Allah is Not Obliged (19 page)

The wise man’s name is Houphouët-Boigny. He is a dictator, a respectable old man, bleached and grizzled first by corruption, later by old age and too much wisdom. Houphouët takes the problem seriously: it’s urgent.
Gnona-gnona
, Houphouët sends Amara, his minister for foreign affairs, to fetch Foday Sankoh from his
maquis
deep in the wild, impenetrable forests (a
maquis
is a hard to find place where freedom fighters hang out).

Amara brings Foday Sankoh back in one piece, in the flesh, to the old dictator of Yamoussoukro. The old dictator kisses him on the mouth and welcomes him with wanton extravagance (‘wanton’ means so astonishingly excessive it seems to go against the ordinary). He affords him every luxury, gives him stacks of money, and entertains him with the sort of style that only an old and true dictator can offer. Foday Sankoh who never set foot in a five-star hotel in his whole life; Foday Sankoh who had it tough, his whole life, is happy, jubilant. Foday has a surfeit (a lot) of everything and gets through a surfeit. He gets through a surfeit of cigarettes, alcohol, mobile phones, and he especially gets through an inordinate surfeit of women. Under these extraordinary conditions, he agrees to a ceasefire.

The second round of the presidential election goes ahead. Despite all the amputations of lots of the citizens of Sierra Leone, the little people are excited about voting. They think the election will put an end to their martyrdom, to their suffering. It was an illusion. Everyone goes to the polling
booths. Even the armless people, especially the armless people. The armless people get to vote anyway. They go into the voting booth with a friend or a brother who does the voting for them.

On 17 March 1996, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah is elected with 60% of the vote. The democratically elected president moves into Lumley Beach palace. He immediately sends a delegation to Yamoussoukro to negotiate.

Foday Sankoh refuses to recognise his authority. As far as he is concerned, there were no elections, there is no president. (He doesn’t give a fuck, he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone.)

After a month of long negotiations, Foday Sankoh is persuaded to see sense. The details are hammered out in the final communiqué. The communiqué is published. Foday Sankoh agrees to everything and is allowed to go back to his hotel and his wanton luxury, his alcohol, his cigarettes, his women and his mobile phones.

One month later, in a sensational declaration, Foday Sankoh reneges on everything, he fails to keep his word. He says that he never agreed to anything, never accepted the elections, never acknowledged Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. He’s going to call off the ceasefire.

Negotiations start again. They are meticulous (precise, rigorous). In the end, they come to an end. The final communiqué is discussed, point by point, comma by comma, for a long, long time. Foday Sankoh enthusiastically agrees to the communiqué. Everyone congratulates Foday Sankoh. Houphouët-Boigny kisses him on the mouth. They send him
back to his hotel, to his wanton luxury, his quirks and his vices (doing sex that deviates from morality). One month later—bang!—everyone is back at square one. Foday Sankoh says he never agreed to the elections, never accepted the results of the election, never acknowledged Ahmad Tejan Kabbah as president. Never! (He doesn’t give a fuck, he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone!)

All the people who were in the negotiations scurry back to Yamoussoukro. Negotiations begin again. Laboriously, point by point, every aspect of the agreement is thrashed out. They finally, finally, agree on a final communiqué. The talks are more closely fought than ever. This time it’s for real, that’s why they have to agree on everything, even on the tiniest details. Everyone is happy. The talks were difficult, but they nonetheless reached a definitive result.

Faforo!
Two months later, when everyone thought everything had been agreed, the ceasefire, the negotiation process, Foday Sankoh reappears with a thundering declaration. He didn’t accept anything, he didn’t sign anything, he doesn’t acknowledge anything, the elections, the president, anything. His freedom fighters go back to fighting. (He doesn’t give a fuck, he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone!)

The negotiators scurry back to the Hotel Ivoire, the palace where Foday Sankoh is staying with all his vices. But there’s no sign of Foday! They search all over the place; in the seediest, sleaziest parts of Treichville. (Treichville is the red-light district of Abidjan, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire.) No sign of Foday. They suspect he’s been kidnapped. The police are under serious pressure. Everyone fears for his life. Dictator
Houphouët-Boigny is really embarrassed on account of how he was Foday’s host so it’s his responsibility. He rages against the police. They search and search. Still no Foday!

