Che, Lumumba and... Foday Sankoh?

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, IsraelStine and the Trumped Up Enemy of the Month. A list of all pieces in this series can be found found here..

I was in the library last night and noticed in the new arrivals section DVD entitled The Empire in Africa (I won't link to it because I don't want to encourage any one to spend a dime enriching the pockets of its makers). My curiosity piqued, I took a look and was nauseated to discover it was an apologia mythologizing the Revolutionary United Front. The RUF were the Sierra Leonian rebels who became infamous for the forced conscription of children, for the drugging of those child soldiers and for chopping off the hands and arms of women and children.

This was not the invention of some international propaganda campaign, as the 'documentary' implies. I lived in Guinea at the height of the Sierra Leonian civil war and met numerous refugees who fled the RUF's savagery, including a few who had lost limbs.

The Sierra Leonian government and military were filled at the time with brutal and thieving scumbags, no doubt. But no one's dared make an apologia to them. Whatever anti-corporate ideology the RUF might allegedly have had when it formed in the early 90s quickly evaporated. It became nothing more than an unimaginably savage organized crime gang that used ANY means necessary to line the pockets of its leaders.

The documentarian who made this offensive trash owes an apology to all the people killed, maimed and displaced by his sainted RUF.

A measure of justice at last in the land of blood diamonds

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, IsraelStine and the Trumped Up Enemy of the Month. A list of all pieces in this series can be found found here..

Yesterday, three senior members of the former Sierra Leone Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group, including its second-in-command, were found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown. The RUF gained infamy in the 1990s for their savage tactics, including the use of child soldiers, the amputation of the hands and arms of victims and the carving of the RUF's initials into the bodies of victims.

The BBC reported that the judges concluded the rebel chiefs "significantly contributed" to a joint criminal enterprise with former Liberian President Charles Taylor [also standing trial for crimes against humanity] to control the diamond fields of Sierra Leone to finance their warfare. They were also found guilty of forced marriage - the enslavement that countless young girls suffered when their villages were raided and they were forced to "marry" a rebel. The convictions mark the first time the forced marriage charge has been successfully handed down in an international court of law.

The RUF's leader Foday Sankoh died in custody before facing trial.

TIME magazine had this interview with the Special Court's prosecutor, who expressed satisfaction at the verdict. When asked about the potential conflict between justice and peace, he pointed out that the two were complimentary. "I guess [the] proof of the pudding is that the country held an election in August and September 2007 where not only was the opposition not expected to get in, they were allowed to get in. That's pretty positive. What the court has done is reinforce the peace and restore the rule of law to allow events like that to happen," he noted.

The three will be sentenced at a later date.

Reintegrating child soldiers in Sierra Leone

The English version of Le Monde diplomatique has a good piece (in English) exploring how former child soldiers from Sierra Leone's civil war are being re-integrated into society.