Kamajor, a major unit of the Civil Defence Force (CDF) of the 90s, has sprung up again ready for another combat operation in Sierra Leone, but calls for the army and the police not to allow them grow intensify as a stitch in times saves nine.
The Kamajor, the public suggest must be found and stopped before they strike. If they are not stopped, the police and army officers will be their key targets as it was in the past when over 300 police officers were hacked to death according to the Chief Prosecutor of the defunct Special Court for Sierra Leone, David Crane.
Police officers of North-Western backgrounds deployed in Kenema, Pujehun, Bo, Koribondo and other parts in the Southern region at that time were brutally murdered without just cause. Policemen of South-Eastern background too would also fall in the hands of the Kamajors whose penchant to kill had no limit. They were brainwashed into believing that Sierra Leone would be a land of milk and honey after the war and fighting in defence of their motherland was a civic duty. Police and military casualties became rolling statistics when Kamajor fighters were assured that they would undertake state security functions after the war.
The country’s natural wealth would come back to them and no foreigner would exploit their God-given resources at the expense of the nation. Military officers also succumbed to similar fate although their casualty figures remain unquantifiable. Soldiers who ran out of luck would be intercepted at Kamajor-manned roadblocks and tortured before slaughtered in cold blood. No efficient disciplinary mechanism existed among the Kamajor fighters and no gainsaying that innocent killings went uninvestigated.
Civilians in the South-East regions also bore the brunt of Kamajor activities as many were extra-judicially executed in public view. A mere allegation of collaboration with AFRC (Armed Forces Revolutionary Council)/RUF (Revolutionary United Front) fighters justified the brutal killings. As the spree of killings continued unabated, the Kamajor threat however was neutralised as they were resisted by some renegades who killed them in large numbers.
Relying on charms and amulets for protection, the local fighters forfeited basic military training, one of the factors that made them vulnerable in the battlefield dominated by well-trained and professional military men. Situation became worse for the Kamajors owing to the emergence of the other local fighter groups: the Ggethis, Kapras, Donsos and Tamaborohs in the North-West regions who robustly resisted them.
Several years have gone by without one hearing about Kamajor operatives not until few days ago when videos went viral on media platforms that the old local fighters were preparing to take up arms again. The decision to go back to war, according to some of them who spoke with the media, was a response to threats of annihilation of the Mende tribe by the APC (All People’s Congress) social media ventriloquist, Abdul Will Kamara based in Netherlands.
Unarmed and defenceless, the public was gripped with fear when youth in the South-East regions were arrested with Self-Loaded, AK-47 and 58 Rifles by army and police officers who acted on a tip off. The arrest scenes depict remote villages from where they could launch dangerous attacks and wreak havoc on poor and innocent Sierra Leoneans staring with those in the South-East.
Apart from calls for the army and the police to act now, local authorities (paramount chiefs, section chiefs, town chiefs/village heads) should not allow such a threat to persist as it is another brutal war in the build up without knowing who could be key targets or real victims. It could be the authorities themselves, but no one knows at the moment.
As a post-conflict state, the sad memories of the horrors of the past have not faded; it still lingers in people’s minds with most ready to unleash vengeance and grudges they have held for years.
The political class should not fall for the temptation that they would be protected when an all-out conflict emerges as no one is safe when law and order collapses. Even the diplomatic community in Sierra Leone should pay close attention to the military build up among the local warriors.
The current Kamajor movement should not be taken with a pinch of salt as it reminisced the 23 March, 1991 RUF era during which Corporal Foday Sankoh enlisted South-eastern youth with an objective of toppling the government of President Joseph Saidu Momoh and restore SLPP to power.
South-Easterners, according to reports, embraced Sankoh with most forming the RUF ranks, but it later turned out to be one of the most fatal mistakes for them. It was a terrible surprise for South-Easterners when the war campaign started as most of their villages were burned down and several settlements completely wiped. Traces of the RUF destruction are still visible today in such places as Koribondo, Valunia and other villages in Bo and Kenema districts where Kamajor fighters had gained a foothold. It took years before the war reached Freetown and some parts of the Northern regions.
Although President Momoh was later removed from power, it was a however a pyrrhic victory for the South-Eastern combatants as most paid a costly price. The people of Sierra Leone have every reason to fear again as another armed struggle is seemingly about to commence in the South-East with a spill-over effect to other communities in Sierra Leone.
Doubt about the source of arms and ammunition is pouring in but a prevailing suspicion holds that they received the guns from government agents.
But, others argue that local fighters might have gotten their weapons from those who broke into the armouries at Wilberforce and Murray Town military Barracks on November 26, this year. A large cache of weapons were also taken away from police facilities raided by assailants according to government officials. Whatever the source, a police investigation is ongoing, but they should not allow the possessors of the weapons enjoy a field day.
The investigation should be carried out devoid of any political gimmick as the safety and stability of the country should take precedence over party, tribe and region. The clues are already there as most police officers know where the kamajor movement was first formed, nurtured and nourished before it spiraled out of control. Police officers would also try to know the cause for resuscitating such a dangerous movement, and the question of whether they are trying to fight a surrogate war to maintain a hold on power or for the economy?
The Kamajor were a group of local fighters drawn largely from the Mende ethnic group in the South-East regions to protect then SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) government under President Ahmed Tejan Kabba and defend their communities during civil war (1991-2002). Its formation was attributed to the disband of the Sierra Leone Army who many accused of colluding with the rebels to kill and loot instead of living up to their constitutional mandate to guard and secure the country against external aggression.
The abolition of the national army by a presidential order was ultravires (outside the law) and it was one of President Kabba’s tragic mistakes that hunted him for the rest of his life. Without a recognised army, the Kamajors became the only fighters that communities would look up to for safety and protection. But, they too fell short of their basic responsibility when they turned their weapons against innocent civilians.
What appeared a war against North-westerners, the Kamajors killed, maimed, looted, pillaged, burned down houses, raped and sexually enslaved women and girls and conscripted children into the war faction, acts that constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity. With the war ending in 2002, a war crimes tribunal known as the Special Court for Sierra Leone was set up to hold accountable those who bear the greatest responsibility for the serious crimes committed during the civil war.
The Kamajor leadership consisting of Hinga Norman, National Coordinator for Civil Defence Force, Allieu Kondewai, Chief Priest and Moinina Fofanah, Director of War bore the greatest responsibility for the crimes of their subordinates and were tried, convicted and sentenced. Norman died while his case was pending at the court while the two others, Kondewai and Moinina served their jail terms in a Rwandan Prison. They have returned to Sierra Leone but with a permanent ban on public life till death.
But, as the elders of South-East advocate the restoration of another kamajor movement to protect a government which, many say, is illegitimate means no lesson has been learned from the past war.