Before even exiting the airport, certain disparities became clear. Firstly, arriving near the same time were three separate flights, not one more than half-full. One for UN staffers, one for contractors and one for the rest. Watching the blue-badged brahmin caste swept through customs, my eyes alighted on a small notice glued to the grimy stuccoed wall of the immigration building. It admonished against giving money to the children from the nearby refugee camp, lest they see a future in begging. Worthy though it may be to usher the youth of a developing nation, especially, toward a sustainable and fruitful living, the effect was somewhat dispiriting, and I felt immediately on the defensive. Could I not savour that paradisiac aerial view a little longer? It seems it’s true what they say – things only ever seem perfect when viewed from a great distance. And I’d come back to earth with a bump.

Edging a year and a half’s worth of luggage past the throng, eager as advertised, I was met and spirited away by 4 wheel drive. In an early introduction to the security alerts against which, I am learning, life in Dili is measured, we chose a circuitous route to avoid reported trouble near the headquarters of Fretilin, the political party that had formed government post-independence, and which was attempting to rally against its likely loss of this status given a failure to win a parliamentary majority in the recent elections.

Depositing my belongings at a dour, razor wire-ringed compound, my hosts took me along the coast road, cautiously past yet more refugee, or IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps interspersed with embassies and dilapidated hotels. Water buffaloes grazed at the salty grasses beneath bearded mangroves, broad-leafed bananas and topheavy papayas. Trotting pigs rooted through strewn garbage, with their young striped for camouflage like the passing convoys of Australian and New Zealand troops. Under the benificent gaze of the famous statue of Christo Rei, we stopped at last, and over a beer, the niceties were quickly dispensed with in favour of a rapid-fire political bulletin. While I took in the remarkable dry season sunset, one of my hosts (who runs a restaurant famed for its prawns though these delicacies are, for him, taboo) quietly remonstrated me for the abysmal treatment of indigenous people in my country of birth. Coverage of the abysmal health and education outcomes of Australian aborigines had gained significant coverage in Dili newspapers, understandable in a country with an undeniable historical basis for its skepticism of Australian policies. Many here think this is what happens, I was gravely told, in a country run by whites. Is it any wonder now that, with Dutch, Portuguese and Indonesian colonial influences warded off at such great cost, the Australian presence, so close and so pervasive, is viewed with a particularly race-conscious suspicion?

It has been a strange time to arrive – uncertainty hanging humidly in the clove-scented air. With the Parliament already boycotted since its first sitting last week, no government has yet been installed. Rumours have been rife as to the status of talks with most tipping a coalition led by the former President, the former guerilla leader and hero of the Falantil resistance, Xanana Gusmão. With the decision repeatedly delayed by the cautious diplomat Jose Ramos-Horta, tensions are high and many now fear a spillover into the rioting that last year left much of the already-razed capital city in smoking ruins. My first day of work was dominated by a huddled discussion of what was to be done if Fretilin supporters, angered by their leadership being ousted after five years, took up arms. A calm, moustachioed man who had lost his own family home in the previous wave of turmoil, reminded all present that the work could continue without an office and the resources within, but not without them.

It’s not the first time I’ve been forced to lay low. A previous scheduled departure for the world’s newest nation had been derailed last year by escalating violence surrounding a mishandled governmental stoush with the armed forces. Since independence, the need for a large standing army had naturally diminished, and finally a decision had been made to cut numbers. Any political fiat resulting in a large number of unemployed men with guns is best done with the utmost diplomacy. Whatever amount had been applied in that instance proved insufficient, and soon the capital erupted in violence enough to prompt evacuations. My intended travel, in the opposite direction, was accordingly shelved.

Recent months have seen a retreat to the twin havens of government and academia. Whilst not without their comforts and charms, the overall effect has been rather like being an adult returning grudgingly to the familial home. There are hierarchies to be observed that need not operate in the wider world, and an internalised sense that recent spurts of growth and change have been overlooked or undervalued. Of course, in this there is a measure of the natural instinct to surprise and even resentment on finding that, just as much as you have discovered triumphantly that you no longer need the trappings of that former life, it equally has continued on with its systems and routines happily without you.

