Patrick Robert

Soldiers don't hesitate to kill any man or woman who is suspected of sympathizing with the rebels. Some inhabitants use these expeditious methods to settle private disputes (notably debts), or even simple quarrels between neighbors. In the face of protests by the UN and reports by journalists working on the spot, the Ecomog has adopted a more "flexible" position. But suspects are still violently beaten up before the charges against them are actually examined. Our reportage is about a woman who was denounced, beaten up, and humiliated. Almost none of her family or friends dare to take her side or defend her, when they deign to even "recognize" her.
Their terror is commensurate with the barbarism and the atrocities committed by the rebels. The presence of the media, our photographer and a television reporter definitely helped the woman suspected. She was not killed without the benefit of a trial as were several others. Two days after her arrest, terrorized and injured, she was still with the soldiers who proceeded to hear witnesses in order to determine her guilt ... or innocence.

These rebels belong to the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) who initiated the civil war in March 1991, and are allied with the former officers of the military junta who took power in May 1997 after ousting President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, elected in 1996. The junta was removed from power in February 1998 by the Ecomog and the president was reinstated, with Nigeria continuing to guarantee internal security, or at any rate trying to do so. The rebels continued fighting in the bush until they reached Freetown on January 6. The extreme ferocity of these rebels who do not hesitate to mutilate and kill without reason even children explains the situation in Freetown. Only the rich can make use of private helicopters, which are the only means of leaving the city.

The problem with Freetown's Connaught Hospital is that patients must pay to receive care, at a time when the war is generating its load of heavy casualties. Seriously wounded people mostly flock here from the bush, penniless, in a country whose economy has been devastated and where salaries are an extinct concept. The hospital is well stocked and receives supplies from international aid agencies, and its five Sierra Leonean surgeons are sufficiently qualified to perform common restorative operations. The hospital also makes patients pay for the medication it is donated by aid organizations (this is commonplace in Africa). Teams of doctors from Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) and Médecins du Monde (MDM) are thus considered as dangerous competitors, since they work for free. The most fortunate among the wounded consequently have to wait in pain for weeks while their families muster enough money for the operation. For lack of care, some die of infected wounds. Owing to the cease-fire doctors and nurses arrive at 10 in the morning and have to leave by 3 p.m., which only leaves enough time for 2 to 3 hours of actual patient care per day. The MDM team was incensed when after a whole week, they had been able to operate on only three patients, while another 150 wounded required attention!

One must emphasize the formidable terror inspired by the rebels; there are no more courts, no more judges nor lawyers nor policemen, and citizens are alone in defending themselves against its demons. Justice is thus dispensed by the mob, expeditiously. It is preferable to kill innocents than to let a rebel run free. Before the few journalists arrived, the Ecomog regularly executed suspects at the checkpoints, merely on the basis of denunciations. But an article published in the French daily Le Figaro, which was then cited by Radio France International, described how some people eliminated neighbours they owed money to or who coveted their property, by accusing them of being "rebels". The Ecomog openly attacked the media after the reports, but perhaps Marie benefited from the incident: the serendipitous presence of a photographer from Sygma and a cameraman from Capa at the time of her arrest was probably what saved her life. The guileless soldiers let the two journalists work unhindered, eager to show that they did not just execute suspects by the side of the road as had been reported, but spared no effort in seeking out the truth. Alas, their zeal only goes to show how very different the standards of brutality can be.