Three weeks later, as the search is still going on, they get news that Foday Sankoh has been arrested in Lagos, Nigeria, for gunrunning. What the hell was he doing in Nigeria?
Walahé!
The Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha, is Foday Sankoh’s sworn enemy. What the fuck was Foday thinking sticking his head in the alligator’s mouth? Into the mouth of the alligator dictator Sani Abacha?

The reason is the petty jealousy of two dictators: dictator Houphouët-Boigny and dictator Sani Abacha. Sani Abacha’s troops were the ones fighting in Sierra Leone, but it was Houphouët-Boigny who got to host the negotiations. It was Sani Abacha’s countrymen who were dying in Sierra Leone, but it was Houphouët-Boigny that everyone was talking about in the international press; it was Houphouët-Boigny that everyone was calling ‘the wise man of Africa’. Like it says in the Black Nigger African Native proverb, Sani Abacha was the one standing out in the rain, but Houphouët-Boigny was the one pulling fish from the river. Or like they say in French, Houphouët-Boigny was the one feathering his nest. To put an end to this situation, the dictator Sani Abacha set up a bona fide trap for Foday Sankoh. He sent a secret agent to Abidjan who secretly offered Foday a deal, a bum deal. He told Foday Sankoh to go to Lagos in secret. He’d be met by Sani Abacha and they could discuss the best way to get ECOMOG troops out of Sierra Leone. Foday Sankoh fell for it. When he arrived in Lagos, he was arrested as a gunrunner.
Locked up—click!—double-locked. With Foday Sankoh under lock and key, out of the way, they started to make contact with his supporters on the ground thinking they would be more malleable (submissive). But Foday’s supporters refused to co-operate. They refused to take part in any talks without their leader. And from his cell, Foday made his big drum of a voice heard. His grave, booming voice that says no, nothing but no.

Sani Abacha the dictator, embarrassed, not knowing what to do with the intractable Foday Sankoh (according to the
Petit Robert
, ‘intractable’ means ‘difficult to manage or govern, troublesome’), hands him over to the Sierra Leonean authorities, to the democratically elected president of Sierra Leone Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Tejan Kabbah puts Foday Sankoh on the wagon. He locks him up good and tight and denies him women, cigarettes, alcohol and visits. Still Foday Sankoh says no, no, nothing but no. He has no intention of agreeing to anything, conceding anything. He calls on the new wise man of Africa, the new elder statesman of African dictators, the dictator Eyadema. Houphouët-Boigny who had held this role for many years having kicked the bucket in the interim (‘kick the bucket’ means ‘die’), leaving to his heirs and successors one of the most colossal fortunes in black Africa, more than three thousand five hundred billion CFA francs!

Right now it’s 1994, but let’s jump ahead.

The new wise man of Africa, the dictator Eyadema, will summon Foday Sankoh to Lomé, the capital of Togo. He’ll set him up again with all the things he likes, all his vices. He’ll offer him everything: women, cigarettes, mobile phones
and lots of negotiations. He’ll be a free man. Talks will start again from square one. Foday Sankoh the warlord will still say no, nothing but no. He won’t want to acknowledge the outcome of the elections. He won’t want a ceasefire. He won’t agree to anything. (He won’t give a fuck, he’ll still control the useful part of Sierra Leone.)

So the dictator Eyadema will come up with a great idea, a brilliant idea. An idea that will be actively supported by the USA, France, Britain and the UN. The idea is to suggest a change to the changes that doesn’t change anything. With the agreement of the international community, Eyadema will offer the warlord Foday Sankoh the post of vice-president of the Republic of Sierra Leone with jurisdiction over all the mines that he already seized by force, with jurisdiction over all the useful parts of Sierra Leone that he already controls. This is a huge change to the changes that amounts to no change at all. No change in his position as a warlord: he won’t be charged with anything. No change in the warlord’s riches. So long as there is to be a general amnesty, Foday Sankoh will say yes, straight off, yes and yes. With no one twisting his arm or boring him to death with talk, he’ll say yes. He’ll acknowledge the government. He’ll agree to the ceasefire. He’ll agree to disarming his freedom fighters. Too bad for the ‘short sleeves’ and the ‘long sleeves’, too bad for the pitiful wretches.

That’s how it goes, that’s the price to pay to have Foday Sankoh march into Freetown wearing both hats, one as vice-president of the unified democratic Republic of Sierra Leone and one as administrator of all the mines in Sierra Leone.
This is the political ruse that will finally put an end to the civil war in Sierra Leone.
Faforo! Gnamokodé!
But we’re not there yet.

