Date: Friday, 22-Nov-96 09:10 AM From: Ibrahim Abdullah (idabdul@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu)

Subject: Bushpath To Destructtion:The Origin and Chracter of the RUF/SL(Part Three)

The communitarian principles which the RUF practices in the little enclaves it controls have nothing to do with Green book ideology. Such populists prouncements as "Every member of the community has rights to basic needs(food, housing,health, and transport)" p.54 are consistent with the demands of movements like the the RUF who seek to sell themselves as popular movements. Even RENAMO claimed to be fighting on behalf of the people. Actions such as the redistribution of "food,

drugs, clothes and shoes from ‘liberated’ government sources" (p.54) do not in themselves consititute revolutionary practice.These should be seen as populist propaganda rather than influences from the Green book. The alleged emphasis on

collective action is also typical of movements that claim to be revolutionary. And it remains to be seen whether "Sankoh’s lack of presidential ambition" (p.55)is for real. If the RUF has any ideology that ideology is definately not one shaped by the Green book; it is a populist rhetoric backed by some ad hoc measures that are designed to win support from the very public that it terrorises.It needs to be remembered that every movement which claims a revolutionary pedigree always criticizes so-called western democracy as fraudulent. One does not need to read the Green Book to denounce Western multi-party democracy as "tyranny of the (small)majority". Richards assumption that the Green Book was influential in shaping the views of student radicals led him to look for Green book signs in the RUF.How else can we explain the violence, the terror,and the central role of Papei, as Sankoh is called,in the Zogoda? What

we are in fact witnessing is the emergence of an armed movement that has refined the use of thuggery into a modernized machine to contest for power at the national level. Sankoh and his bandidos are the new politicians and the fighting men are the new thugs. This reading of the RUF is supported by the early elimination of two of the most important members of the group.

When the RUF first entered the country in 1991 the organization was composed oftwo arms: the vanguards and the special forces.The vanguard group were those who were trained in Libya in 1987/88 who stayed with Sankoh and others, and theLumpen Sierra Leoneans who were recruited in Liberia to join the movement.This vanguard group including Sankoh, Abu kanu and Rashid Mansaray. Vanguard members sat on the war council, which was constituted before they entered the country in 1991,and were in charge of administrative day to day affairs, including intelligence in the enclaves under their control.The special forces were those NPFL fighters on loan to the RUF; they were directly under the control of Rashid Mansaray who was very popular and had distinguished himself as a combatant with the NPFL.The legendary commander Zino, Mohamed Tarawalie was also with this group.Papei, as Foday Sankoh is generally refered to, was and still is the Head of ideology.With the exit of the special forces in 1993, the organizational set up was reconstituted with the vanguard still at the apex, but now followed by the wosus(those recruited in the Kailahun and Pujehun areas before the departure of the special forces; standbys, mainly captives and conscripts;and of course, the pekin sojas(small units).

If the initial wanton violence against innocent civilians, women and children was attributed to the special forces on loan from the NPFL, which was the case,why did the violence continue after they left in 1993? The explanation for this continued violence and mutilation of innocent civilians has to be sought in the compostion of the movement, the lack of discipine; it is this lumpen composition more than anything else which exposes its populist rhetoric for what is it: a smokescreen to mask its real character.It is therefore not coincidental that the execution of Abu Kanu and Rashid Mansaray was connected with their opposition to the violence against civilians. In August 1992 Abu Kanu(aka Commander BK) was executed by firing squad for FFI(failure to follow instructions) and for coniving with the enemy.The following november, Rashid Mansaray, another vanguard commander, was executed for technical sabotage—failure to defend a strategic position against the enemy.He was tried in front of the last two-storey building on the Kiondu-Kailahun road and shot by firing squad.The charges were trump upcharges designed to get them out of the way.They were the only top-ranking members who knew Sankoh, were popular with the troops and could have contested the position of leadership if there was a general congress or a popular assembly. There is evidence that Abu and Rashid were not happy with the random violence that RUF forces were committing in the name of the revolution. In fact, Tom

Nyuma, who was a PANAFU member,is reported to have said that the area under Abu’s control was generally peaceful and well organized; he reached out to explain what the RUF was about to the peasants and stayed away from unnecessary violence against civilians.Rashid’s opposition to the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians was one of the reasons why he was and executed. This view is consistent with a comrade of his who was provost to I.H.Deen-Jalloh, and who had to leave the RUF because he was targetted for the same reason.The RUF leadership has consistently justified the random violence against the civilian population on the groiunds that the military is doing the same.Stories about the sliting of pregnant women and the raping of young girls, some of whom are forcibly taken as "wives", were common from those I interviewed.It is possible that Sankoh’selimination of the two most prominent vanguard members, arguably those who him the most, was connected with his quest for absolute control of the movement.Once the movement had established some presence with the help of Charles Taylor, and he had acquired some modicum of respectablity with his pan-Africanist credentials, he had no need for these vanguards anymore.Like Alie before them,they were now more of a threat, rather than an asset in his quest for total dominance.It is therefore not surprising that those who are presently the key players in the movement are those who do not know Papei or the prehistory of the RUF.Philip Palmer, Faiaya Musa, I.H. Deen-Jallah and the former public relations officer Abubakarr Sankoh are fellow travellers who joined the bandwagon after the RUF entered Bomaru in 1991.

By Way of Conclusion

What I have done is an attempt to understand the origin of the present war by looking at youth culture and the politics of exclusion.In trying to do this I have had to engage the substance of Paul Richards reading of the situation....the first scholarly attempt to understand the root causes of the war. Those who have read Paul Richards’ article in the furley collection and my review of that article....and now his book.... would recognize where and why we differ.....and why we both privilege certain explanations as opposed to others.I am aware of the shortcomings of my reading of the situation....which to a certain extent constitute my reflections on radical politics or its absence in Sierra Leone political culture.Even so,I have chosen to err on the side of boldness.I hope others more competent and qualified would blaze the trail of the artisans.

Salaam.