Dear Alie,
Much thanks for taking the time to reply. I am aware that the issues we are dealing with are very complex and sensitive but we have to confront them if we are to move forward. Let me state that my primary interest in this issue is to help the public to understand the background that led to the RUF war so that we would not have to relive the tragic events of the last five years. I am not interested in holding individual x or y guilty of this or that crime. I believe I am not competent and, indeed, I have no mandate, to do this. In other words, this exercise is not meant to be a witch-hunt or a trial. I am mainly interested in what happened. Individuals like you with inside knowledge of aspects of our country’s recent problems can help a great deal in facilitating this process. We cannot solve or prevent problems if we do not understand the problems. Indeed, with the signing of the peace treaty there could be no better time than now to discuss these issues—in the open; and in the spirit of what could well be a "truth commission".
28 Sierra Leoneans "took a comprehensive ideological and military training" in Libya. You are a founding member of PANAFU; the only FBC student to have joined the organisation in 1982.
PANAFU recruited Sankoh: You wrote the original PANAFU document, which the RUF later copied and distorted for its own use. IB disputes this.
2. You did not know Charles Taylor in Ghana. The late Rashid Mansaray (founding member of the RUF) was Sidi Jalloh’s "little boy". Sidi Jalloh was introduced to PANAFU by Pious (Foray). The revolutionary core—Victor Rider (Ebee), Abu Kanu (Buza), Rashid Mansaray, Jeffrey Williams (Bawulay), Sheriff (Samzo) are different from the lumpens in Liberia that later joined the RUF. I-Rash (Ishmael Rashid) made one trip from "Accra to Freetown to co-ordinate the travel plans, if necessary, for cadres".
You were the "peripatetic link/co-coordinator". Your support for the armed struggle was for defensive purposes. The Ghana government did not "bless" your academic and non-academic activities when you were in Ghana. Any close reading of these 12 points should indicate that IB’s posting is not "junk" or fiction even if some of the details may be wrong. By the way, his posting does not locate you in two places. You are not in the war front. Indeed, according to his piece, you broke up with the movement (or left) before the war started. The main question is whether you are willing to address the other issues that locate you in the events that took place between 1985 and 1988. Let me list them o simplify matters.
3.It would help a lot if you could explain your role as a "peripatetic link/co- coordinator". What exactly does this mean? Did you co-ordinate the military and ideological training? Where? Who took part? Do you have any idea about how much money was made available by the Libyans for the Sierra Leone "revolution"? How much went through you as "peripatetic link/co-coordinator"? Did you ever quarrel with your comrades over this money? Did you meet Sankoh in Libya? What was your relationship? Did you later fall out with him? If so, Why? Did you put Sankoh through the rigours of military training in Libya? Is it true that he wanted to avoid military training on medical grounds?
Did you quarrel with some or all of the 28 cadres who received training in Libya? What was the basis of the quarrel? Did you attempt to set up a High Command in Libya? How many trips did you make to Libya after 1985? Did you go to Libya after your undergraduate studies at Legon in 1987? You said that Charles Taylor was unknown to you in Ghana. Did you know him in Libya, or anywhere else? Have you ever met him in real life? Did you recruit youths in Koindu for Charles Taylor’s NPFL? Was there ever a debate among your group in Ghana in which you expressed preference to recruit "pote" smokers for the Sierra Leone "revolution"?
What ideas would you say were most important in guiding the discourse of revolutionary change among your group? How important was the Green Book to you and your comrades? Did you ever try to get PANAFU to engage in armed violent activities? What was the link between you and those who were "expelled" from PANAFU? (thanks for correcting my reading of IB’s statement. He did not say that you were expelled. He said that those who were expelled were those who took the line of armed struggle). Indeed, were you a member of PANAFU when you were in Ghana? Could you please explain a bit what you mean by differences over questions of "pace" in the events leading to the split within PANAFU?
4. A few general points following from your letter. I am not suggesting in my comments on IB’s piece that the best option would have been "to wait for the ‘proletariat’ to lead the ‘revo’ against the APC". All I am saying is that if you want to promote a successful revolution it must have the support and active participation of those who are expected to benefit from the revolution. This is a very elementary social—not just Marxist— truth. Such support is necessary to impose discipline on "revolutionaries" or political actors. IB has given us a picture of the class nature of the movement that led to the formation of the RUF. I await your own insights on who the people were who participated in this movement; and what the discourse of the movement was. Two things stand out in IB’s postings.
First is that a large number of the cadres were young, unemployed and alienated from the mainstream of society— some were secondary school students, others were expelled college students and therefore with an axe to grind with authority, and still others were dropouts from school. The second point is that "pote" smoking tended to be a defining feature of the behaviour of some of the cadres. It seems to me that a movement of this nature suffers from two disabilities: alienation from meaningful productive activities, which could lead to a lack of appreciation of the everyday concerns of ordinary people in the social mainstream; and the constraints of the drug culture. Both can easily breed voluntarism or adventurism.