Many talk of reverse culture shock, the mental gear shift required to adjust to old or remembered priorities and conversational touchstones. From monsoons, malaria and machetes to stock portfolios, school fees and SUVs. This is not, mind you, a value judgement, but a recognition that both sets have real meaning to very divergent groups. To switch between can prompt a difficult reappraisal, and potentially deepen feelings of isolation from both camps. Occasionally, I’ve felt like some stygian deep sea creature, accustomed to intense pressure and relentless darkness, and hauled unceremoniously into an unfavourable element to flap about in a less than dignified manner, perhaps to implode.

However powerless I’ve felt to change my circumstances, though, the reminder has been there of just how much more abject this condition is for so many. However much I’ve felt my capacities stifled, the comparison has been recalled to those for whom the advantages are far fewer. However frustrated I have been at the inability to plan for my future, the remembrance has come all too quickly of the people for whom there may be none at all.

Now, with the lifting of a governmental no-fly order that effectively placed Timor on a par with Iraq in terms of threat assessment, and the passing of relatively peaceful elections, it’s time to flee the jurisdiction once more. Of course, with the reported unity cabinet apparently poised to collapse, and old political rivals squaring off for the right to form government at today’s parliamentary inauguration, much uncertainty remains. Let’s hope that the conflict occurs on the floor of the House and not on the red dust streets of Dili.

Chief Norman, in some ways, represented the remaining divisions in post-war Sierra Leone. As Deputy Minister for Defence in the Kabbah government, he was instrumental in mobilising the feared Kamajor sect, along with the Kapra, Gbethi and Donso hunter societies, into the conflict. These so-called ‘magic warriors’, known for their belief in the use of traditional medicines to variously render them invisible to enemies or impervious to weapons, were dubbed the Civili Defence Forces (CDF). Despite Norman’s public statements endorsing their atavistic, scatter-gun approach to warfare, insiders suggest they were only ever loosely under government control.

Aided by their (not undeserved) reputation for cannibalism and human sacrifice, the CDF wrested control of a number of regional centres from the rebels. Norman’s home district of Bo, where he retained standing as part of the tribal elite, was ‘liberated’ by the Kamajors toward the end of the war. In this part of the country, and many others, Norman retains a significant following. He is also believed to have been instrumental in engaging mercenaries, leveraging favourable mining contracts against their protection of government interests. Regardless of his more unsavoury activities, many see him as having brought peace, and having orchestrated the downfall of the Liberian-backed rebels. Several Freetown dailies refer to him in their pages as a hero.

His subsequent indictment by the Special Court came as a surprise. In February 2003, he had been acting in his capacity as Minister of the Interior, making public statements denying visiting rights for prisoners in Sierra Leone’s under-resourced prison system. He may have had cause to regret this some weeks later, when he was himself placed under arrest. Blithely ignoring the indignity of doing so behind bars, he continued to administer his governmental portfolio from the cell block for more than a year.

Pointing to the atrocities committed by the CDF, allegedly on his authority, he had been detained under the Court’s mandate to bring to justice those who bear the greatest responsibility for the bloodshed. Maintaining his innocence of the war crimes and crimes against humanity charges brought against him, Norman at first dissolved his legal team and attempted self-representation. Prone to long-winded courtroom tirades, he always commanded an audience. The public gallery was packed with onlookers throughout the hearing of his case, many vocal supporters among them.

A decision was imminent. The trial chambers had indicated their judgement would be handed down within a few days. This was likely to further polarise the community, exacerbating tensions already heightened by the coming election. Norman’s death, at a military hospital in Dakar following routine hip surgery, will cause an uproar. Despite a swiftly-issued press release stating he had died of a heart attack, and detailing an independent investigation, rumours of foul play are already rife. With no complications following surgery, Norman had been active and in good health.

Some suggest Norman had privately expressed fears he would never leave the Special Court alive. His authoritative demeanour and standing as a paramount chief combined to win him support even in the cell-block, where other detainees deferred to him, even across factional lines. He had, in the last few days, traded on his influence in support of the opposition People’s Movement for Democratic Change, fronted by embittered political bridesmaid Charles Margai. A press release issued by the Committee to Elect Hinga Norman pointed bluntly to his supposed betrayal, by Presidential heir apparent Solomon Berewa, in negotiating the Lome Peace Accord that was to have provided amnesty to political leaders.

