War in Sierra Leone

This is a Nigerian tank that broke down in a village with no electricity near the border with Liberia in the jungley area where the Sierra Leonean civil war kicked off in 1991. The Nigerians were here leading ECOMOG - the West African Peace Keeping Force - except there was no peace to keep because there was a massive war.

The Nigerians had tanks and jets but out here in the bush that wasn't very helpful because the rebels just hung out in the forests with machine guns and machetes. For years they periodically raided, pillaged and raped their way through villages and towns. The rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) split into factions, Government soldiers joined the rebels becoming 'sobels' (the West Side Boys were 'sobels'), civil defence forces (CDF) sprung up all over the place fighting everyone and then split and the Nigerians didn't know how to win a guerilla war. It was completely pointless because a lot of the time the rebels didn't have a strategy beyond "kill the enemy". The commanders were interested in controlling mining areas but the whole thing was just a mess. The Government couldn't sort it out because it was broke, corrupt and totally unprepared after 30 years of inept leadership since independence to deal with a rebel insurgency.

Through all of it the ordinary people suffered most. No one knew who was spying for who or who was on which side because there were so many factions and villages swapped hands with bewildering regularity as no one was strong enough to win. Attacks whether RUF, sobels, CDF or bandits would take everyone's food, kill, sometimes eat, or mutilate anyone who didn't run away fast enough. If you were a girl you'd be raped and maybe taken along as a possession and if you were a boy you'd be made to fight for them. Once you'd joined you'd start off as a porter carrying supplies for days through the jungle. The rebels had no vehicles. You might have been made to kill your family and while you pondered that as someone not yet in your teens you'd be given cocaine, herion, cannabis and speed. You might not be able to lift a machine gun but if it was set up for you you could kill just as many people as the next man.

Malnutrition rates in Sierra Leone are horrendous. It's hard to understand why in a country that is green and fertile. Lack of protein is a problem and in a week travelling the bush I saw very few animals. After 11 years of war there were no goats, sheep or cows left here. They'd eaten them all along with the wildlife (monkeys etc). People who say giving people goats is a bad idea haven't been here.

Eventually the international community realised that Sierra Leone had been allowed to descend into chaos and brought in a UN mission to support the Nigerians. A surprise SAS attack on the West Side Boys killed the movement because after 10 years everyone wanted peace and the international community's message was clear: we will kill you if you try to carry on.

The civil war made no sense and killed tens of thousands people. It traumatised the nation and is still talked about and visible everywhere. Ruined buildings abound. Mohammed, the boy who tried to find me an internet cafe in Bo (Sierra Leone's second city - imagine Birmingham with no lights) had fled his village aged 3. He toldme his mother had lifted him up and run with him into the forest where they'd hid for 2 days with no food not knowing where to go because rebels could be anywhere. His grandmother wasn't able to run fast. They found her body outside their hut.

The war was started by a group of nasty guys with small penis syndrome who wanted to lead a revolution and Gadaffi gave them money to do it. The war spread because people, especially the young, were frustrated, angry and felt they had nothing to lose. Rebuilding Sierra Leone is expensive, slow and difficult. Progress is being made but no one knows if it's enough. The country remains obscenely poor. Every Sierra Leonean I've met says there will never be another war. Donors are less certain. They say there's a window of about 5-7 years. If sufficient progress isn't made the ingredients that led to the previous war will still be there, threatening all the good things that have happened in recent years.