Amnesty International Report 1996 - Sierra Leone

Suspected government opponents were subject to arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and ill-treatment and extrajudicial execution. Those held included prisoners of conscience. Eight soldiers were accused of plotting to overthrow the government but had not been tried by the end of the year. Four other soldiers were sentenced to death by military courts but no executions were reported. Armed opponents of the government committed gross human rights abuses, including deliberate and arbitrary killings, torture and hostage-taking. There was continued conflict between government forces and the armed opposition Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in which both sides committed gross abuses, including deliberate killings of civilians. Thousands of people were forced to flee their homes because of the fighting and either became internally displaced or fled to neighbouring Guinea and Liberia. It was impossible in many cases to attribute responsibility for specific abuses: attackers almost always wore army uniforms but it was often unclear whether they were RUF rebels, government soldiers acting under orders, or government soldiers committing crimes on their own account. In some cases, attacks attributed to the RUF by government sources, such as those on civilians in Kono District, a mineral-rich area of Eastern Province, appeared actually to have been carried out by soldiers intent on looting property and illegally mining diamonds. The National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), headed by Captain Valentine Strasser, which seized power in a military coup in 1992, proposed an immediate cease-fire and negotiations in April. This was rejected by the RUF, which continued to call for the withdrawal of foreign troops and for the NPRC to cede power to a national conference. International efforts to mediate by the UN, the Organization of African Unity and the Commonwealth had not resulted in talks between the government and the RUF by the end of the year. The military government announced in April that the ban on political activity in force since 1992 would be lifted in preparation for parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for late 1995. However, the NPRC passed a decree barring former President Joseph Saidu Momoh and 56 other former government officials from holding public office for 10 years. Despite the continuing conflict, a national consultative conference recommended in August that both parliamentary and presidential elections should take place by February 1996. Fifteen political parties were registered; the RUF did not apply for registration as a political party. Government soldiers were responsible for widespread human rights violations, including torture, mutilation and extrajudicial executions. The victims included captured rebels and suspected RUF sympathizers, but also many civilians who were killed or injured by looting troops. Many captured rebels were summarily executed; victims were often mutilated and then beheaded. For example, two RUF fighters captured at Lunsar, Northern Province, in January were summarily decapitated by government troops, and 15 rebels captured in the Bo area of Southern Province in September were reported to have been publicly executed by the army. Strong evidence also emerged that Patrick P. B. Kebbie, a prominent lawyer killed in December 1994 (see Amnesty International Report 1995), had been shot by government soldiers and not, as was officially claimed, by RUF forces. However, there was no official inquiry into his death. Nor was any action taken by the government against two soldiers who were found by an official inquiry to have contributed to the deaths of an Irish priest and a Dutch family in 1994 (see Amnesty International Report 1995), despite a recommendation that they be charged and tried. They were both allowed to return to active military service. The fate of many people who were detained as rebel suspects was unclear at the end of the year and there were fears for their safety. More than 100 people were detained in the area of Freetown, the capital, after an upsurge in rebel activity in January. Unlike previous suspects, who had been held without charge or trial at the Central Prison, Pademba Road, they were taken to Cockerill Military Headquarters. Some were released after questioning but it was unclear how many. At least 60 captured or suspected rebels were reported to be detained at the Military Headquarters in November, some of whom may have been tortured. There were fears that others may have been extrajudicially executed in military custody. In November, four members of the RUF were arrested in Guinea and transferred to the custody of Sierra Leonean security forces, apparently under the terms of a defence agreement between the two countries. They were subsequently detained in Freetown. They were accused of attempting to procure arms in Guinea but had not been formally charged by the end of 1995. Government soldiers were also responsible for torture and ill-treatment in circumstances unrelated to the conflict. In March, for example, a woman was reportedly whipped by a soldier at Bo when market traders demonstrated outside the NPRC office against the detention of other traders for allegedly selling rice at inflated prices. In early October a man was reported to have died in Koidu, in Eastern Province, after being beaten by soldiers. He was taken to the NPRC office for questioning about a theft and apparently died within an hour. There was no official inquiry into his death. Nor was there any independent inquiry after a group of soldiers forcibly entered homes in Freetown in late October and physically assaulted civilians following a disagreement between a soldier and a resident. Several people accused of criticizing the government were held without charge or trial for brief periods. They included M'ban Kabu, a leading member of the National Coordinating Committee for Peace, which was formed in April to promote a negotiated settlement between the NPRC and the RUF. He was detained in July and held for 10 days for allegedly criticizing the NPRC's use of mercenaries and calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops. A journalist who reported the comments attributed to M'ban