Keeping the Peace

A Lasting Mark

I itch. That?s what I?m taking from Sierra Leone, one giant itch. Interestingly, I?ve apparently been bitten by several different sorts of insects, each with its own distinct shape size and color of bite. I have bruise marks down my neck, a series of odd decidedly ringworm-like circular numbers on my stomach, some boring little lumps further down my legs and the mark of the Champion Fly on my face.

The Champion Fly merits a word here because, though it may be nearly Thanksgiving in the Western World it?s Champion Fly season in Eastern Sierra Leone. And what a bummer. These little bastards look nothing like flies, by the way. They are little orange and black worm-like creatures that I think can still fly but seem to be most effective sticking to the ceiling and dropping down onto their prey. Apparently it?s when you squish them that their nasty body fluids leave their mark, creating a nasty blister/burn on your skin within hours. If you happen to touch any other part of your body with the hand that squashed them, the juice will burn that part, too. For some odd reason most of the Champion Fly casualties I witnessed were to the face, swollen eyes and the like. Seb, you will remember, our British military man in Kailahun, was suffering Champion after-effects during my visit, though he gamely allowed me to keep filming.

Champion Flies or no, Kailahun is my favorite place in Sierra Leone, seconded by Makeni.

Kenema, a small diamond mining hub, I didn?t like at all. It was sleazy, though more ?modern? than the other towns I?d seen, it was modern in a sold-out and cheap sort of way. It?s one of those places where people hope that luck will happen to them and if it doesn?t they aggressively ask for money. They were shameless. Colin had set me up with a seasoned Brit ?copper,? Mick Quimby, who, bless him, ran me around his town in the day I?d allotted it in our desperate search for diamond mining and actual diamonds. We hit pay dirt with the mines, though poor Mick suffered repeated requests for his wallet, watch, my camera, and just plain cash for the duration of my shoots. The other thing about diamond mining in Sierra Leone is that it remains a game regulated basically in name only, although in the Lome Peace Accords there was a clause specifically designed to set the government up to regulate and give money back to the people. Of course.

Diamond mining, at least the mining I saw in Kenema, is an extremely low-tech proposition. It begins around seven in the morning, when workers go to a sort of quarry, where they pound rocks into fine gravel, load it into burlap sacks (I?m guessing of about 100-150 pounds each, but that?s just a guess) which they then throw onto their heads and carry to the place where the ?mining,? or panning is done, a series of pools of brackish water that they stand in while meticulously rinse the gravel from the pits. It?s the gravel, not the water that contains the diamonds. Though we didn?t witness the find of a single one. I had been filming the breaking of rocks for about 15 minutes before I realized that although I had seen pick axes in the market the day before and assumed that?s what they were breaking the rock with, they were simply bashing the shit out of it with lead pipes. Not for the faint-hearted, my friends. Nor is the actual mining.

Miners work in teams of four or so, for a very small amount of money (the going rate for all nominal jobs in Sierra Leone is around $1-2/day), and they get to split a sort of finder?s fee if any of them finds a diamond. It?s a surreal sight, to come across a series of brown pit-pools in the middle of the jungle, with a bunch of guys in tattered clothes swishing their pans while other guys feed their piles of gravel?overseeing the workers are some ?boss men? who sit under umbrellas on tree branch benches while the rest do the hard work. I didn?t find out what it takes to become a boss man. I just wanted to get a feel for what fueled the conflict. When they finished, I watched the workers strip down and bathe in the same rusty pools they?d been rinsing gravel in.

Mick aside, I was happy enough to leave Kenema.

Back to Kailahun, my final destination. I did a lot of the things I hadn?t had time to do before: Seb and Ross getting haircuts from the Pakistani professional (who gave a single haircut-short!), shaving, on another patrol (yes, we got another flat, though not a dramatic flat), Seb shopping in the market, and Team Leader Richard.

Richard is a cool guy from Zambia (nod to Josh) and I wanted to talk to Richard for a much-needed African (UN military observer-I?ve interviewed Sierra Leonean civilians) perspective. I had been hearing the Western Europeans complain about the work ethics and motivation of their African counterparts and I wanted Richard?s take on that, among other things (I?d also heard that he was quite a good leader). Richard said that he had felt some tension when he took over as Team Leader from a Brit who?d apparently set quite a precedent. Although Richard didn?t call it discrimination, he said that a couple of men had tested him?one had even gone so far as to have written the daily report, meant to come from Richard, in extremely poor English, as if written by a dunce. Richard caught the guy out and told him that wasn?t kosher. After a while, said Richard, the team got the picture and the issue resolved itself. Richard tells me all of this with a smile, as we discuss leadership and the difficulties of leading so many different nationalities (he oversaw a Jordanian, Canadian, Brit, Tanzanian, Malian, Malaysian, Croatian, and Russian, among others, while I was there)-Richard?s strategy is to have a sort of sliding scale of tasks?assigning the most critical to those who take the most responsibility on down. Seb told me that his biggest frustration was the gap between his British military get-it-done-and-get-it-done-now-hop-to-it-ness and the way a lot of these guys are used to working. Richard just works with what he?s got. Which, as both pointed out, is probably more effective in Africa. Especially when you combine Africa with the UN?s mandate to mix so many nationalities together?

In order to be a military observer (MILOB), you must meet three criteria:
-speak English
-know how to drive
-be an officer in your country.

