January 6, 1999 : The day Freetown wept tears of blood

January 6, 2018 Publisher and Chief Executive Officer KABS KANU ACTION NEWS, COMMENTARY, Uncategorized 0

  • ON JANUARY 6, 1999, THE REVOLUTIONARY UNITED FRONT (RUF) ENTERED THE CAPITAL CITY OF SIERRA LEONE, FREETOWN, AS PART OF AN OFFENSIVE TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT OF THE SLPP. THE RUF REBELS ATTACKED THE CITY AND RANDOMLY MASSACRED ITS INHABITANTS. THE REBELS GUNNED DOWN FLEEING CIVILIANS, BURNED HOMES, COMMITTED RAPE, AMPUTATED LIMBS, AND GOUGED OUT EYES. THE RUF BROUGHT DOWN AN ALMOST ARBITRARY WAVE OF RUTHLESS TERROR ON FREETOWN THAT CLAIMED MORE THAN 7000 LIVES (HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 1999). ONE RUF REBEL STOPPED A FREETOWN INHABITANT, JAMES KAJUE, AT GUNPOINT AS HE WAS TRYING TO FLEE THE CITY IN HIS STATIONWAGON WITH HIS FAMILY. THE REBEL DEMANDED MONEY FROM MR. KAJUE BEFORE ANOTHER REBEL APPROACHED THE SCENE AND SAID, “WHY ARE YOU WASTING YOUR TIME WITH THESE CIVILIANS? JUST KILL THEM ALL.” THE RUF REBEL THEN EMPTIED HIS AK-47 INTO THE CAR, KILLING SIX MEMBERS OF JAMES KAJUE’S FAMILY, INCLUDING HIS INFANT GRANDSON (HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 1999).
  • On January 6, 1999, rebel forces of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council and the Revolutionary United Front (AFRC/RUF) invaded Sierra Leone’s capital city, Freetown, in the early hours of January 6, 1999.

Rebels-Sierra-Leone

The ensuing actions of the invading forces were characterized by extreme violence on particularly civilians in the forms of rape, mutilations and summary executions, resulting in the deaths of over five thousand people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of others.

This singular act dealt a shattering blow to the fledgling peace process that the country was pursuing at the time of the invasion.

There was, therefore, a need to take urgent and concerted action to salvage the situation by first repelling the invaders and then bringing the peace process back on the rail.

In response to this urgency, the civil society of Sierra Leone, under the aegis of the Civil Society Movement-Sierra Leone (CSM-SL), worked with all progressive forces, particularly the ECOMOG forces led by the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Government of Sierra Leone, to drive back the marauding rebels in the face of extreme danger and difficulties.

January 6 1999 – I Still Remember

JANUARY 6, A DAY OF NATIONAL MOURNING

I saw it all, I was ghastly, shockingly horrific, mangled bodies on the principal streets in Freetown.

It was chaotic, there was weeping and gnashing of teeth, parents fled leaving their beloved children at the mercy of the cold and the invaders, the affluent became poor, children orphaned, powerful mansions reduced to rubbles.

It was everywhere, the ambiance was an admixture of different bullet sounds, Hell was indeed left loose, we were subjected to law of the jungle, Alpha Jet enjoyed monopoly over our roofs, and the grimmest of all, was the countless number of casualties.

What a day, it should be a public holiday tagged as a National Day of Mourning, we should all mourn for the lives of the inestimable number of Nationals and Foreigners who died in January 6,1999 bloody bath.

The horrors of the Ebola outbreak may have Stolen our minds but few of us who dance to the tune of the past would still recall the calamity that befell our nation in January 6,1999.

I would refrain writing on the horrific scenes I saw lest I invoke the sad memories of that day.

Times fly though but what have we learnt from that awful period in our country’s transient history?

On behalf of the Directorate of Media Alliance for Civil and Political Awareness, MACPA, SLAJ and the Government and People of Sierra Leone, I would use this day to extend cables of condolence treats to the bereaved families of all who lost their precious lives during the senseless war in our country.

May their souls and the souls of all faithful departed, Rest in Perfect Peace.

Jonathan Hindolo Kurabu
Director
MACPA- SL

Issa Sesay Distances RUF From the January 1999 Invasion Of Freetown

Former interim leader of the Sierra Leonean rebel group that Charles Taylor is accused of providing support for today made considerable effort to distance his rebel group from the 1999 invasion of Freetown, an attack which saw the commission of heinous crimes including murder, rape, amputations of the arms and limbs of civilians, and the looting and destruction of civilian property.