Security concerns are currently mounting as word spreads of the Chief’s death, with word of riots brewing. Though it seems likely that the Court will, more than ever, be painted as the nefarious agent of interfering Western powers, it seems entirely more probable to me that Norman saw the writing on the wall and decided martyrdom was the best possible legacy. It is uncertain what an investigation might find and even more uncertain what might be disclosed. The Special Court is effectively in lockdown, awash with cohorts of blue helmets. The sign on my office door, which reminds me to consider taking cover under a desk should the compound come under armed attack, suddenly doesn’t seem so absurd.

I’ve now gotten a security advisory that indicates MONBATT, the battalion of Mongolian UN troops, and the associated detachment of Sierra Leonean police, have been placed on high alert. Personnel are being advised to stay indoors, to keep phones and radios charged, to vary travel routes and avoid unnecessary travel. All staff are being recalled from regional investigations. Members of my own team have now, after a worrying period of fraught telecommunications, been contacted and are cutting their investigations short to make a speedy return to Freetown.

Though it’s likely that outbreaks of violence will be quickly dissipated, and/or politically mediated, this initial UN boost to security does not seem like an over-reaction in light of the simmering tensions in Freetown of late. A spate of unusual child deaths, which might at any other time be overlooked given this country’s abysmal perinatal mortality rates, has caused great anxiety, being widely attributed to a rise in juju practices. Some say that the government has entered secret pacts with the legendary vampiric practitioners of ‘thunder medicine’, seeking to secure electoral victory through rituals involving the blood of newborns. Further evidencing local unrest, altercations between increasingly heavy-handed police and local traders recently flared, a block from my house, reportedly culminating in one death by burning.

Before long, I’ll be following developments via internet, rather than sniffing the orange-and-gunpowder scented air of Freetown for fresh signs of trouble. The term of my contract ending, I’ll shortly be flying out. After some short weeks, and indigestible airline meals (which, I was recently ashamed to discover, distant relatives of mine are responsible for pioneering/inflicting upon the world), I’ll touch down in Dili, East Timor, for a year and a half of legal sector advocacy. I was reminded of this by an email received this morning, advising 17 vehicles had been burnt there overnight, Australian aid workers are increasingly being targeted and 20,000-strong demonstrations have been forecast ahead of next month’s hotly contested elections.

Another rioting seaside city, five years post-conflict. At this rate I’ll barely notice the move. Hope the seafood’s good there…

Working in defence grants a licence to test the orthodoxy of a particular narrative of events. In the course of this, however, it’s natural to encounter distortions, misrememberances, blame-shifting, conflations, mythologisation and other variants of confusion or outright deceit. By pursuing reasonable doubt, myriad perspectives are aired. Given a common place and time, subjectivity will turn a fool into a martyr; a villain into a hero. From this environment, then, it becomes difficult to say anything with authority, except that there is no simple conclusion.

With this in mind, it strikes me as hubristic (told you my thesaurus hand was unimpeded) to attempt to render this conflict in mere black and white. Two such efforts are notable. The first, and most recent, should at least be lauded for bringing Sierra Leone to the attention of cinema-goers and readers of celebrity magazines. After all, for those whose minds actually register this country’s existence, there is usually a single line entry: Sierra Leone – see War.

That titanic starpower should be brought to bear in illuminating this country’s otherwise overlooked history is commendable. Unsurprisingly, however, the exigencies of the studio system, the need for box office returns, and the parallel desire not to have movie fans dry-heaving into their popcorn have required a neat, dilute reading of its turmoil. The evildoers must be identified; their motives explained.

Hollywood has thus resolved the conflict, and decided the guilt of parties in a way that the Special Court has not yet found itself able to voice. Putting aside the minor inconsistencies of the film – such as the fact that vehicles here keep to the right of the road – the film errs most when it seeks to represent one armed contingent as overwhelmingly responsible for the atrocities of the war.

A cursory examination of the Special Court’s indictments would dispel this fallacy. With detainees representing three factions, including a number aligned with the current administration, those held at law on suspicion of bearing ‘the greatest responsibility’ are a diverse assortment of politicians, stooges, ideologues, sociopaths, and backwoods ne’er-do-wells. Occasionally, all in the same package.

