Keeping the Peace

leaving Liberia

Things have been moving fast. I can't remember where I left you but I was surely in the process of waiting for Opande. Waiting to talk, waiting to go, waiting for word of any action, just waiting. In the end, I think I've got something special. Of course not in the way I had originally envisioned, whereby the Force Commander would be staring down the soon-to-be ex-combatants, who would be waving their guns in his face. Well, just a little bit of gun-waving, enough to be interesting.

That didn't happen. Having had more time to prepare properly the UN managed to pull off a controlled disarmament kick-off. Unlike December's fiasco, which Opande describes as "anarchy," (the inside scoop on that debacle is that Opande told the powers-that-be in New York that he wasn't ready to disarm, but Klein, the head of the mission and its political leader, insisted that they go ahead with some sort of disarmament in December, because there was meant to be a big donor's conference in December and a successful start to disarmament was supposed to make the big givers happy.) the checks and balances and personnel on the ground and rows and rows of barbed wire lanes that the combatants navigated to reach the various disarmament stations seemed to keep everyone in line. There were the inevitable ambushes of combatants by other combatants as they were on their way to the disarmament sites, as well as glitches in things like food transportation, but overall I witnessed a functional taking of arms. All of the other questions that follow, the R's (reintegration, rehabilitation) of the DDRR process, remain to be answered.

This time around, unlike the first time, I got a lot more of Opande the man, but none of the drama of the day Rob and I followed him with the Special Forces men and were greeted by a group of wild gun-toting youth. How many of those scenes do you need though, really? My most arduous day involved running (I exaggerate not) around nine holes of golf. Opande advised me to quit after three. The scene was marvelously colonial, on the slopes of the Firestone tire complex, home to the only golf course in Liberia. That was our Saturday, which began with a 6 a.m. pickup to go to a disarmament site-in-the-making at what was once the Voice of America camp. There, Opande was briefed and briefed a slew of politicos on the readiness of the VOA site for disarmament (good, but shoddy buildings that won't weather the coming rainy season well). Following that we had golf and then my first long interview, on the beach at night.

Interviewing Opande was one of my biggest challenges. Not because he didn't want to talk to me (by the end of a couple days, as he was moving his entourage, he would look around and ask, "Where is Deeter?") but because he has less than zero patience, so I knew I had to be fast, but fast to find an empty place on a beach that was far enough away from people and music to be quiet yet close enough to some form of light to be feasible. I chose the beach because interviewing indoors was for me not an option. Too ugly, wrong sort of scene. I had no time during the day to scout these sites, so I would have to take Opande's word on the beach and then make the staff scramble to move lights, tables, chairs, etc. while keeping the FC entertained enough to allow me to do a proper sound check and try not to worry too much about the fact that the key and fill light on his face were backwards. In the end I think I got more than I had a right to expect under the circumstances, but you always want more. I wanted more time, primarily.

Opande opened the second disarmament site, Buchanan, on Tuesday. That was a press mob-fest. Not pretty but got good footage. I don't like that whole struggle for pole position. There was a moment of tension when the FC was called over by a group of angry men, former MODEL fighters, who claimed that their weapons had been taken by their commanders. The rules of disarmament are currently that you cannot go through the process (and, more importantly, collect your $75, training, medical attention and some food) without a weapon or a significant amount (I think it's 150 rounds) of ammunition. It will be interesting to see how the UN handles these guys-Opande said that it was up to MODEL leader Boi Boi, who also posesses my favorite rebel name, to figure out a solution. We'll see. Opande was very accommodating of me throughout, and got the helicopter to drop me off directly at Roberts Field airport so that I wouldn't miss my flight back to Freetown after our Buchanan visit. When I left, they were on target to get their 250/day men, women, and boys disarmed.

Seb (you'll remember, our British major, currently working in the country under the IMATT umbrella, i.e. he's armed again working to help train the RSLAF national soldiers) picked me up at the UN helipad in Freetown and we drove directly to Bo, a mining town on our way to Kailahun. Our traveling companion was Billy the Scotsman, who started in with how the hired help was lazy and went on from there. Needless to say, the conversation was hot and heavy for several hours. Good to be reminded that not everyone comes from the land of the politically correct.

Seb and I carried on to Kailahun, where he checked in with a few old colleagues and the Sierra Leoneans who worked for him as houseboys and security guards. The two best things that came out of that visit were a discussion between Seb and Richard, his former boss, and an interview I did with Momoh the houseboy while he ironed the UN military observers' uniforms. Momoh is the son of a village chief, a handsome man in his thirties who spent the ten years of war in neighboring Guinea. He cleans, shops, and generally does the bidding of the MILOBS as he tries to get enough money to continue his arrested studies. He earns 100,000 leones a month, which is less than U.S. $50. He works seven days a week, with three days off a month. Momoh gave me the most articulate reasons I have yet heard for Sierra Leoneans needing to help themselves as well as the best arguement for giving him a raise. When I told him that I had heard various UN discussions about the pay given their hired help, and the general consensus seemed to be that they couldn't pay them more than teachers, police and government workers, who all earn a similar wage to Momoh's, he said that the UN should pay its workers more because their jobs were temporary, unlike those of the teachers and the police, and, having no contracts, they had no fallback positions, health or any other form of insurance. He added that as a well-funded international body the UN could afford to pay more. I asked him if he knew what the UN military observers he serves earn and he said that he did not. I didn't tell him that they make $115 a day in addition to their salaries.

I spent the night on a sweat-soaked bit of foam that reached from my head to my knees because I had been frantically tracking the progress of my flight out of here and wound up locked out of the house that had offered to put me up for the night. So I snuck back into the MILOBS's "sitting room" and grabbed the foam. Seb dropped me off yesterday at the poda-poda station and I paid $2 extra for a seat in a station wagon rather than take a mini-van. At least I had a seat in a station wagon, though it's been a while since I was one of four across that bench. I didn't know whether I should be concerned or relieved that our driver took a moment of prayer before we began our journey. Next to me was a young woman with a plastic bag on her lap. Experiened traveler, I thought to myself, "Oh shit, there's the puker." It took me a while to realize that it was worse than that. Every few minutes she would rip off a deep chest cough and spit something into the bag. I kept my head turned to the window. It was either dust or tuberculosis, I figured.

We made it to Makeni in a mere three hours, and Colin gave me no end of grief about my appearance. I was covered head to tow in fine red dust. It was so bad that when I got out of the shower and looked at myself in the mirror I went back in. I followed Colin to a "cocktail party" held in the Makeni town hall (think high school gym) celebrating the first official hand-over of security by the UN to the people of Sierra Leone. The Vice President, a quiet man with a budha-like face, was even present, though the lights cut out during his speech. Those pesky generators.

Now, in the supreme glory of the African system, a fine example of what the Brits call "muppetry," ("muppetry," the practice of random institutional stupidities is distinguished from "buffonery," the stupidity of the people themselves) I am waiting to hear whether I shall be lucky enough to get on my flight back to the UK--a flight, mind you, that will leave a full day later than it should have. Not only is SNA not going to compensate me for missed flights and hotel expenses, but my name is apparently not on the sacred passenger list. So the fun begins. I'll try to switch my other tickets as my men in Freetown take my ticket to the office to recieve a chicken scratch mark that will, if I am very lucky, guarantee me a seat on the plane. So it goes.

More as I can.

Posted by Jessie Deeter at April 23, 2004 10:32 AM