Freetown Part 6: Hopes

Foday Sankoh, now imprisoned, led the rebels in a 10-year battle for power

By Sorious Samura

When the man responsible for the abuse of Sasko, Tamba, Mariama and thousands of other children returned here in December 1999, he arrived not as a rebel but as chairman of our minerals and mines and with the status of a vice president.

At peace talks his military successes had been transformed into government posts for him and four other RUF officials.

His new home in Freetown was a long way from the bush where he'd spent 10 long years on his campaign for power.

When Cpl. Foday Sankoh set up his office as newly appointed chairman of the Commission for the Management of Strategic Resources, he must have thought that he and his movement had achieved true victory.

SPECIAL REPORT Follow Sorious Samura's Return to Freetown:  • Introduction  • Part 1: Release  • Part 2: Reunion  • Part 3: Beginnings  • Part 4: Memories  • Part 5: Doubts  • Part 6: Hopes    EXTRA INFORMATION Read Samura's account of his meeting with a rebel leader  in CNN Traveller  magazine   IN-DEPTH • Cry Freetown  • Exodus from Africa    RELATED SITE Sorious Samura's Africa

He controlled Sierra Leone's vast gold and diamonds. He had his hands on the purse strings. And all the killings of all the innocents that had gone before must have seemed justified to him. Because at the big peace conference at Lome which gave him this job, the big and powerful players in the outside world like America and Britain supported his appointment.

And the message that all of us in Sierra Leone learned then was to understand very well that might appears to be right, and that those prepared to be ruthless tend to get what they want.

But Sankoh's privileges did not last for long. In May 2000, Sankoh's bodyguards opened fire on a demonstration and killed 15 protesters.

U.N. soldiers captured some of the bodyguards, but Sankoh escaped.

Two weeks later, a policeman on a street in Freetown arrested him.

Today Foday Sankoh is back in prison. No one, apart from senior government officials, knows where he is.

'You are now family'

A fragile peace agreement has been negotiated for Sierra Leone, and the people here are trying to recover as best they can -- despite their memories of death, amputations and the abduction of their children.

The three children we met are also trying to adjust to their new lives.

Tamba's father wants him to go back to school, but everything's destroyed -- including the schools.

"I want to be a big man, so that when I speak to two or three people they will follow me, like in the RUF," Tamba says.

"How are you going to achieve that status without proper education?" I ask him.

"Because the rebels have spoiled all this. Because if it wasn't for them I would be a better person. But all the same, I want to learn again."

So with no school and no prospects in Kono, Tamba and his father made a big decision. Tamba asked to come back to Mrs. Mani in Freetown to go to school, and she has agreed.

"You are now family, yah?" Mrs. Mani tells him. "So please make sure you do well. They are ready to help you. We're all going to help you, yah? For you to get a decent life so you'll be a big man in the future. So we'll be proud of you. Yah?"

Still hurting

Meanwhile, Sasko is busy catching up. With the help of his father, his dream is coming true: He's now being trained as a builder.

He and his father have both been involved in the war, and so now they have reached a practical understanding.

And then there was Mariama -- as distant as ever when we met for the last time.

"How are you? How is the house?" I ask her. "Talk to me now! I've come to see you. You're not even looking at me. How are you?"

"I'm OK," she says.

"What has happened to you since I last saw you? Have you told your mother your stories?"

Mariama was clearly not happy. I wondered again if we should not have left her in Makeni with the people she has spent most of her life with.

Like so many thousands of children in my country, she is hurt by this war. We can do all the obvious things to help them, but in the end they must forgive us all for allowing what happened to happen to them.

'No truth, no love'

There may be a peace process in Sierra Leone and Foday Sankoh arrested and imprisoned, but many of the same circumstances that brought about this horrible revolution are still here.

Education doesn't get priority. Still large numbers of children don't go to school and don't see any hope for the future.

And now the boys on the streets have new ideas, ideas we certainly didn't have when we were growing up.

"Somebody like me, if you open my heart right now, it's Britain that's written in there," says one boy. "We need white people like the British, yes, because they can do better for us."

"How come we can't look after ourselves except if the white man comes and look after us?" I ask.

"Well it's because we don't like ourselves," says another boy. "There's no truth, no love. How will we be able to change ourselves when there is no truth, no love. You hate this man and he hates the other man. You don't want to see the other man prosper. If this man is trying to earn there, you try to destroy him. If this man is sitting properly you go and say the man is sitting badly. So how do you want us to live?"

I was really surprised to hear this, that we're all giving up on ourselves. I just don't want to believe it, but most of the people here agreed.

People here have fought and died and lived and wondered, and many of them simply want to forget about this senseless war.

But the question now is: How sure are we that this is not going to happen again when we still continue to marginalise, neglect and disrespect our young people -- the very foundation we all rely on for a decent future?

And will there be peace in Sierra Leone? Only if we emerge from the shadow of all this evil. There are so many traumatised children trying to live a normal life. Our future depends on them.