Imposing a linear, two-dimensional storyline on such chaos does a disservice not only to those maligned, but to anyone hoping for a more comprehensive understanding of what is inescapably a complex affair. For example, casting the RUF as the bloodthirsty invaders of Freetown, in preference to a more nuanced portrayal citing renegade soldiers as culpable, is symptomatic of the sort of dumbing-down that cannot conceive of an arena of violence beyond crude labels of good and evil.

An equally grave mistake is made by those who misconstrue the bloodshed here as directly and singularly linked to mineral wealth. The second portrayal of this country, to which I referred, was written by a Colorado journalist, and has influenced a number of subsequent works, not least the aforementioned film, to which it very nearly lent its title. Whilst usefully placing West Africa in the context of domination by diamond cartels, its suggestion of a war motivated primarily by greed is blunt, and overlooks a number of factors.

As well as gold, bauxite and rutile, Sierra Leone is rich, perhaps beyond anywhere else, in diamonds. Approaching the mining area of Kono, with signs for aid projects rising from the dust like tombstones and those homes that have survived bombing campaigns literally undermined in search of glossy rocks, this is impossible to overlook. The world’s most successful marketing exercise, touting a compressed form of carbon as an emblem of love, honour and purity, has turned this quiet jungle outpost into a giant slag heap.

Dazzled by the worth and symbolic weight of precious stones, some commentators have side-stepped the relevance of the entrenched corruption and cruelty that characterised Sierra Leonean government for decades and which ultimately gave rise to revolutionary objectives. Despite a sometimes brutish methodology, the RUF, at its inception, found a populace sick of institutionalised inequity and therefore receptive to its reformist agenda.

However compromised this popular uprising may have become, its ideals still resonate with many Sierra Leoneans who see the outcome of the war as maintaining the status quo. That such sympathy should linger even after protracted bloodshed suggests that the conflict was, at least for some participants, deeply rooted in reasons more political than criminal.

A chronological assay of the war appears to bear out this alternative. The diamondiferous regions of Kono and Tongo Field, though relatively close to the Liberian border and to RUF strongholds in the south, were not subject to attack and capture for some five or six years after fighting had commenced. If the motives of the rebels had been so single-mindedly acquisitive as is suggested, then a campaign targeting these areas would have been more likely than the actuality of a drawn-out borderland offensive seeking to recruit disaffected villagers for a march on the capital. Evidence supporting the latter account is substantial.

Maybe part of the problem in conceptualising the full scope of the war in Sierra Leone is that, from the vantage point of Western consumer society, the idea of fighting for a sense of what is fair is seen by many as altogether quaint and naive next to the pervasive power of capital. Or maybe the notion of a story without a clear indication of who the ‘good guys’ are is just not good copy.

Our interpreter was quick to laugh. I’ll call him Ibrahim. As we ricocheted around the scorching metal interior of the truck we shared for the duration of our trip, his good humour helped to keep us sane. Well, more so, anyway. He was from Pujehun, he confided, near the Liberian border. Growing up surrounded by migrating groups speaking myriad dialects and creoles likely helped develop an ear for languages. A university degree in linguistics, hard won later in life, cemented the knowledge. As we toured Sierra Leone, he translated the horror stories of witnesses in Mende, Krio and Temne without complaint or, apparently, personal outrage.

When our convoy reached his home town, however, a change in his demeanour was obvious. His breezy cordiality held, though, as we were welcomed into his family home and introduced to an assortment of relatives. Later that day, having been packed off in our four-wheel drive with the gift of a live chicken, the dam broke. A routine working conversation about the role of various RUF commanders in paramilitary operations had turned up a particular name. Ibrahim bristled visibly at the mention. With only the merest outward hint of the anger that must have boiled in his belly, he volunteered that he knew personally that particular rebel.

They had grown up together in Pujehun, Ibrahim comparatively well off. He would send food to the other boy’s family when there was anything to spare. Later, as Ibrahim got his first job working for a local NGO, he would bend the rules to provide extra food aid cards for his playmate’s parents. The encroaching war, however, saw allegiances divided. The power of gun and uniform lured many who felt vulnerable. And so, out of some hidden resentment or rivalry, or for some reason less reducible, Ibrahim’s family was targeted by the one they had sought to help. His house burned and father killed, Ibrahim fled, escaping the murderous attentions of his former friend only narrowly.

