Chaos Eases in Sierra Leone Capital, but Fears Remain

For the first time in more than nine months, street trader Mohammed Bah can sell his sacks of flour without fear of being beaten up.

Intimidation, unfair taxes and random confiscations of goods were common during the rule of the military junta that was recently expelled from Sierra Leone by a West African intervention force.

“They thought they could do anything they wanted,” said Bah, 30, who shares a stall on Kissy Street in this city’s now bustling main business district. “They would pay any price they wanted to pay. Sometimes, they just took what they wanted without paying. It was a terrible thing.”

But though life in the seaside capital of this tiny West African nation of hazy skies and silky white beaches has regained some semblance of normality, observers say the crisis is far from over.

“A lot of people are saying Freetown is quiet, so the rest of the country is quiet, but it’s exactly the opposite,” said Lise Boudreault, deputy head of a delegation in Sierra Leone for the International Committee of the Red Cross. “Upcountry, it is completely chaos.”

Deposed Sierra Leonean President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has his work cut out for him when he makes his expected return home today after nine months in exile in neighboring Guinea:

* At least 200,000 civilians have fled to neighboring countries, while thousands more have been displaced.

* The economy, which even before the siege was one of the five poorest in Africa, has virtually ground to a halt.

* Shops, hospitals and homes have been stripped of everything from furniture to door handles to toilet seats.

* In the capital alone, about 500 bombed-out and burned houses litter the landscape of board-and-tin structures, in which many ordinary Freetown residents have always lived.

* The army is defunct, and there is only a skeletal internal security force. While hundreds of rebel soldiers and supporters of the military junta have surrendered--and scores more have been killed in revenge attacks by angry civilians--thousands of others remain at large, including coup leader Lt. Col. Johnny Paul Koroma.

Many of the rebels have shed their uniforms and blended into the civilian population--just waiting, some observers believe, for the opportunity to launch another coup in this country that has suffered three putsches since 1992.

The cost of even partially rebuilding this war-ravaged nation, a former British colony, will run well into the billions of dollars, analysts estimate.

Preliminary local bank statistics reveal that the junta ran up $1.2 billion in foreign exchange debts through dubious transactions. Millions more were plundered and diverted from the state coffers. Though an international trade embargo against Sierra Leone has not officially been lifted, consumer goods have begun to trickle into Freetown’s main port.

But food, medicine and fuel remain in short supply, and prices have skyrocketed out of the reach of average citizens. Two pounds of rice, which sold for as much as $45 during the height of the crisis, now go for upward of $13--but that’s still far too expensive for most to afford.

The capital’s streets are almost devoid of vehicles because gasoline prices start at $10 a gallon.

Relief workers estimate that at least 75,000 people may be in need of food aid in the capital alone, although the country is rich in mineral resources and an abundance of arable land.

Sierra Leonean officials are eager to collect $900 million in pledges made by international donors just before the coup. But U.N. sources say this will largely depend on whether Sierra Leone can maintain a certain level of stability, and on the economic policies of Kabbah’s reinstated government.

“Everything hinges on internal security,” said Elizabeth Lwanga, the U.N. Development Program representative for Sierra Leone. “And the donors will want to see what kind of new government structure is coming up.”

Kabbah has pledged to reorganize and downsize his Cabinet and to appoint ministers on the basis of merit as opposed to ethnicity or favoritism.

“More emphasis will be placed on professionalism and probity,” he said in an address shortly after the Nigerian-led intervention force captured Freetown. “Ours will be essentially a government of technocrats.” All Cabinet ministers and their deputies have been ordered to submit their resignations after Kabbah’s return.

But many residents say their first priority is relief from the bully tactics of rebel soldiers.

“They would try to steal money from us,” said Alie Seisay, a money-changer who does business amid the infectious hum of calypso music and the spicy aroma of roasted meat that permeates the air on sun-drenched Kissy Street. He said he dismantled and hid his television and video recorder so that junta supporters couldn’t lay their hands on them.

“If you had a nice car or good motorbike, you were in trouble,” Seisay said. “They would just take it.”

In the courtyard of the capital’s police headquarters, hundreds of stolen cars, jeeps and trucks stolen by the rebels and later recovered by the peacekeeping force--many of them seriously damaged--await collection by their rightful owners.

Salah Khalil’s four-wheel-drive Toyota Landcruiser and Mercedes-Benz 300 were commandeered at gunpoint by retreating rebel soldiers who also looted his house.

“There was nothing we could do,” said Khalil, a successful Freetown businessman. “They wanted to kill us all.”

Khalil escaped with a group of friends and relatives after trekking for five days and almost 100 miles through forests and swamps to the border with Guinea. His sister-in-law had a miscarriage along the way; his 2-year-old niece was stricken with malaria.

Still, Khalil, who said he lost more than $350,000 worth of goods and has taken refuge in the Guinean capital, Conakry, is eager to return to Sierra Leone and resume business.

Thousands of businesspeople and potential foreign investors who fled or forfeited their ventures are more cautious and have opted to wait for more concrete signs of stability. Observers say they might have to wait several months, even years.

A low-intensity bush war is already underway, since most of the rebels--including Koroma--are known to have fled to far-flung rural areas, determined to sneak or fight their way across the border to neighboring countries. The West African peacekeepers have launched a massive manhunt. In Freetown, the peacekeepers have set up checkpoints throughout the city, scrutinizing pedestrians and passengers and randomly checking baggage. The peacekeepers will supervise a new military created from a skeleton force of army recruits who helped the intervention force defeat the junta.

“Our army was a rebel army of ragtag, undisciplined zombies, murderers and dehumanized creatures,” said Paul Kamara, editor of the independent newspaper For Di People, chairman of the National League for Human Rights and Democracy. “They were simply dogs of war.”

“We need a strong occupational force until we are satisfied with our security force,” said Suliaman Banja Tejan-sie, President Kabbah’s spokesman. “For now, Sierra Leoneans are security-conscious. They see ECOMOG [the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group] as their saviors.”

Residents of Freetown praise the conduct of the primarily Nigerian force, who appear to mingle comfortably with civilians.

But some observers say a long-term occupational force is not what Sierra Leone needs, because it would show a failure by the government to ensure stability.

Critics are wary that Nigeria, West Africa’s economic and military powerhouse--and the country that pushed hardest for an armed intervention in Sierra Leone--may be more interested in exploiting diamond resources than in nation-building in this country. It is an intention Nigerian officials deny.

“If [Kabbah] wants ECOMOG in his country, fine. If he doesn’t, fine,” said brigade commander Col. Raoof Apata, noting that the success of his forces in Sierra Leone was a victory for all Africa.

For most residents of Freetown, the important thing is not who will enforce peace in their battle-scarred nation but that the guns of war fall silent forever.

“I’m looking forward to the president coming back,” said George Turay, 34, a taxi driver whose business came to a standstill while the junta was in power. “It was a hell of a time here. Those boys were really brutalizing people. We fought for democracy, and we need it now.”