancing their points. In fact, there are Sierra Leoneans within and without the country that do not mince their words and straight away accuse the family members of the 29 victims of hatching a plot to disadvantage the flag bearer of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), Julius Maada Bio, and to get him out of the race on technical grounds.
But as a country emerging from a brutal civil war and as a people, where should we place the extra-judicial executions of 29 of our compatriots by the NPRC in 1992? Is it a human rights issue or a political one? Or is it both? The National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) headed by Valentine Strasser came to power in April 1992 after they overthrew the All People’s Congress (APC) government of Joseph Saidu Momoh amidst jubilation and renewed hope for the vast majority of Sierra Leoneans. The jubilation soon gave way to frustration and despair as the very “saviours” themselves engaged in massive human rights abuses. And one of the factors that led to this despair was the despicable manner in which the 29 people were allegedly executed.
In response to the widespread national and international condemnation of their action, the NPRC told a mourning nation through the media that the 29 people that were executed on that fateful night were tried by a court martial. The immediate reaction of the international community and some sections of the Sierra Leonean community to this assertion was a demand that the NPRC must produce the evidence. The nation wanted to know how 29 people were tried, convicted and slaughtered, all of this in less than ten hours. The NPRC promised to make details of the trials available to the public, which they never did up to this date. In fact, I understand that the senior military officer that was rumoured to be the chair of the court martial that tried the 29 people denied any knowledge of a court martial, let alone being involved in it.
The extrajudicial killing of any human being, no matter where it happens and who is involved, is a human rights issue. According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, every human being has the inherent right to life and that right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life. This means a human being has the right not to be killed. The fact that the 29 people were killed without any due process and up to this day nobody or institution has ever come up to explain to the public the circumstances surrounding this horrendous incident makes it not only a fundamental human rights issue, but also compels surviving family members to seek the truth about the deaths of their relatives. It is their right, in fact a responsibility, and nobody or government should deny them that.
At the time of the executions in 1992, most of those that are agitating today for justice were in their teens. Even though they bore the full brunt of the demise of their parents, they were too young to take any action. In fact, the NPRC, which carried out the executions, hounded them relentlessly to the point of forcing some of them to go into hiding or flee the country. Now, they are grown-ups and they consider the present environment in the country to be more conducive and safer for them to intensify their pursuit of justice.
And I would want to see any sane person whose parents were killed under the murky circumstances in which the 29 people were allegedly butchered and dumped into a mass grave and who would not want to know how it all happened. Like Jesus Christ asked the Pharisees over the adulterous woman: “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first”. Yes, let anyone come out and say publicly and with all sincerity that if it happens to me I will not do what the surviving family members of the 29 executed people are doing today.
This is not about Julius Maada Bio, nor about Valentine Strasser or any individual member of the NPRC. It is about aggrieved families seeking justice using channels that are within legal realm. It is true that the NPRC as an institution no longer exists, but some of the key players, especially at the time of the executions of the 29 people, are still alive and are around. And what seems to be very interesting in this whole issue is the fact that surviving members of the defunct NPRC are today active members of all the major political parties in the country. So this erases the question of the 29 family members targeting an individual political party only.
The probable reason many people always make references to Julius Maada Bio each time this topic is discussed is that he is the most prominent among the remaining members of the NPRC. Right from the outset, he held very influential positions and later became head of the junta regime. Again, Julius Maada Bio is the only person among the junta leaders that is today vying for the presidency of the country. By agreeing to vie for the highest seat of the land, Julius Maada Bio has, by implication, brought himself forward for public scrutiny.
He may not be the direct target of the action of family members of the 29 executed persons, but his present political pursuits make the general public to turn the spotlight on him. The reason why it is always good for citizens to thoroughly scrutinize all those vying for leadership positions is that some people have innate characters and abilities to do bad things such as corruption, dishonesty, wife-battering and human rights abuses. No matter what is done to them, or what happens to them, they will never change. So digging and analyzing their past will help the citizens to be better informed about those aspiring to lead them.
He, therefore, has a responsibility to the citizens of this country to respond appropriately. It is not about Julius Maada Bio giving pieces of information here and there about the execution of the 29 people. It is about a well thought-through process that will convince the people of Sierra Leone and the international community that he had no hand in that incident. He should exonerate himself beyond all reasonable doubts, from this dastardly act. Anything less than that, fingers will continue to point at him.
Another angle to this debate is the comparison some people are making of the case of the 29 executed persons with previous executions carried out by past regimes of the APC and SLPP. This people got it all wrong. Yes, it is true that both the APC and SLPP carried out killings, but they did so only after the due process of law had been followed and absolutely exhausted. The process they used might be faulty. One only needs to read Aminata Forna’s memoir titled: The Devil that Danced on the Water to know that during the trial of Ibrahim Taqi and others, for instance. The whole trial was manipulated to get the accused convicted and killed. And that was the pattern in those days. But at least a legal process was followed. With the 29 people, no due process was followed.
It is true that the country has gone through some transitional justice mechanisms such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. But these are not enough to soothe the nerves of every affected person. Is it not only recently that Colonel Savage of the “Savage Pit” fame returned to Tombodu where he caused the brutal and most heinous massacre of hundreds and possibly thousands of innocent civilians? And he did that only on the intervention of the Fambul Tok project. This shows that transitional justice mechanisms alone are not enough to heal the wounds. The two issues might not be the same, but they all fall within the ambit of human rights.
Let us also look at the timing of the action of the 29 affected families. They choose 2012 as the best time to intensify their campaign. This timing has both advantages and disadvantages to their cause. Because we are approaching November 2012 in which multiple elections will be held, and because Julius Maada Bio is the most prominent and effective contestant to Ernest Bai Koroma for the presidency, the APC government of Ernest Bai Koroma finds it difficult to heed to their request for fear of their actions being misinterpreted.
There is no gainsaying that if the APC government gives the green light to the holding of an inquest, the opposition will reaffirm their fears and apprehensions that it is a ploy to get their man out of the race. The public is watching and the international community is watching too. The APC government is quite aware of this. So what the aggrieved families had thought to be an advantage has turned out to be a disadvantage in their struggle for justice. By no way should they expect the APC government to sanction their request at this point in time.
But I believe they could explore another option. If they find the road to the holding of the inquest is blocked, they could institute private legal proceedings. I am not a lawyer, but I am sure it is permissible within the laws of Sierra Leone and other international legal instruments to which Sierra Leone is a signatory. To do this, they need first to commission their own independent investigations into the circumstances leading to the executions of their parents. There are still many people around who witnessed it all as it happened, and who are ready to provide them with vital information that will help them pursue their cause. If they don’t have the ability to do it all by themselves, they can hire a private firm operating here in Sierra Leone or abroad to do it for them. They will now use the information generated in this exercise to prefer charges against individuals who will emerge as prime suspects.
These are just random thoughts of a disturbed citizen.
