Special Court for Sierra Leone (disturbing material warning)

The Special Court for Sierra Leone has started its investigation of war crimes committed by RUF and other factions during the recent civil war in Sierra Leone. Some quotes from the prosecutors' statements:

A witness will testify that while hiding in the Malama bush near Batmis she could hear the rebels in Batmis shout out threats to those in hiding. As it became light the witness was captured by a rebel. He hit her, pushed her down on the ground and raped her while another rebel looked on. Afterwards, other rebels armed with guns, knives and cutlasses rounded up the witness, her husband and other Sierra Leoneans. They were taken into Batmis where the witness was forced to pound fundeh (which is millet). Other civilians were forced to carry water. Some managed to escape. Those who remained were punished. The rebel commander ordered the witness's husband to be killed. The witness will testify she watched while her husband was hacked to death with a cutlass. The rebels then took hold of her right hand and with 4 long strokes of a machete cut it off. Then they chopped off her left hand telling her to go to Kabbah, who would give her hands.


In 1999, another witness in Koidu will testify that when RUF and AFRC rebels drove the Kamajors from the town they began to burn the houses of Koidu. The witness and his family fled to a nearby village. The RUF rebels followed them in a number of trucks filled with young women. The rebel commander took the 16 year old sister of the witness. He declared loudly that he was going to take her as his wife. The witness tried to protect his younger sister, but was told he would be killed. The rebels left with around ten girls from the town, the youngest being 12. His younger sister was kept by the rebels for four long years. The witness will testify further that upon hearing that ECOMOG troops had taken Koidu town the family decided to return, walking for four days. When they reached Penduma village it was overrun with armed RUF rebels. Twenty civilians who attempted to flee were shot dead. The rest of the survivors where grouped together and told to wait for their commander. Upon arrival the commander addressed the frightened civilians saying to them, "so you are the supporters of Tejan Kabbah." They were separated into three groups the witness will declare: first, pregnant women, suckling mothers and children; second, men and boys; and third females--teenagers to grandmothers. Twenty-five men and women were picked out at random from the last two groups. The commander gave the order, "Una take them. Make una burn dem." These civilians were placed in a house which was set on fire by the rebels. All of them were burned alive while the others were forced to listen to their agonized screams.

The commander then pointed at the group of females. There were around twenty. The wife of the witness was one of them. The women were raped in front of everyone. The witness will testify that he and his children were forced to watch while his wife and their mother was raped by eight different RUF rebels before she was stabbed to death with a bayonet by the last RUF rapist. Why does he recall their being eight rapists, he will be asked, because the witness had to count out loud the number as they tore into his wife. Two other women were likewise gang raped and then murdered. Note, while this is taking place, twenty-five human beings are roasting to death in a burning house, their cries adding to this true living hell on earth. Fifteen of the men were then marched away by rebels armed with knives. Two who attempted to run were shot. The remaining thirteen had their throats cut. Incredibly the witness and eight others still remained. Each of them was called forward and had a hand cut off. When the witness attempted to retrieve his severed hand he was struck in the back with a bayonet.


The similarity of the stories from all parts of the country will become hauntingly familiar. The witness from Kono who heard the screams of 25 people burned alive by rebel forces in Penduma village will echo in the evidence of the witness from Koinadugu who saw people rounded up and burnt alive in his village. The testimony of both these witnesses will resound in that of the witness from Port Loko who will describe the 73 innocent and helpless people burned alive in a house in Manaarma, and again in the testimony of the many witnesses from Freetown who saw families die together in the flames of their houses. Within these court room walls the terrifying words "Go to Kabbah" "Go to Kabbah" will reverberate again and again and again. "Go to Kabbah." These words were said by thousands of rebels to thousands of Sierra Leonean men, women and children, the vast majority of whom have never met, who have never seen or did not even know the President of Sierra Leone. "Go to Kabbah," These words were said by rebels as the blood of the people of Sierra Leone dripped from their blunt and crude machetes, cutlasses, axes and swords, and the chopped-off hands and limbs of the people lay severed on the ground. "Go to Kabbah." Witnesses from Kono, Koinadugu, Bombali, Freetown and Port Loko will all tell a similar harrowing tale of vicious and primitive amputation by rebel forces. The RUF decided upon amputation as punishment for civilians whose only crime was to support democracy. Left faint or unconscious, left vomiting and in agony, and simply left to die, the RUF told these people to go to Kabbah for new hands. In fact, the evidence will show that it did not matter which government the citizens of Sierra Leone supported. Amputation was a tool of fear systematically used by the RUF to terrorize the population into submission.

This court will also hear the evidence of girls and women who were subjected to sexual violence and sexual slavery; the unmistakably atrocious and ghastly signature of RUF violence. The evidence of the teenager from Kono who was publicly raped by eight rebels and was so badly injured that she bled for three days, has terrible parallels with that of the witness from Koinadugu who was pregnant but miscarried after being publicly raped by three rebels. The Prosecution will invite this chamber to juxtapose these stories with the gruesome account of the witness from Freetown who was taken to Waterloo, raped by seven rebels and saw another girl abandoned by her captors because she had been gang-raped to the point where she could no longer walk.