Family Talk

Wednesday, November 19th

Today began the most intense, serious days of my trip. On the morning of Wednesday, the 19th, I visited Fambul Tak, an initiative of a young human rights worker named John Coker. He and some others were very interested in supporting the concept of “just peace” – balancing justice with peace on a community level. Through a series of consultations with the help of a UK foundation called Article 19, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, they came up with the idea of Fambul Tak (family talk) which is a long process of restoration that takes the provisions of the Truth and Reconciliation commission and makes it happen on the ground. The TRC is believed to be a project of the UN and Geneva, not local, not owned by the average Sierra Leonean. Post war, the demobilization process only attended to the needs of the victimizers, and only in a quick pay off. Offenders are now without the little that they had received and the offended are powerless and angry.

Fambul Tak offers both a process and a support system for local communities to restore their sense of community and better incorporate offenders. It offers the time and space for the community to gather and acknowledge the wrongs, and in a communal, public way, have offenders apologize (and this public apology is often not understood by Westernerss for the power that it holds). There is a cleansing ceremony which ritualizes this process. Fambul Tak only needs to create the space and trust for the community to do this. It was quickly learned that trust is built by the absence of cameras and videos and taping equipment. Only then would victims and victimizers feel open to come forward and the process would work.

The organization also offers preparation for the process to happen, in conjunction with the community in each locale. Fambul Tak also helps the community create a support committee, a kind of reconciliation committee composed of pastors, imams, the Mami guide (head woman of the village, the youth chairman, etc.). These are trained in basic mediation skills so that they can be shock absorbers for the community, ready and able to mediate any situation that may arise later.

Fambul Tak is now operational in a number of communities in Eastern Province of Kailahun. There is a second pilot group forming in the Moyamba area and a third now in Makeni. I will meet with them when I travel to Makeni next week.

In the afternoon I visited the Sierra Leone Special Court communications director, Mr. Peter Anderson. I had known him for many years via the internet. He hosted www.sierra-leone.org which was the very best information site during the war. He shared his take on the Court and its work, recommended a number of people for me to see when back in the US, as well as recommending the book, A Distant Mirror, which helped him understand the nested reality of conflicts here and in the past.

Later in the afternoon I met with Mr. Eddie Massaquoi of the Center for Coordination of Youth Activities (CCYA). This is a unique youth network that has some credibility and capacity and helps many give direction through outreach to youth. There were two main points of conversation: 1. The need for some kind of process similar to the months of traditional initiation in the bush to assist youth in understanding and taking the responsibility of adulthood which they need in today’s society. The challenge here is that the little of this that may be happening has been militarized. 2. There is a need for a National Dialogue with youth, with a spectrum of representation that includes parliamentarians and marginalized youth.

We ended the conversation with the issue of unemployment of youths as one of the most important triggers for conflict and dissatisfaction.

In the evening I met with three former combatants who live just outside our gate in Kissy Dockyard. Two were members of the West Side Boys and were with the RUF for over 12 years each. The third fellow was only a witness to the atrocities of the civil defense units who were used against the young insurgents. Let me begin with him. Alimamy was a child when his father took him from Freetown to the Kambia District for safety. There, however they met the RUF in their home of Barmoi and for a number of months they had to learn to live the life of peaceful coexistence that could explode into conflict at any moment. And explode it did, and the civil defense of that area did overwhelm the insurgents and Alimamy witnessed the brutal “necklacing” of many of the insurgents. (Necklacing is the tying up of a person, putting an outer tire around the head, doucing them with gas and lighting them afire. Thousands died this way. No justice. No court. No appeals. I saw the black circular spots along many roads in Kenema in 1998 upon my return from the village where we were “protected.”)

The second young man, Ibrahim, was with the RUF for over 12 years. He comes from the South, a town called Serabu. He related many a story of long marches from one part of the country to another, hunger and competition among fellow fighters that often lead to death of the weaker, meeting the rebel leader Foday Sankoh, and not being impressed. He told me about all of the many places he had gone in war. He had been part of the famous and treacherous group around Rambo, a brutal and sadistic leader. He witnessed his death and the power struggle that followed. He was witness to the death of Sarge Musa, another rebel leader who brought fear to many. He later became one of the infamous West Side Boys who were known as really tough juveniles who rarely negotiated.

All throughout the story, he would make comments about how remorseful he felt, very well aware of the gravity of the crimes he committed as a child. When he was demobilized, he was with one of my brothers, Fr Chema, at a demobilization and reintegration center at Laka Beach. He now is doing tailoring although he had a hard time getting started. The program ended too soon and too little was given for him to really start out strong.

The host of the evening, Francis, did not have sufficient time to tell his story, so I will try to return before I leave Sierra Leone to hear him out. However, I was impressed with the way he was able to moderate the evening’s meeting, prodding the other two to clarify each story in ways that helped me understand.