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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
SIERRA LEONE: IRIN Focus on first indictments of the Special Court
FREETOWN, 19 March 2003 (IRIN) - A special court created through an agreement between the United Nations and the Sierra Leonean government to prosecute major violators of human rights during Sierra Leone's rebel war began its pre-trial hearings this month. It indicted seven men on 10 March to stand trial for crimes against humanity, but two are still at large.
Of the five others, four were arraigned in mid-March in a court in Bonthe Island, southeast of the capital, Freetown. Three pleaded not guilty, Special Court Prosecutor David Crane told journalists on 18 March. The fourth was Foday Sankoh, former leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group which fought against the state from 1991 to 2002. Sankoh, who appeared in court on Saturday slouched in a wheelchair, has been in detention since May 2000. He gave no response to questions from presiding judge Benjamin Itoe, who decided to order a psychiatric and medical evaluation of the suspect and adjourned the case to Friday.
Indictee Number Five is the immediate past Minister for Internal Affairs, Sam Hinga Norman. He made an initial appearance before a judge in a closed session on Monday, Crane said. This was an exception, not the rule, he noted, adding that Norman's trial would be open. This was the judges' decision, he said, adding that for security reasons it was possibly the best way to handle his pre-trial at the moment. He said a lawyer of his own choice represented Norman, who would be held outside the country until his trial comes up.
According to reports in local newspapers, some Sierra Leoneans felt his arrest was not done in a manner befitting his status. However, Crane said Norman was treated with respect and in complete compliance with international standards. He added that "all these arrests should demonstrate that no one, no one is above the law regardless of their power, stature or wealth. It must be seen that justice is open, impartial and fair.
Two still at large
"But much work remains to be done and additional indictments will most assuredly follow," he stated. "As you know, two individuals remain at large and again I call on indictees Koroma and Bockarie to turn themselves in. There is nowhere to hide. Warrants have been put out for your arrest. Surrender and face the serious charges against you."
Johnny Paul Koroma led the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) that ruled Sierra Leone together with the RUF from May 1997, when it overthrew President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, to February 1998, when the AFRC-RUF forces were driven from Freetown by ECOMOG, a peacekeeping force deployed in Sierra Leone by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Sam Bockarie was one of the more notorious of the RUF's commanders. Near the end of Sierra Leone's war he sought refuge in Liberia after falling out with some of the rebel movement's leaders. There have been reports that he has been involved in other trouble spots in West and Central Africa.
In addition to Sankoh, the four who appeared at the Bonthe Island court included Issa Sesay and Morris Kallon, former RUF commanders, and Alex Brima, who was a member of the AFRC. All pleaded not guilty to their indictments. Sesay and Kallon accepted an offer by the court to provide them with legal counsel. Brima declined the offer since he expected his family to give him the support he needed to put together his defence team.
Indictments
Sankoh, Sesay, Brima and Kallon face 17 counts. These include acts of terrorism, collective punishments, extermination, murder and violence to the lives, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular murder, rape, sexual slavery and any other form of sexual violence. They are also accused of outrages upon personal dignity, conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into their groups or using them to participate in hostilities, enslavement, pillage, intentionally directing attacks against humanitarian personnel or peacekeepers, unlawful killings, abductions and hostage-taking.
All the offences included in the indictments were committed after November 1996. Their targets included civilians, humanitarian assistance personnel, and peacekeepers of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL). The attacks were carried out primarily to terrorise the population but were also used to punish communities for failing to provide sufficient support to the RUF/AFRC or for allegedly supporting pro-government forces.
Norman faces eight counts, including murder, violence to the lives, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, inhumane acts, pillage, acts of terrorism, collective punishments, and conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups, or using them to participate actively in hostilities.
Norman and the Kamajors
During the war Norman was the national coordinator of the Civil Defence Forces (CDF), a pro-government militia made up to a large extent of traditional hunters known as Kamajors. The Kamajors were mainly of the Mende ethnic group from the south and east of the country.
Other groups playing a less dominant role in the CDF were the Gbethis and Kapras, comprising mainly Temnes from the north, the Tanmaboros, who were predominantly Korankos, another northern ethnic group, and the Donsos, who were mostly Konos from the east.