According to Issa Hassan Sesay, the present witness testifying for Mr. Taylor, the attack on Sierra Leone’s capital city of Freetown in January 1999 was undertaken solely by members of the Sierra Leone Army (SLA), who in May 1997 had overthrown the democratic government of Sierra Leone and formed the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). After the May 1997 coup, the AFRC teamed up with Sierra Leone’s main rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).  Together the two groups ruled Sierra Leone until they were forcefully removed from Freetown in February 1998 by West African peacekeepers under the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).

As the rebel forces retreated from Freetown, they occupied various towns in Sierra Leone’s countryside, and in January 1999, the rebel forces invaded Freetown again. Prosecutors have alleged that the 1999 attack on Freetown was a joint operation undertaken by the AFRC and the RUF, an allegation that Mr. Sesay denied today.

“It was an AFRC operation, it was an independent operation that they carried out,” Mr. Sesay told the court in reference to the January 1999 invasion of Freetown.

Mr. Sesay explained that “they [AFRC] fought from Koinadugu [Northern Sierra Leone] right up to Freetown on their own.”

According to Mr. Sesay, the action of the democratic government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah to execute members of the Sierra Leone Army (SLA), who had been found guilty by a Court Martial for their involvement in the coup, was the main reason why the AFRC decided to attack Freetown.

“That is why they attacked Freetown, they said their colleagues had been killed,” Mr. Sesay told the court.

Prosecutors on the otherhand have insisted that the 1999 Freetown invasion was a joint operation undertaken by the AFRC and the RUF in pursuit of their joint criminal enterprise in Sierra Leone. Prosecutors hope that by proving the RUF’s involvement in the Freetown invasion, Mr. Taylor would be held liable because according to prosecutors, when Mr. Taylor allegedly provided arms and ammunition to the RUF to attack the diamond rich town of Kono in December 1998, the rebels used that operation and the same arms and ammunition to advance to the northern part of the country before they proceeded to Freetown in January 1999.

Mr. Sesay has denied these allegations, telling the court instead that the AFRC troops that attacked Freetown took off from Koinadugu under the leadership of Solomon Anthony James Musa (SAJ Musa) but that when SAJ Musa died before the troops entered Freetown, Alex Tamba Brima, aka Gullit, (also now convicted by the Special Court and serving a jail term in Rwanda) took over the leadership of the troops. It was at that time that he made contact with RUF commander Sam Bockarie.

“According to [my radio] operator, it was Gullit’s name that was mentioned to Sam Bockarie’s operator. He said Gullit told Sam Bockarie that SAJ Musa was dead. Then Sam Bockarie told Gullit that they should wait for reinforcement to come so that they will attack Freetown,” Mr. Sesay explained.

Mr. Sesay added that Gullit did not wait for the reinforcement to arrive when he led his troops into Freetown.

When asked whether it was Mr. Bockarie who offered to send reinforcements to support Gullit’s troops, Mr. Sesay said, “That is what my operator told me…based on the instruction he gave Gullit to wait to get reinforcement for us to attack Freetown, but Gullit did not wait, he did not go ahead with what he was told.”

Mr. Sesay told the court that the RUF was not involved in the plan to attack Freetown because the AFRC’s SAJ Musa and the RUF’s Mr. Boackarie were not on speaking terms. When asked why Mr. Bockarie was “offering to send reinforcement to this renegade group,” Mr. Sesay said that “when Gullit told Bockarie that SAJ Musa was dead, since Gullit was his friend, Bockarie was ready to work with him.”

Mr. Sesay said that the RUF fighters who moved to reinforce the AFRC could not enter Freetown because ECOMOG forces stopped them at Waterloo outside Freetown.

“ECOMOG was in Hastings and Jui and so they [RUF} could not go to Freetown,” Mr. Sesay said.

He agreed that their purpose was to enter Freetown.

Mr. Koumjian then played in court a January 1999 audio clip of a BBC interview by a Colonel FAT Sesay in which the Colonel told the interviewer that “we have again overthrown the SLPP [Sierra Leone People’s Party]…the combined forces of the AFRC and the RUF forces.”

In response to this, Mr. Sesay said, “I knew that he was lying because at that time, the RUF were in Makeni.”

Mr. Sesay insisted, “I was not part of the planning, nor was I part of the execution of the attack on Freetown.”

When told that  RUF’s Mr. Bockarie had “called his papay [Mr. Taylor]” to inform him that the rebel forces had entered Freetown, Mr. Sesay said, “I didn’t know about that.”

Mr. Sesay’s testimony continues on Monday as there will be no court sitting on Friday.

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