IRIN FOCUS on the challenge of recovery

With disarmament underway, albeit slowly, in the heart of rebel-held territory, Sierra Leoneans can begin to focus on rebuilding a nation shattered by 10 years of war but the question remains whether the country has the capacity to recover from the devastation. As a result of the war and other factors, Sierra Leone has the world’s lowest human development index (HDI), according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is based on a set of variables such as income and poverty levels, life expectancy, and provision of health, education and other services. For those who saw Freetown just after the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels occupied it in January 1999, the capital appears to have made a remarkable recovery. Downtown roads are being resurfaced, new and unfinished homes are now part of the hilly cityscape of wooden colonial houses. Deep in RUF territory, however, the destruction has been much greater. For example, there is hardly a building with a roof in the diamond-mining town of Koidu in the eastern region of Kono. The RUF mined the gems to drive its war machinery, but other mining activity ceased. So did agriculture. The region’s inhabitants fled in droves, when they could. Many became refugees. Others were internally displaced. Similar situations occurred in other rebel-held areas. Clinics, schools and other social services fell into disrepair and the rebels carried out a vicious nationwide campaign of limb amputations, abductions and executions on civilians. Capacity to forgive Such atrocities have driven deep wounds into the psyche of many Sierra Leoneans, analysts say, and getting people to forgive may constitute a major challenge to national healing and reconstruction. The question is whether the victims - many of whom live in deplorable conditions in Freetown - and their families can be persuaded to “accept” their torturers. Equally important is whether the RUF will be able to show remorse and engage in meaningful post-war activity. The National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (NCDDR) says ex-fighters must first be coaxed out of the forests. Recently, anti-RUF jingles sponsored by the International Military Assistance Team (IMAT) in Sierra Leone threatened to thwart efforts to do so, the commission’s manager for information and sensitisation, Sullay Sesay, told IRIN. The jingles, in which RUF fighters were described as “dogs” and “animals” were aired by Radio 98.1 FM, and were paid for by IMAT. In one skit, an actor took on a judge’s role and another played Sam Bockerie alias “Maskita”, the once feared RUF commander. The judge found the RUF fighters guilty. In the towns of Makeni and Port Loko, concerned fighters asked the commission about the purpose of these jingles. “RUF wanted to know why they were being asked to disarm when jingles threatening them were being aired,” Sesay said. “They feared they would be tried in a special war crimes tribunal so they had little incentive to give themselves up.” Spreading the message of forgiveness The jingles have now been taken off the air. Sesay said the radio stations needed to broadcast “peace messages” to encourage RUF out of the jungles. The NCDDR itself has a radio programme in which it encourages ex-fighters to tell their own stories about their experiences with the disarmament programme. The commission is also encouraging non-governmental organisations to help sensitise society on the need for forgiveness. It says its strategy does not amount to censorship nor is it an unwitting public relations tool for RUF. The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) is delivering peace and reconciliatory messages to RUF-held areas through music, dance and drama. Theatre groups headed by former information minister Julius Spencer have targeted ex-fighters. “Comedians have made fun out of the crisis in an effort to change the psychology of the ex-fighters and make them feel welcome,” Patrick Coker, a UNAMSIL information officer, said. The dances and plays are recorded and aired in television viewing centres to help spread the peace message. UNAMSIL plans to work with women’s groups and dance troupes, but only after disarmament is completed. “When we reach the reintegration stage we will target the general public to inform on how it could co-exist (with the former fighters),” Coker said. At the political level, one analyst told IRIN, there appears to be a willingness to accommodate the RUF. “The next three or four months is the period in which this country will either make it or break it,” the analyst said, in reference to upcoming elections. Chances of economic recovery One economist told IRIN that UN agencies, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the EU estimated last year that Sierra Leone would need US $3.5 billion to rebuild infrastructure. The task appears gigantic for a war-shattered nation. Generally, though, analysts are guardedly optimistic about its recovery chances. A main condition, they say, is that the present government and its successors make a radical break with the bad practices of those who ruled the country since independence in 1961. Attracting skilled people also poses a challenge. Many left because of the war and poor salaries, despite the country’s rich endowment in resources ranging from fish and strategic minerals to good soils. The only government psychiatrist, Dr. Edward Nahim, told IRIN that they would return if the twin issues of salaries and security were resolved. “Within six months they would begin to come and rebuild. People are fed up being in refugee camps,” he said. This, he said, was also true for 80 percent of the doctors who fled – there are fewer than 200 practicing doctors in the country today and the government has only one physician and three surgeons on its payroll. Others are less sure that many skilled professionals would return. For example, no Sierra Leonean expatriate has taken advantage of the UNDP’s TOKTEN programme, designed to attract professionals to their home countries for specific fixed-term assignments. “Those who stayed behind resent the idea that those who left may come to claim higher salaries than themselves,” one economist said. Much will depend, however, on stability, and where this is concerned, a major factor is the reintegration of ex-combatants. The government must find ways to reintegrate the ex-fighters into the nation’s mainstream economy and body politic, where their views can be aired, the regional coordinator of the UNDP’s ‘Africa Future’ programme, Alioune Sall, said in Abidjan. “They should be given the means to make a livelihood out of honest activities,” he said. Sierra Leone, which is heavily dependent on emergency aid, also needs to project another international image, according to Sall. “There should be a strong message to the donor community that the country wants to move beyond emergency and think about long-term development,” he said. The government can do this, he added, by crafting policies targeting basic problems such as poverty, the lack of a macroeconomic policy framework and lack of access for the poor to productive assets such as land, water, forests, mines and diamonds, and social services such as education, health and employment. “Access to a social safety net is also needed,” he said, especially for limb amputees and other physically challenged people. “You cannot expect, simply, the traditional family to play the role it used to play in terms of social safety, providing resources and supporting those who cannot work.” Parliament recently passed a National Social Security and Insurance Trust bill, the Sierra Leone News Agency reported in mid-July. The government has committed the equivalent of US $2.63 million to the establishment of a social security scheme, it said. Sall added that reducing poverty was an essential ingredient for national recovery. This can be achieved by opening access to structures which are accountable to the poor because “ultimately there is a very strong correlation between poverty and powerlessness,” he said. “People are poor because they cannot remove the structural barriers that prevent them from accessing resources.” “One of the reasons that led to this war is the existence of huge disparities in society,” Sall said, so the challenge is to build a vision that will be binding to all the segments of the population. “Everyone has to understand that there is a future for them in the country, that there is a stake for them.” UNDP aims to encourage public debate in Sierra Leone on the state of the country, and define where the nation would like to be in, say, 25 years. Sierra Leone will have to decide how to mobilise the financial, material, human and information resources needed to attain national goals, Sall noted. But, he said, “as long as people don’t have a common faith in the future, I’m afraid that nothing will happen even if they had all the human resources needed.”