Years later, the rebel has evaded indictment by the Special Court due to his usefulness as a witness implicating more senior figures, shortly to include Charles Taylor. For these services, he walks free on the streets of Freetown; his numerous bloody transgressions conveniently overlooked. The Prosecution has supplied him with a comfortable home, and a generous allowance. He cannot, however, go home to Pujehun, where the memory of his atrocities will linger for some time to come. Set adrift, then, in a country where place and community are central to identity, he recently came – drawn by familiarity – to the modest lodgings secured by Ibrahim’s pay as an interpreter at the same Court where he testifies in closed session.

The African obligation to provide hospitality must be strong indeed, as Ibrahim took him into his home, where they sat in silence. The crimes committed, and unhappiness visited, one on the other were set aside for the civility of sharing a meal. Relating this to me, Ibrahim commented, with the most disgust I ever saw him summon, that next time, he would not bother to cook.

Ibrahim has now learned that he has been selected among very few Sierra Leonean interpreters to travel to The Hague for the trial of Charles Taylor. In the cold of distant Holland, I wonder if he will be once again reunited with his childhood companion.

This part of the country is littered with unmarked monuments to the terror of war. Touring the area in search of our few ex-RUF contacts, the journey became a grisly travelogue. Here to our left was the slaughterhouse in which fifteen captured Kamajor hunters were gutted. The road cutting through which we were passing was the very one on which was killed Rashid Mansaray, who had, early in the movement’s development, ceded control of the RUF to his elder, Foday Sankoh. Legend has it that Mansaray, set upon by the high-ranking cadre of RUF thugs known as ‘The Vultures’, had pleaded innocence to the spurious charge of betrayal, pouring water from his canteen on the dirt and invoking God to make it pour uphill as testament to his honesty. The water turned from its downward path, upsetting gravity and onlookers alike. The Vultures shot him anyway, for witchcraft.

Next stop was the bridge that saw the murder of the movement’s intellectuals, 53 of them, down to the man whose death warrant was effectively signed by his writing the RUF anthem. Man after man was shot with a single bullet to the head and pushed into the water. The movement, shortly after, forgot its initial principles and commenced a further spree of bloodletting. Further along the road was pointed out the house in which an army leader’s wife had been gangraped, prompting a miscarriage to deepen the tragedy. Her crime was that her husband had been accused of stealing diamonds intended to secure a shipment of weapons. At our destination, a sign at the village’s centre declared “Buedu is violence free”. As we noted the radio command where orders for the decimation of whole communities had been issued, this seemed to me a sick joke indeed.

Gallows humour was the order of the day, however. A suggestion that an RUF commander who had widowed a woman he desired by sending her husband to the front (mirroring the Biblical story of David and Bathsheba) was by dint of this act, a holy man, drew gales of laughter. Some biologists will tell you that the reflex of laughing is an evolutionary legacy; its staccato outbursts each echoing a threat curtailed. Humour thus speaks of an unburdening relief, joy at the realisation of survival. As my companions’ laughter rang in my ears, however, I felt the burn of bile rising in my throat, and tried to suppress it. Instead, this caused hiccups. It was hilarious.

Perhaps he knew, sitting quietly in the dock, that thugs in his employ had, some months previous, attacked the judge’s house at night, forcing him to flee over a high wall. The judge was still nursing a limp from the fall, in which he had broken his leg. Given Sierra Leone’s meagre medical resources, the bone would probably never be properly set and the man with the gavel would likely carry for the rest of his life an all too apparent reminder of the violence and fear that the RUF had brought.

Finally able to sputter a few words through his fury, the judge announced that the trial would take seven days. After which, he added, before a packed gallery of eager BBC and CNN hacks, Foday Sankoh would be sentenced to death. Sweat trickled down his face from beneath the absurd horsehair wig he wore, another unproductive and counterintuitive legacy of British administration. Waveringly, the accused raised his hand, and the journalists readied pens and dictaphones for an utterance that might well make the history books. Instead, Sankoh asked for permission to go to the toilet. Apoplectic, the judge ordered that he be removed before he defecated all over the courtroom.

Swept up by the mandate of the newly constituted Special Court, Sankoh never faced sentence in the domestic jurisdiction. Awaiting transfer to his suite in the UN-guarded detention blocks, he was held at Pademba Road Prison, a crumbling colonial monolith now teeming with four times its intended population. Apart from the prisoners, many of them having spent years without charge for some minor offence committed against a government official, there is a parallel community of insects swarming in the untended filth. Reputedly placed below even this on the evolutionary scale, is the man set to guard Sankoh. He is known for the pleasure he takes in torturing inmates.

