In the diamond area of Sierra Leone, rebels and members of the pro-government militia mine side by side
Chris McGreal in Kenema
The rebels were easy to spot. The three young men in stylish clothes, wearing sunglasses in the light drizzle, quickly caught the eye of the Lebanese businessman. He beckoned the youths toward an array of chrome-enhanced stereos twinkling invitingly behind the counter.
“What have you got?” asked Kamal Jawad. “We pay more than the others. Let me see your diamonds.”
Sierra Leonians have long cursed diamonds for fuelling and funding a brutal civil war, but they are a mixed blessing in the government-held city of Kenema.
Far beyond the city’s borders, rebel fighters and members of the pro- government militia, the Kamajors, dig diamonds side by side and shun war for wealth. When the young Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels have enough to sell they come to Kenema to the Lebanese buyers whose stores line the main street.
It is no secret. Almost anyone in the city can spot the rebels. Until a few weeks ago they stayed in town overnight to make the most of the town’s bars and nightclubs before heading back to the bush. But war is looming in Sierra Leone’s diamond areas, so the RUF fighters now confine their visits to selling their gems and buying supplies to take back to rebel bases.
“They are too busy mining diamonds to want to fight,” says Kenema’s Provincial Secretary, Richard Freeman. “But it is not a good situation.
“Unfortunately many ordinary citizens help the rebels sell their diamonds and sell them supplies. They do not look at it that they are betraying their country, they look at it that they are making some money. That’s why you see a proliferation of diamond shops all over the city.”
Kenema is a drab city of about 150 000 people. Not many of its buildings have seen fresh paint in the past decade, except the line of brightly decorated stores along the main streets. Many signs include a picture of a diamond for those that cannot read the words “Friend of the diamond miner” or “Supporter of the diamond trade”.
Jawad sits in front of his shop, eyeing the passers-by. Anyone whose attention lingers for more than a moment on the array of stereos, watches and fans is coaxed in. But the electronic goods are merely the bait for other business, and his favoured clients are those with the tell-tale signs of being rebels.
The RUF fighters who wander into town are not in uniform and do not carry their guns, but that is no disguise. They may be dressed a little smarter. New jeans are a good clue. Rarely do they move alone. Virtually any Kenema resident can point out the rebels arriving on the back of a pick-up truck turned taxi.
The young men at Jawad’s store did indeed have diamonds to sell, but they wanted to do it in private. Twenty minutes later they emerged. They were not keen to talk. The three youths – all apparently in their late teens – looked blank on being asked where they were from.
Were they rebels? How much did they get for their diamonds? What will they do with the money? Eventually one of them broke the silence.
“Foday Sankoh [the captured rebel chief] is our leader and he says he wants peace. We do not want to fight anymore. This country needs peace so the government should stop attacking us and leave us to mine in peace. Then there will be no trouble,” said the rebel, who thought about it and then gave his name as “Man Killer”. The others smiled.
Jawad does not like to talk of his clients as rebels, or to discuss the scale of his business with them. But he does admit that the gems from the mines around and beyond Kenema are what keeps him and the rest of the dealers in business.
“It’s not my job to ask where the diamonds come from. It’s my job to be able to know who is here to sell diamonds and to give him a price we are both happy with. How can I control what he does with the money? That’s the government’s business. The government lets these people walk into the city and walk out again,” he says.
Freeman disagrees. “We can’t stop everyone coming into the city and a diamond is a product that is difficult to control. A man can easily hide a diamond even if you search him all over. The whole diamond business is a mafia business. It encourages people to deal with the rebels. We cannot control it.”
But Freeman concedes that the government has taken few measures, such as withdrawing the dealers’ licences. The diamond buyers say they receive visits from government officials who expect to be paid off. Freeman acknowledges that the Lebanese are sometimes asked to “contribute to the war effort”.
“Our forces are guarding the hydroelectric plant. Once in a while we go to the diamond dealers to solicit contributions for their upkeep, that kind of thing,” he said.
The truth is that Kenema survives in more ways than one from the rebel diamond industry. It not only generates money for the town, but it helps stave off an RUF assault. The rebels rely on the city as a market for their gems and a ready source of fuel, food and other supplies.
“What I’ve realised about the rebels in this area is because they’ve enjoyed the diamond mining they don’t want to be disturbed. They need to keep the city running as it is,” said Captain Mana Amponsom-Boateng, the intelligence officer of the Ghanaian United Nations peacekeepers in Kenema.
“In the north they prefer to attack so they can loot to survive, but here they have diamonds.”
But that set-up is threatened by the war spreading from the north. Tensions have risen as government forces press toward the rebel headquarters at Makeni and pledge to seize the diamond areas held by the RUF.
It is possible that many rebels from the northern areas – where they are more used to murder, rape and looting than mining – will move down to protect the RUF’s diamond supply.
There are also indications that Liberian President Charles Taylor is planning to ensure the rebels defend the mines from which he too has profited considerably.
But, for now, Freeman says he does not believe that the rebels around the city want to join the fight.
“In our own little way we have been
sending feelers to the RUF. Some of these rebel commanders have relatives in the city here so we send them to talk to them. They are indicating that they don’t want to go on fighting, they don’t see any gains after all those years. What makes us hesitate is that they are still holding on to their guns,” he said.
“But if they attack here, it’s a matter of tit for tat. A lot of the rebels have wives in the city. If they attack, we will take control of their families. They know that.”
The equilibrium was almost upset three weeks ago during a visit to Kenema by Sierra Leone’s Deputy Minister of Defence, Samuel Hinga Norman. He is also leader of the excitable Kamajor pro- government militia. During the visit, the deputy minister promised to rearm the Kamajors and dispatch them to attack the RUF.
“It wasn’t a wise pronouncement,” said Amponsom-Boateng. “It incensed the RUF and made things very tense for a few days. If they really did intend to attack, then it’s not wise to tell people beforehand. We tried to do some negotiation.
“We wrote a letter from our headquarters, gave it to the chairman of the bus drivers’ union and told him to deliver it to the RUF commander who used to call himself ‘Man O’War’. Now he says he’s called ‘Man O’Peace’. The letter said we weren’t planning to attack anybody.”
If it came to a fight, Kenema would be in trouble. For years, the city relied on Nigerian troops of the West African intervention force, Ecomog, and the Kamajor militia to keep the rebels at bay. But Ecomog is gone and most of the Kamajors surrendered their weapons under the collapsed peace accords.
There are 548 Sierra Leone army soldiers in Kenema, but not one of them has a gun. So the city looks to nearly 800 UN peacekeepers. But after the woeful performance of UN troops across other parts of Sierra Leone last month, when hundreds of peacekeepers surrendered to the rebels mostly without firing a shot, Kenema’s residents are wary.
“Ecomog protected the city,” said Freeman. “I cannot say people have faith in the UN to do the same. People ask the question: how do you allow the rebels to surround you and take you prisoner? People think that if it had been Ecomog they would not stand for it. So there is that question mark.”
The lack of faith may be misplaced. The Ghanaians were previously with Ecomog near Freetown, and inflicted casualties on the rebels to prove it. In April, shortly after the Ghanaians arrived in Kenema, the RUF attacked one of its posts.
“It was just a probing attack,” said Amponsom-Boateng. “They thought that as soon as we heard pistol fire we would evacuate. That’s when we made it clear we would fight. They haven’t done it again.”
But the Ghanaians are quietly reassembling the guns taken from the Kamajors for the day when the order comes to rearm the militia.