The Kailahun MILOB from Mali didn?t speak English and failed several driving tests so I witnessed his going-away dinner ?this after seven months of apparently service-less duty served in Kailahun. At least this guy was sent back. I?ve heard stories of people who heartily deserved to be sent back but weren?t because the countries they come from said that they would remove all nationals from a mission if that happened. Which would be a political debacle. Jacques Klein, leading the charge over in Liberia, told me that one of the clauses he built into his relationships with contributing countries was the ability to send back nonviable candidates.

Another complicating factor is money. Countries get from $600-$1000 for each soldier sent on a mission, which is why the Bangladeshis and Pakistanis comprise so many of the UN ground troops in these places. Fortunately, they seem by and large to be well-liked and respected by the people in Sierra Leone, unlike the Nigerians, who have a reputation for being trigger-happy and, more than other countries, having legions of prostitutes spring up around their battalions. The UN pays a lot better than I had thought it would. Money and mercenaries. Yep, another topic in this film, though I?m not sure how big it will be.

In Kailahun I interviewed ?General? Koker, a former government soldier-cum-UN-security-guard of the MILOBS housing compound still suffering psychological effects from the war. Koker claims to be a descendent of a grand line of Kokers in Sierra Leone, those who befriended the first whites in the country. He took Seb and I to a place called the ?slaughterhouse,? a dank building splattered with marks that the General claimed were blood stains. Seb thought that they could indeed be blood stains and said that he?d seen nothing else like it in the buildings he?d been in here. The marks, whatever they were, reached above my head. Seb said that would make sense if the RUF had been hacking at people rather than shooting them to death.

I also interviewed my only woman, a certain ?Madame? who rents the building to the 20 or so MILOBS I?d been staying with. She?s pretty certifiable and you can?t tell which of her war stories are true, but her strong desire for the UN to stay in Sierra Leone was believable. She said that without their help she would be a prostitute. Which is, I think, and exaggeration, as she currently runs what she claims is the only day care in Sierra Leone and has several properties to boot. She would like the UN to give her $50,000 to help her school, and, when I pointed out that might not be too likely, especially given that the UN?s mandate in Sierra Leone was technically pretty much limited to security, she said, ?OK, $30,000.?

(Parenthetically:
I had to work harder than I?d thought to catch that magic light of my first couple of days.
I found myself caught in an interview dilemma: though I tried to take interviews as people could give them to me, they would inevitably get better and better and more comfortable with me the longer I hung out with them. Thus Colin and Seb?s final interviews wound up being important, though stylistically I?m not sure how they?ll be worked in?i.e. it would have been ideal to do the one big long interview at once and get it all but the more we went along the more they would tell me stuff off camera that I would want to get on camera?and I?d try to get it on the go but it didn?t always work out that way.
And, correction: the kids are really yelling, ?Pakistani,? rather than ?Paki,? as we pass, I believe. And they do it more often than not because the Pakistanis connote gifts. Only the really sophisticated kids know that some of us are ?Bleetish.?)

Stories Untold:
I meant to do a radio story on rehabilitated chimpanzees?chimps who were supposedly kept by the RUF rebel forces and in need of being rehabilitated from their evil ways?which Would have been a story, but the chimps were actually formerly pets of upper class people with money, not rebel soldiers, and the rock throwing that I?d been told was a symptom of their distress was simply alpha male chimp behavior, and my radio equipment was all stolen from me, methinks during the ?Alfred incident,? anyway, so I was recording with my camera mic?it was a bit of a story-that-wasn?t. Though it was a good way for Rob and I to spend his final afternoon in Sierra Leone. The closest I got to a chimp needing rehabilitation was an alcoholic chimp. Not really my story.

Then there was the Special Court?which I still think is a fabulously important story, but I didn?t have the time to give it it?s due, as there are too many important aspects to it, from the local infighting between it and the Truth and Reconciliation Committee to the larger international issues of American will and Charles Taylor.

?ChrisMus?-a tolerant Muslim story I meant to do for Ramadan, because it?s true that the flavor of Islam in Sierra Leone is mild, and Sierra Leoneans open their important meetings with both Christian and Muslim prayers. The Muslims often drink, too, and I had thought of opening the story with the bars who were stocking up extra beer for the weekend before Ramadan, knowing the Muslims would be drinking heavily before their holy holiday began. But no, didn?t get that one either. Also because I had been told that one of the reasons that people were optimistic for Sierra Leone?s future peace was that the war was not religious, but it wasn?t quite the story I?d thought it would be.

Ditto the psychiatric story. I had heard, with shock and horror, that there had been no addressing of psychological wounds from the war, and I thought this was a good story. Especially given that there was only one psychologist in the country, and he had been forbidden from practicing his trade ?but then I met someone from an NGO who was trying to do just that, provide counseling, and that story was already what I thought it wasn?t. Though the truth is that there are huge psychological wounds that haven?t been healed but I ran out of time.

So, sayeth our British friends, at the end of the day I made the film rather than the print or radio stories my focus and can still name a dozen or so scenes I would like to get and who knows? But I think and hope that with the 70 hours of tape we shot in the country we have a story. The story goes on, however, and I want to know how it ends.

I?ve just got confidential information that we may see some big bad shit go down in Liberia Tomorrow, so the UN?s Chapter 7 mandate to shoot if necessary may be tested this week. Part of me would love to be there in Liberia as it all happens. The other part of me is watching in astonishment as new bug bites keep showing up on my body. Not pretty. Yet colorful.

Although there is so much more to say, note and observe I?ve got to go now. Will do more and hopefully get photos posted too as time goes by. I?ve tried to share all that I can but there is so much more.

Here?s to my brothers still in Africa: a drink and a hot shower and cool Cadbury chocolate bar in your honor.

Posted by Jessie Deeter at November 24, 2003 02:39 AM