Following his entry into the custody of the Special Court, it was apparent Sankoh’s health was failing. Before he could reach trial, in a great loss for the annals of international criminal law and – more importantly – for the Sierra Leoneans who had waited long to see him face justice, he died, reportedly of complications from a stroke. The Chief Prosecutor who had been readying the case against him remarked that his passing had granted him “a peaceful end that he denied to so many others.” I was not there to witness these events; this story was related to me by one who was.

I saw him the next morning, as I peered over yet another cup of some beverage almost entirely unlike coffee. His face was glossy and creased as a saddle. It emerged, as we both lumbered into consciousness, that he was ex-British army, and was setting up an Internet Service Provider in Sierra Leone. With the post-conflict explosion in civil society, and the scouts of larger investment now sniffing, it seemed a risky venture, but not without potential for return. A few questions from me elicited the news that he had, in fact, put in the Afghan telecommunications system during the Taliban era, using WWII era technology and some surprisingly adaptable British Telecom retirees.

Afghanistan was more stable then, he claimed, for all the curtailment of rights. The religious leaders maintained strict control of the drug trade, and a higher proportion of women were educated than presently (4%, as opposed to 2%). Whilst I recognise that the US-led incursion has become a mire of infighting and profiteering that has set back the country in many ways, I nonetheless take the points he raised with a grain of salt. 

His deep tan spoke of a long acquaintance with hotter climes, and it turned out that his spell in Afghanistan was preceded by time in Saudi Arabia, where he learned Arabic. He spoke of the nefarious effect of Wahhabi Islam, recalling his run-ins with the religious police, for whom his failure to espouse submission to Allah proved so provocative as to merit a beating.

In the country of my birth, it’s established practice for governments to court the churches for moral credibility on shaky policy, and to decry their interference where such a moral stance belies less noble motives. On the whole, the involvement of religion in political debate is tolerated as an occasionally useful tactical lever, rather than an omnipresent force. I am personally willing to acknowledge a legitimate spiritual mission enacted by some religious leaders by speaking truth to power, and giving voice to the concerns of society’s marginalised. What, though, becomes of this when the lines that divide church and state are not merely crossed, but dissolved?

Social change could, my breakfast companion suggested, initially be effected in fundamentalist nations through the pulpit. There were more moderate elements among the Taliban, he contended, though this reading perhaps requires an ability to perceive gradations of grey not well suited to a “you’re either with us or you’re against us” absolutist world view. Some of these representatives of a (mostly rightly) maligned regime were nonetheless busy prior to the post-9/11 invasion of their country studying national reform strategies in American universities.

The presence of the UN in Afghanistan would render little immediate good, its presence damaging the local economy, perhaps irrevocably, he opined. A ten-room house in Kabul was now being rented at twenty times its pre-war value to military advisers and private security agents with bottomless bankrolls and no prior experience. The lack of co-ordination between aid providers would, additionally, produce negligible benefits for the country’s impoverished.

This is a story I’ve heard before, and one I’m glad to see being rewritten, to some small degree, in Sierra Leone. The post-war era has generated entrepreneurialism and esprit de corps that is not entirely being quashed by disadvantage or inequity. The new wave of local development practitioners will, however, need to choose its friends carefully. The emergence, in the course of Special Court testimony, that the head of the country’s then-largest human rights organization had been, for some time, the sexual partner of the commander in chief of the Revolutionary United Front, understandably generated shockwaves. Titillation aside, leading the public to lose faith in the independence and impartiality of humanitarian agents may render unhappy results for the needy.

With these thoughts firing in my mind, I continued to listen as this spry quinquagenarian spoke of other travels, and of his recent construction of a beachside property in the Caribbean - usefully in the same time zone as his business interests in New York. Among other advantages, I would think. This all set me to (entirely uncharacteristic) introspection. I’m yet to enter my fourth decade. What sort of man will I be at fifty?

