Based on recollections of past correspondence with folks in Kenema and Bo, a decision was made sometime in 1993/1994 that no amount of RUF/RSLMF intimidation would make folks abandon Kenema or Bo. Hence, they started talking about finding ways to fight back. But, it was not until a muslim cleric (I only know his Mualimu title) claimed to be able to make potions that would make people invincible to bullets that folks were able to really act on their plan to fight back. I believe the Mualimu appeared in Bo sometime in 1995. Then the rebels closed the Bo-Mile 91 and Kenema-Bo road in the ummer of 1995, thereby creating massive starvation. Folks in Kenema and Bo saw this as an RUF and SOBEL attempt at exterminating them. That the NPRC did nothing to help the situation convinced the starving folks that the NPRC were in league with the rebels and Sobels, and were hence also the enemy. This is what made people brave bullets on election day to vote for the party they thought had the best chance of ending the war. (In fact, on election day when the people of Bo were braving bullets to go and vote, they sang as follows: "Nd)lei nah wu pii Bo ma faa mia mu K)lei gula ma [It’s because of the famine you imposed on Bo that we are voting])."

When food started getting to Bo and Kenema after the siege had been broken, the people decided to never again allow themselves to be so "victimized". Thus, they started saving some of their rations (I believe it was two cups per family per month) and contributing it to a chiefdom reserve, which was sold in order to finance the initiation of their youths into the Kamajor movement for their respective chiefdoms. Remember that the rumour that the Mualimu’s potion made the Kamajors invincible to AK47s had bouyed their reputation among the people and imbued fears in the rebels.

While in Sierra Leone in May/June this year, I attended many meetings with folks from my chiefdom on this issue. Hence, I know that its genesis and constitution has nothing to do with President Kabbah or with the elections. In my opinion, it was the genocidal famine that people experienced in 1995 which convinced folks that only they could guarantee their own freedom. Thus, when the Mualimu appeared to give them the psychological boost of invincibility, folks readily took up the challenge.

I also had the opportunity to chat informally with one of President Kabbah’s advisers. When I asked him about the President’s views on the Kamajor movement, he responded that the President felt that such a movement would not augur well for a democracy, and that the President was very committed to the peace process begun by the NPRC. And, even while the negotiations were going on in Ivory Coast, the first batch of Kamajors had begun liberating villages in the Bo area as early as May/June without any support materially or otherwise) from the Kabbah administration. How then do you conclude that it was Kabbah’s election that gave zeal to the people to defend themselves?

I will also suggest that the clashes between the Kamajors and RSLMF personnel in Kenema in which Kamajors held their own (many soldiers were said to have been killed and buried in secret graves) convinced the Kabbah administration that the Kamajors were a force worthy of a second look. Remember that immediately before this clash, the people of Bo and Kenema had asked President Kabbah to remove his troops from their land, which they intended to defend by themselves, because they viewed the RSLMF as part and parcel of the problem. I propose that when he realized that the people intended on defending themselves anyway, and that he had no choice in the matter, President Kabbah did what any crafty politician would do: He supported the Kamajors with support from EO, and Nigerian and Guinean troops (not the RSLMF) to finish the job the Kamajors had been accomplishing all along, albeit by piecemeal.

Whether one can rightly construe this as evidence of the elections catalysing the peace process is a judgment call. I prefer to believe that the people had learned from the famine of 1995 that only they had the responsibilty for their own safety. They learned from the their earlier successes against the RUF and from their clashes with army personnel, which were better armed, that they were indeed capable of giving the rebels a good fight, especially given their belief that AK47s could not harm them. I believe therefore that the tide in this war would have changed for ever, whether we had elections or not. That the elction of President Kabbah might have speeded up the process a notch is, in my opinion, too marginal a variable to warrant according it the prominence you seem to be giving it. Hence, while I see the peace accord and the election to be highly corellated, I do not see any causation between them. Perhaps they were both caused by a third factor—the famine of 1995 and the NPRC’s inability or reluctance to do anything about it. This, in my opinion, does not obscure any other contributions Dr. Jonah might have made to recent Salone history. Let’s just give credit where it is due in this case.

Stay warm.

Kelfala M. Kallon