All that comes after, long, long after. After we’d ventured through the territories of Foday Sankoh and his freedom fighters. We means Yacouba, the crippled crook, the money multiplier, the Muslim grigriman, and me, Birahima, the fearless, blameless street kid, the small-soldier. We were looking for my aunt Mahan who had left Liberia and was trying to get to my uncle in Sierra Leone.
Walahé!

We started venturing our way round Foday Sankoh territory just two weeks after 15 April 1995. April 15 was the day of Foday Sankoh’s lightning strike that delivered the knockout blow to the Sierra Leone authorities and let him get his hands on the useful part of Sierra Leone. We were captured by RUF freedom fighters in a town called Mile-Thirty-Eight, about thirty-eight miles outside Freetown. Freetown is the capital of the cursed fucked-up country of Sierra Leone.

The big boss of the area and of the men who captured us in Mile-Thirty-Eight was called Tieffi. General Tieffi was the spitting image of Foday Sankoh. Same grey beard, same hunter’s Phrygian bonnet, same satisfaction from good living, the same smile and the same hair-raising laugh, a laugh so surprising it’s almost scary.

Straight off, he wanted to pack us off to the abattoir; that’s the place where they cut off the hands and arms of Sierra Leonean citizens to stop them from voting. Luckily, Yacouba had a feeling. He resigned his identity as a Muslim grigriman with the power to stop bullets and instead handed over his
fake identity card that made him a citizen of Côte d’Ivoire. Tieffi was happy to find out we were Ivoirians. He liked Houphouët-Boigny, the president of Côte d’Ivoire. On account of Houphouët was rich and wise and had even built a basilica. He told us we were lucky because if we were Guinean or even foreign, they’d have cut off our hands anyway, because Guinea was sticking its nose into the internal affairs of Sierra Leone. Yacouba tightened his grip on our Guinean identity cards that he’d had the instinct not to hand over.

Yacouba was packed off to the grigrimen’s huts where they get to eat well. He got to work. He made an unbeatable grigri for General Tieffi.

Me, the fearless, blameless street kid, I was sent straight off to join the child-soldier unit where they gave you a kalash, the whole works.

I wanted to be one of the young lycaeons of the revolution. That’s the child-soldiers who are given the most inhuman jobs. Tough jobs like putting a bee into someone’s eye, like it says in the Black Nigger African Native savage proverb. Tieffi had a huge grin.

‘You know what it is lycaeon?’ he asked.

I told him no.

‘Well now, lycaeons are wild dogs that hunt in packs. They gobble everything; mother, father, all and everything. When they finish sharing a victim, every lycaeon goes off to clean his self. If one comes back with blood on his fur, even one drop of blood, they think he is wounded and he’s gobbled up by the others right there. That’s what it is. Got it? They have no mercy. Your mother alive?’

‘No.’

‘Your father alive?’

I said no again.

Tieffi burst out laughing.

‘You got no luck, little Birahima, you can never be a brave young lycaeon of the revolution. Your mother and your father already dead, dead and buried. To be a brave young lycaeon of the revolution, you must first kill with your bare hands (with your own hands, understand?), kill one of your own parents (father or mother), and only afterwards be initiated.’

‘I could be initiated like all the young lycaeons.’

He burst out laughing again and he said, ‘No and no. You are not Mende, you do not understand Mende, you are Malinké. The ceremonies of initiation are sung and danced in Mende. At the end of the ceremonies, a lump of meat is eaten by the young initiate. The hunk of meat is prepared by sorcerers with many ingredients and perhaps human flesh. Malinkés dislike eating this meat, Mendes do not. In tribal wars, a little human meat is necessary. It makes the heart hard, very hard, and protects against bullets. The best protection against whistling bullets is probably a piece of human meat. For example, I, Tieffi, never go to the front, never go to battle without a calabash (a bowl) of human blood. A calabash of human blood makes you strong, makes you fierce, makes you cruel, and protects you from whistling bullets.’

The initiation of the young lycaeon takes place in the forest. He wears a raffia tunic, he sings, and dances hard and fast, he cuts off the hands and arms of citizens of Sierra Leone. After, he eats a hunk of meat, a hunk of meat that is
surely human flesh. For the initiates, this meat serves as the fine and delicious end to the initiation ceremony.
Gnamokodé!