In Norman's indictment, it was said that the Kamajors engaged the combined RUF/AFRC forces in armed conflict in various parts of the country. Civilians, including women and children who were suspected of supporting, sympathizing with, or simply failing to actively resist the RUF/AFRC forces were termed "collaborators" and were targeted by the Kamajors. Once identified, "collaborators" or enemy combatants were killed: shot, hacked or burnt to death.
Other practices included human sacrifices and cannibalism. The CDUs also looted and destroyed private property. Like those of the RUF/AFRC, their actions were intended to terrorise the civilian population.
Targets of their attacks included a police barracks in the southern town of Kenema, where they killed an unknown number of police officers. In an operation called Black December, Kamajors blocked all major highways and roads leading to major towns in the southern and eastern provinces, killing civilians and captured RUF combatants.
Sankoh and the RUF
The RUF was founded towards the end of the 1980s in Libya under Sankoh's leadership, and began armed operations against Sierra Leone in March 1991. After the AFRC seized power on 25 May 1997, Koroma invited the rebels to join the AFRC in Freetown, which they did upon the order of Sankoh. They continued to collaborate after Tejan Kabbah was reinstated.
The two groups shared a common plan, purpose or design ("joint criminal enterprise", according to the indictments) which was to take any actions necessary to exercise political power and control over Sierra Leone, in particular its diamond-mining areas. Sierra Leone's natural resources were provided to persons outside the country in return for assistance in carrying out the joint criminal enterprise.
In the late 1980s Sankoh had received training in revolutionary tactics and guerilla warfare in Libya. While there he met Charles Taylor and, in early 1989, Sankoh and his followers assisted Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) faction.
In preparation for his organised armed operations in Sierra Leone, Sankoh and the RUF received military weapons and equipment from Libya as well as financial support, military training, personnel, arms, ammunition, other support and encouragement from Taylor.
Among the charges levelled against him are that the RUF/AFRC routinely captured and abducted civilians - captured women and girls were raped. Many were abducted and used as sex slaves or forced labour. Men and boys were abducted and used as forced labour. Some people were held captive for years, but many abducted boys and girls were given combat training and used in active fighting. The AFRC/RUF also physically mutilated men, women and children, including amputating their hands or feet and carving "AFRC" and "RUF" on their bodies.
The Court's Chief Information, Officer, David Hecht, explained that the initial proceedings were hearings carried out by a judge to see whether the accused pleaded guilty or not guilty to charges brought against them. The pre-trial hearings are also meant to give the suspects an opportunity to say whether they needed defence counsels or not since, at the time of arrest the accused may not have had the opportunity to engage lawyers, for example, he told IRIN.
Court seen as a deterrent
Although the arrest of Norman came as a shock to some Sierra Leoneans, many felt the arrests and the work the court was doing were good. "You see there was a belief that people could just do whatever they wanted," Brahima Jalloh, a guard, told IRIN. "I think the arrests and the trials will make people not just kill and commit crime. I mean no one will just pick up a gun and start shooting or terrorizing others without being prosecuted."
Taxi driver Abdulai said: "Let them arrest them all. Let them not spare any." He was, however, sympathetic to Norman who, he said, courageously fought the RUF.
Good governance and human rights activist Zainab Bangura said all who had a hand in the crimes had to face the law since justice could not be selective. "This will stamp out the culture of impunity where people committed crimes without thinking of their effects on other people," Bangura said.
"It a very good precedent, but the debate should not stop at trying the big fish. For the local man/woman/child whose hand was chopped by someone he/ she possibly knows and not by those indicted by the Court, they would want to see their attacker dealt with too. So as those who bore the greatest responsibilities are dealt with, the people who actually carried out the acts should also be dealt with. This would be handled by the national judicial system," she said.
She noted, however, that that would require laws allowing for such prosecutions, financial resources to set up such systems and the capacity to carry out that kind of process.
Crane said the Sierra Leone people should follow the proceedings in the coming months because "this is about and for them". "A just and sustainable peace reinforced by the rule of law is now within their grasp," he said.
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Human Rights
[ENDS]
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