Kabu was also arrested: Ibrahim Karim Sei, editor of an independent weekly newspaper, the Standard Times, was held for eight days and then released uncharged. Several other journalists were also detained, including Siaka Massaquoi, editor of The Vision. A former President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (slaj), he and Chernor Ojuku Sesay, former editor of The Pool, were held for questioning for 24 hours in January. Siaka Massaquoi was redetained in April with another journalist from The Vision and held for three days, apparently because the government objected to a slaj statement about the conflict. They were prisoners of conscience. Chernor Ojuku Sesay was detained for a further five days after being deported from Gambia in October; he had written an article for a Gambian newspaper accusing Gambian police of beating two Sierra Leoneans. Several people associated with the former government (see Amnesty International Report 1995) remained under house arrest following their release from Pademba Road Prison in 1994. They included Dr Bu-Buakei Jabbie, a former Minister of Lands, Housing and Environment. The government said that they had not paid compensation for moneys allegedly misappropriated under the former government, but no criminal charges were brought against them. Four journalists on an independent newspaper, The New Breed, and a printing company manager who had been redetained in December 1994 (see Amnesty International Reports 1994 and 1995) were released on bail in January. They had been arrested in October 1993 and charged with seditious publication and libel after reporting allegations of government corruption. After repeated postponements of their trial, four of the defendants, including Dr Julius Spencer, the newspaper's director, and editor Donald John, were convicted and fined in August. Eight soldiers were arrested and accused of treason in October after the government announced the discovery of a coup plot. They were held in Pademba Road Prison where they were reportedly denied visits, and had not been brought to trial by the end of the year. Prison conditions remained harsh. Detainees in cells at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters in Freetown were reportedly held in particularly overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. At least four soldiers were sentenced to death after military trials in Freetown, which were chaired by a High Court judge. They had no right of appeal to a higher court. Lieutenant-Colonel Chernor M. Deen was sentenced in January after being convicted of aiding and communicating with rebel forces. In October, three border guards received death sentences after being convicted of murder, conspiracy and robbery. None of the four had been executed by the end of the year. RUF forces were responsible for gross human rights abuses, including torture, hostage-taking and deliberate killings of civilians. In January, at least 15 people, including a woman who had recently given birth and the 17-year-old daughter of the local traditional leader, were deliberately killed by RUF forces at Kambia, Northern Province. In July RUF forces killed two women who were among a number who had been taken prisoner during attacks on several villages around Bo. The bodies of more than 30 other civilians were reportedly discovered in Petema and Kalia, two other villages near Bo, including those of boys who had apparently refused to join rebel forces. In October at least 30 civilians were reported to have been deliberately killed by rebel forces who attacked villages in Bo and Moyamba Districts. The victims included 10 women who were beheaded. At Mattru village, 16 children were burned to death after being locked in a house which rebels set alight. In November, nine people, apparently accused of providing information to soldiers, were reportedly beheaded by rebels some 30 kilometres from Kenema in Eastern Province. RUF forces also raped and mutilated prisoners. A woman from Koidu reported that she and other women sheltering together in a house during a rebel attack in May were forced outside and raped. Some of the victims were then killed. Two women had their hands cut off near Kenema in July. Many victims of rebel attacks during October and November around Bo had their hands cut off or suffered other forms of mutilation. RUF forces also took hostages. They abducted 15 foreign nationals in January and held them with two British aid workers whom they had abducted in November 1994 (see Amnesty International Report 1995). The RUF called for the withdrawal of foreign troops and for an end to foreign military assistance to the government as a condition of the hostages' release, but they were, in fact, freed in March and April without these demands being met. RUF forces also abducted large numbers of Sierra Leoneans, some of whom were killed when they attempted to escape or refused to join rebel forces. More than 100 schoolchildren were abducted from Kambia in January, at least two of whom were shot dead when they tried to escape, and over 100 civilians were abducted from Port Loko, Northern Province, in early June, including more than 50 secondary school students. Their fate and whereabouts were unknown at the end of the year. Amnesty International repeatedly called on all those involved in the conflict to cease their abuse of human rights. In September Amnesty International published a report, Sierra Leone: Human rights abuses in a war against civilians, which documented abuses by both sides. It made specific recommendations to the government and rebel forces and also called on the international community to use its influence to end human rights abuses. The organization expressed concern about the safety of hundreds of civilians captured by the RUF and urged the RUF to release hostages and treat all prisoners humanely. In July Amnesty International called for the release of prisoner of conscience M'ban Kabu. It also urged that defendants accused of plotting to overthrow the government in October receive a fair trial, with right of appeal to a higher court. The organization sought assurances that the four members of the RUF detained in November would be treated according to international standards and also called for the commutation of death sentences imposed in January and October.