Nobles 1

Tashawner Nobles
CJAD 320
Professor Hargrett
September 15, 2014

20th Century Genocide: Foday Sankho Foday Sankho was born October 17,1937 to a poor farming family and was part of the Jemme Tribe of northern Sierra Leone. He attended primary and secondary school in Magburaka, Tonkolili District and afterwards worked numerous jobs in Magburaka. Moving forward to 1956, he joined the Royal West African Forces where he became a wireless operator and cameraman, in which he served till he made junior rank of corporal. After Sierra Leone received its independence in 1961, the country began to fill with plenty of government corruption and poverty. In 1970 Sankho served seven years in prison for participating in an abortive coup against Siaka Stevens. When Sankho was released from prison, he moved to Sierra Leone second largest city called Bo. The city Bo was well known as the homeland for diamond dealers of Lebanese. This is where he would use the knowledge of his training in the military as a video cameraman and wedding photographer. His job was a disguise to better learn the village, the people of the village and to come in contact with the political college students at the local college. This disguise allowed him to also set up his first plan to murder two gem dealers and use the money to finance the beginning of his rebel movement. He then moved to Libya with a group of students expelled from the university. He eventually started a group called the Revolutionary United Front also known as RUF. This group was believed to be 15,000 members strong. In the beginning Sankho intentions were to idealistically rid Sierra Leone of its military-backed corrupted politicians, but eventually took a quick turn to take full control of the diamond mines of the east and have political powers. The majority of the recruits were frustrated intellectuals and youths, whose first demand was education that the incompetent state denied them. The rest were young illiterate boys who had no real understanding of what morals meant. They were forced into this group young as 7 and was also made to kill or rape their own family members so they wouldn't have anyone to return to if they tried to leave the group. RUF young soldiers most times were forcibly injected with cocaine before going into combat.

Sankho used the diamonds as a trade off to obtain money and weapons, as well as support of his ally Charles Taylor. Taylor was the leader of a rebel group in Liberia known as the National Patriotic Front for eight years. Sankho and Taylor had similar views with being quite determined on the overthrow of the old political system in his country. Taylor provided Sankho with a base in Liberia as well as arms and mercenaries. In March of 1991, the RUF, led by Sankoh and backed by Charles Taylor, started its first attack in Kailahun District located in the diamond-rich Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Taylor who is now currently being held on international indictments for some of the war crimes committed within support of Sankho in Sierra Leone. It is believed that Sankho killed over 50,000 people and amputated people body parts such as the legs, arms, genitals and lips. It was very gruesome because they went as far gouging out the eyes , raping young girls and mothers, injecting people with acid, burning people alive, beatings and ritual cannibalism. Sank ho denied all rumors of atrocities and when two senior comrades decided to speak up against him to his RUF savages, Sankho was able to have them placed in jail on trumped up charges and later executed. During this time Sankho refused to step down or surrender his power. In January of 1996 elected president Kabbah attempted to stop Sankho with his senseless killings, Sankho angrily went on a brutal rampage systematically chopping off the hands of civilians in mockery of President Kabbah slogan “The future is in your hands”.

By 1998 Sankho was finally captured in Togo . He was convicted of treason and murder, where he was soon sentenced to die. However, the government was not counting on Sankho to have loyal troops that went on a killing spree in 1999 in the town of Freetown killing 5,000 people and almost completely pushing out the Nigerians out of the city. It even went as far as Sankho receiving a call from former President Clinton pleading with him to accept a peace deal that Reverend Jesse Jackson had pleaded with him for days to sign. He agreed and Sankho death sentence was canceled and he received amnesty and was appointed Minister for Natural Resources which gave him control over the diamond fields that had initially financed his rebellion. He was also given the position of Vice President in country as long as he in return would put an end to the killings.

Again Sankho did not hold up to his end of the deal and a year later took 500 UN peacekeepers hostage. Sankho believed that the UN had no business in Sierra Leone. The U.N. forces are now left trying to defend Freetown and finding a solution to freeing the 500 UN peacekeeping troops that are in the custody of the RUF. The peace agreement that was meant to police is no more than a bit of trash. The international forces are searching and using all resources to organize defenses to put off a rebel assault on the capital. Britain, which was the country's former colonizer, has almost 700 paratroopers there to help evacuate Europeans and to support Freetown's defenders. The U.S. had agreed to send in anybody willing to fight as long as they were not American, and also to send Jesse Jackson back to the Sierra Leone to talk to anyone in charge that would listen. It became quite clear that the peace the Western leaders was hoping for would be able to reconcile the problem but soon realized it couldn't be saved. By this point the people of Sierra Leone was tired of Sankho and decided to take matters into their own hands. President Kabbah advised and stressed to the protestors not to go to Sankho house, because of the type of security Sankho had and not to create any extra stress. However they didn't listen and went to his house. The crowd of protestors was more than what the President or Sankho expected and it threw Sankho security off. The security fired a peace shot into the air to try to ease the tension and building rage in the protestors, but that shot caused people to end up getting killed. Sankho rebels were at a building located next to his house and heard the gunshots and immediately begin firing into the crowd of protestors. All together on that day which they called Black Monday 24 protestors lost their lives and were considered heros of peace and democracy. Finally in May of 2000 was captured for the second time and was being brought to justice. Two years later he made an appearance in court for the first time looking frail, his dreads was unkempt and his health deteriorating. Court proceedings were dragged out for another year, which by this point Sankho was not healthy or fit to stand trial and needed overseas medical treatment. RUF leader Foday Sankho died July 23, 2003 at the age of 70. His wife and some political analyst believed he was purposely maltreated before dying hoping that he would reveal the secret of the building of the RUF.