As the sun plunged deeper into the horizon’s gore, firelight provided still images of life in a sequence of roadside villages. The lack of electricity may have, in part, dictated the context of the communal activities I saw fleetingly illuminated, but I nonetheless succumbed briefly to imagining myself a part of this seemingly edenic, simpler and more encompassing existence. I recognise intellectually that such a life is often considered an ideal only where the prospect of a feasible alternative exists. All the same, what knocked the rosy-coloured specs clear off my face was the casual mention by a colleague that the painted faces I saw dancing in the glare were preparing for initiation.

Sierra Leone has a long history of secret societies, segregated by gender. Members of the male ‘poro’ societies often play a hidden role in a tribe’s decision-making – even the strongest chief would find it hard to govern without the assent of poro leaders. Such societies stress both physical trials and recall of oral history; mastery of these guarantees elevation through the many ranks, and a share in the benefits the societies’ influence generates. Even the Krio, considered by many – within and without – not to be true Sierra Leoneans at all, given their freed slave origins, replicated this formula. Their avid adoption of Freemasonry, strong even now in the capital, mimics much of the ritual and power-brokering of the poro.

The women’s ‘bondo’ societies have, in recent years, been subject to much more scrutiny, given their common practice of female genital mutilation. Young girls, often forcibly inducted to the societies by female relatives, are subjected to this practice supposedly as a means of constituting identity, but a growing number here have pointed out that it merely marks them as chattel and causes a raft of ongoing medical hazards. This in a country where entire provinces may have perhaps one doctor, perhaps none. Recently, the majority of Sierra Leone’s Commonwealth Games team successfully claimed asylum in Australia, many citing the likelihood of their coerced participation in bondo initiations should they return.

The first prospective witness I spoke to had not been any older than those dancing children when he was abducted by revolutionaries. A steady diet of RUF ideology and guerilla training convinced him that he had become a freedom fighter, destined to loose the shackles of a corrupt and tyrannical government and return the riches of the country to its people. It might’ve been true once, before the movement collapsed under the weight of its collective hedonism and greed. This is a story I have now heard many times, sometimes spoken with such reluctance that words come one at a time, like drips from a leaky tap. Sometimes making a statement takes on a confessional element, and the flow of words is altogether more torrential. More often, though, this story is told with an affectless drone better given to reciting a shopping list.

One young man, whose nostrils had flared like a fretting pony as he stuttered his way through a painful recollection,  rejoiced moments later in unstilted krio upon finding, among the waiting witnesses, an old comrade in arms. Another, whose testimony had revealed a prior command of some hundreds of armed combatants and a well-drummed knowledge of the rocket-propelled grenade and general purpose machine gun, unmistakeably teared up when comparing dog-eared RUF identity cards with another former rebel. The war gave these men purpose, even nobility. Now, exiled and stigmatised, they are reduced from once-heroic proportions to begging assistance from white lawyers half their age. Some among these ruined men would revive the movement they served and with it, they may well hope, their dignity.

You might imagine these ragged revolutionaries – even with their unrehabilitated pride - would now prefer anonymity, and its corollary safety. Instead, many are eager to have their experience of conflict read into the history books. The chance to see the whole story unfold is evidently a compelling motive. Not to be discounted, however, are the twin drives of loyalty and vengeance. Some see the the objectives for which they fought tarnished, and other parties falsely heralded. The grisly tales of combat-era cannibalism and human sacrifice as practised by the pro-government Kamajor hunters (fierce warriors whose ‘juju’ reputedly rendered them bulletproof) bear testament not only to the real atrocities committed by this faction, but also to a darker desire to ensure that they too bear the ignominy now suffered by the RUF. Shrewder participants pointed to the complicity of unaligned civilians, many of whom descended to brutality in the midst of the war’s greater bloodshed, acting out grudges and ‘necklacing’ their opponents with burning, petrol-soaked rubber tyres. 

Others still, their eyes alighting on the ID about my neck, pointed to the fact that those currently facing the Special Court share one thing – they are accused of attacking, and in some cases abducting, United Nations peacekeepers. It’s true that in order for peacekeepers to effectively intervene in the world’s many trouble spots, instances of violence against them must be punished, such that the quashing of impunity becomes a deterrent. It’s true also that many rebel leaders have died and those who are left represent what remains of an extensive and specialised paramilitary hierarchy. That some remain, however, to walk the streets freely who were responsible for spilling civilian blood while those who acted against an armed political adversary are instead favoured for imprisonment, rankles with many. It calls to mind that infamous statement from the book now a staple in any aid worker household, ‘Emergency Sex & Other Desperate Measures’: “If blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers turn up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs.”

