In few days, the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) will submit a list of detainees arrested for election and protest offences between 2018 and 2023 as demanded by a peace deal that was reached almost two weeks ago.
The move is to ensure that those kept behinds bars for election and protest-related offences get back their freedom after months, if not years, of ordeal. Most were picked up by police officers when people took to the streets in opposition to Sierra Leone’s high cost of living which had been hard hitting. It still continues to this day.
Others were even taken out of their homes, bundled into trucks and driven into prison and police cells on mere suspicion of being an anti-APC. From the outset, government has been indiscriminately arresting dozens of Sierra Leoneans on concocted evidence. They would detain and later release them without charges. Hundreds are still held in custody waiting to be released.
Acts which should have amounted to mere protest and public order offences were hyped to treasonable acts with particular reference to August 10, 2022 demonstration in Freetown and other parts upcountry. During the protest those who called for Bio to go were said to be coupists.
The exact number of people held in police and prison cells across the country is yet unquantified as government has been playing magic with numbers. Government officials will suggest a low figure of those either arrested or killed during the intermittent waves of protest Sierra Leone has seen recently.
Authorities offered low casualty figures for those killed during protest in Makeni, Lunsar, Tombo, Mile-91 and Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital. Low figures were also submitted in respect of the killings at Pademba Road prison in Freetown and at the correctional centre on Pademba Road.
Senior officials in the party are however calling on the affected families to come with personal details and photos of those held in custody for onward submission to the SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party)-led government.
The list in question is in compliance with a communique signed between the ruling party and the APC after a three-day dialogue facilitated by the Commonwealth, African Union and ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States).
Resolution-4 states that: “parties to the dialogue agree to release any person arrested, detained and imprisoned for alleged elections and civil protest informed by a list to be submitted by the APC and other political parties and considered by the Government of Sierra Leone.”
Although the resolution generalises the submission of list by other political parties, it goes without saying that SLPP bears the responsibility since it is in governance, and it is the party that hold protesters of other political parties in prison custody.
The clause also compels parties to the agreement to support the resettlement of political party supporters internally and externally displaced due to political intimidation, attacks and harassment, and the release must be informed by a list to be submitted by the APC and other political parties and to be considered by the Government of Sierra Leone as soon as possible.
Although the communique is not legally binding, it however behoves on President Julius Maada Bio to respect all resolutions therein to uphold the peace and stability of Sierra Leone.
Officials of the ruling party are worried and jittery about the list to be submitted owing to allegations of secret killings and disappearances of detainees while in custody. The question of what is going to happen when names are submitted, but the name bearers are not there is being murmured in every corner of Sierra Leone.
Bio’s government came under test in the courtroom, about three years ago, after the Pademba Road Prison Massacre in which 31 inmates including a prison officer perished under the barrel of the gun in April, 2020.
Case files announced in court could not be answered to as there were no accused persons to answer to charges thus raising suspicion that the absentees were those killed during the prison raid.
SLPP government will also have to answer questions in respect of those who disappeared during a protest in Makeni city in which the youth resisted to the relocation of an electricity generator from Makeni to Lungi town.
After the killings, authorities had previously fixed the number of fatalities at six while local residents said the number was 20. ThE discrepancies will continue for other killings in several parts of the country.
In Lunsar, the number of those arrested and killed is also not exactly known for now except the list is submitted to the party’s executive.
However, a discrepancy in figureS between official and unofficial sources cannot be ruled out.
Even in Tombo fishing community, there has never been an agreed figure of those arrested as well as killed during the protest although government had announced that those arrested have been freed. The exact number of those picked up and detained in August 10, 2022 and September 11, 2023 is also unknown as allegations of extra-judicial killings came up particularly against former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Lahai Lawrence Leema.
The submission of list will be much more dangerous as the United States and credible international human rights agencies continue to call on Sierra Leone Government to bring to justice those responsible for the unlawful arrest and detention as well as those who shot dead armless and defenceless civilians.
Recently, Amnesty International urged government to investigate those suspected to have carried out any act of human rights abuse so that a deterrent would be created. Adding weight to calls for investigation of human rights, Foreign Relations Committee of the United States has also urged government to investigate the human rights abuses committed in the past five years.
“I encourage all sides to fulfil their commitments and hold accountable those for the election-related violence, intimidation and significant manipulation of the June-24 general results,” US Senate official urged Sierra Leone Government.
In a media interview, President Julius Maada Bio himself assured Sierra Leoneans and the international community that the killers or human rights abusers would not go unpunished.
In what appears a whittling down of international calls for investigation of human rights abuses, the ruling party also promised to submit a similar list prompting the question of who is in governance?