I have been an uncompromising critic of "military vanguardism" since my undergraduate days, which is about 25 years ago. I taught a very popular course (more than 100 students at any given year) on Marxist theory and developing countries during much of the 1980s in Zaria and took part in numerous public activities in which, among other things, the concept of "military vanguardism" was often sharply criticised. One of our leading intellectuals, Bjorn Beckman, even reviewed our general opposition to the "military vanguardists" in an excellent article in the Review of African Political Economy. Most radical students who passed through Zaria knew the limitations of military vanguardism.
Indeed, when in 1983 Rawlings embarked on a hunt for the Ghana Left, which was largely responsible for tutoring Rawlings and for creating what came to be known as the Ghana revolution of 1982-83, a large number fled to Nigeria. They were amazed at the very high level of discourse on Marxian political economy and the strong opposition of the Zaria school to military vanguardism. We had very long discussions with them on the limitations of what they had practiced in Ghana and some did not like to hear the view that what had happened to them was somehow inevitable. We had two colleagues from Ethiopia who had escaped Mengistu’s rein of terror on the radical student movement that helped to overthrow the dictatorial and feudal regime of Emperor Haile Selasie. They knew what we were taking about.
We never thought that a different type of "revolutionary animal" was being reared in our sub-region—and in my own country! A project, it seems, which was not only unconnected with popular struggles ( the struggles of the labour movement, professional associations, peasant associations and communities, urban informal sector groups and activities, the women’s movement etc.) but which was compradorial in nature—i.e. dependent on a foreign power, Libya, for finance and training. Our practical worries in Nigeria focused on the tendency of African radicals to seek short cuts to the "revolution" through the military -- Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Benin, Liberia were some of the models we warned our students against.
We never took the colonel (Gadafi) seriously although we sympathised with his anti-imperialist rhetoric. Indeed, when the Americans bombed his country in the mid-1980s there were spontaneous rallies all over Nigeria in his support.
I remember addressing a massive crowd of more 10,000 people at the convocation square in Zaria. But the Green Book, though read, was not popular on any of the campuses. The main danger, as we saw it, was the military, not a group of radicals deciding to make instant revolution. Indeed, there was nothing we dreaded like Babangida’s appointment of Major Umar (who had a reputation for radical rhetoric in the army) as governor of Kaduna State, where our university was located. True to our prediction, a section of radicals warmed up to him as part of their "revolutionary" strategy. Fortunately the relationship did not last (Umar was too close to Babangida) and the young officers coup never materialised.
The thing is, the military is always a military institution— commandist, impatient, and anti-intellectual. History teaches that radical military officers always eliminate radical intellectuals when they get into power. Where successful revolutionaries had enlisted the support of the army, they had done so as part of a wider strategy of subordinating the coercive apparatus of the state to party/civil discipline—the Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Cuban revolutions are good examples. Just two additional questions. The first follows from your reply to Eljay’s question about how much our governments knew about what was going on. You are calling on ex-members of the NPRC on the Net to help with the answer.
Well, there were two individuals who later became ministers in the NPRC government who were in Ghana at the time you were there—ex-Major Jumu (former special adviser at State House) and Victor Brandon (former Minister of Development). How much do they know? The second question is this: with hindsight would you say that the decision to have eight angry radical students plus one lecturer— all whom justifiably felt let a sense of injustice from their home university and government—in a foreign country where they are likely to be alienated from the host society was a terrible price the country has had to pay. The thing is that your daily discussions are likey to be centred on your collective experiences and a burning desire for revenge. You may not have other social connections and activities that are likely to distract your attention and defuse the tension. Would you say that the colonel got you just where he wanted you to be—a place where you would be vulnerable, isolated and self-absorbed? I hope that your book would at least throw light on these issues.
Finally, I thought about adding a fourth point to the lessons we ought to draw from this episode. I have already listed three in my previous comments on IB’s piece. Here is the fourth. Colonial rule; post-independent governments, especially those of Stevens and Momoh; the NPRC; and the RUF have one major thing in common: they all represent the exploitation of the country-side by city-based politicians and actitivists. The APC ruled through purposeful use of selective violence in the country-side, often transporting city-based thugs and party youth to carry out dirty and violent acts in rural areas. Under the NPRC, soldiers competed with the RUF to commit awful atrocities in rural communities.
And the RUF turned mass violence against rural people into a systematic project. Rural people may have collaborated in the anti-rural projects of all regimes but it is to the leaders that we should turn if we want to understand why rural people were forced to act against rural people. Most if not all the leaders are from the city. Those who seek to explain the RUF war as an uprising of forest or rural people against Freetown-based elites should rethink their aynalytical frameworks in the light of IB’s revelations. When and how will the country-side put an end to the marauding bands of city-based politicians and "revolutionaries"?
All best wishes,
Yusuf
P.S. The conference in Bangladesh was a big success. I stayed behind to talk to people in the NGO/civil society sector. Had a fruitful meeting with Mohamad Yunus and his staff and visited some of their projects. I was really impressed by the Bangladeshi creativity on NGOs. I am planning to use part of the Xmas break to write short stories about my impressions—i.e. if my children would allow me.