Travelling on from one blasted and flyblown village to another, our pristine Toyota was repeatedly engulfed in smoke. The fields through which we passed were aflame, post-harvest chaff set alight in a controlled blaze to replenish the soil and promote new growth. Down the road, bright green shoots had already begun to poke tentatively through the blackened earth.

So where else does the trail of fluttering dollar bills lead? Many point to the supposedly plush conditions enjoyed by detainees. In truth, the luxury of the cellblock extends only so far as a table tennis table and some second-hand board games. My, how those revolutionaries like their Boggle. It must be noted, however, that Charles Taylor, now ensconced at The Hague, may be in rather more bourgeois surrounds – he is reputed to have use of a mobile phone. Whilst these favours may seem small, the resentment they engender in Sierra Leone is understandable, given the meagre trickle of income on which its citizens attempt to make a life. Still, it must be borne in mind that, as yet, no sentence has been passed on any of those indicted by the Court and, as such, the presumption of innocence still attaches. Whether or not this legal technicality penetrates the consciousness of observers. The trials of the Civil Defence Force and Armed Forces Revolutionary Council accused have now been completed, with judgement due to be issued in a couple of months time. Given the remaining popular support for these elements, the results variously predicted to be explosive or to fizzle into irrelevance. Only the trials of Revolutionary United Front combatants are now ongoing, though the infrastructure of the Court does not appear to have diminished. As a side note, the detainees from different factions have, by all accounts, fostered strong bonds during their shared captivity and are not looking forward to the prospect of being separated following sentencing. Makes you wonder why they were all fighting in the first place.

With these trials having recently concluded in a maelstrom of legal activity, and with a similar operation being staged for the remaining cases, questions are being asked about the expenditure required to secure the attendance and security of those testifying. With each defendant proposing in the order of fifty witnesses, this is not a matter of raiding the petty cash tin. Cross-examination has demonstrated, furthermore, that witnesses for the prosecution often stand to make the equivalent of four times their usual annual income simply by way of Court allowances. Whilst the Defence has been most vocal about the potential for this influx of capital to distort testimony, this phenomenon would, of course, apply universally. Development practitioners from a number of sources have expressed a wariness of the jargon-laden terminology and word-perfect repeat statements of some claimed victims of the war. Whilst the experiences of those who genuinely suffered due to conflict are not, in my book, open to minimisation, those who inflate their trauma or more grossly mislead for the purpose of individual gain make the  severity of the war’s impact less credible overall. With some NGOs, for better or worse, delivering attention and support correlating to the sensationalism and shock value of the story told, it is not uncommon to find applicants for aid spontaneously describing themselves as ‘IDPs’ (Internally Displaced Persons). One worker recalled prepubescent boys, who would have been babes in arms at the height of the conflict, nonetheless waxing lyrical about their time as child soldiers and their subsequent regret at having bloodthirstily demanded of their victims whether they would like ‘short sleeves or long sleeves’ (whole- or half-arm amputation). With many aid organisations and governments alike chasing grants dependent on demonstrating the most dire need, gruesome fabrications may have become an insidious flow-on effect, tainting the bona fide horror through which Sierra Leone has passed.

Though the comparably deep pockets of the Special Court have given rise to a satellite system of entrepreneurs, the trail of greenbacks does not end there. With some witnesses legitimately risking their lives, livelihoods and the safety of their families, considerable inducements to testify have been wrought. As has now come to the attention of well-placed journalists, the desire to secure employment for Sierra Leoneans post-trial has made for an odd alliance. Evidence is emerging that certain individuals associated with Court proceedings will subsequently take up positions as contracted employees in Iraq. The need for third-party workers in that dangerous dustbowl has seen salaries escalate and corporate bidders scramble for business. A typical scenario might thus envisage a contractor company reaping one hundred thousand dollars to employ a truck driver, though the actual pay received for working in a life-threatening environment, often with barely serviceable equipment, will inevitably be a tiny slice of this amount. Such an inequitable situation persists because the, albeit diminished, dollar value retained at the end of a contract will support an impoverished family in unimaginable comfort so long as you live in, say, Pakistan. Or Sierra Leone. With so much money expended in the interests of virtue, it’s sobering to consider who will ultimately pocket the cash.