Inside, the shambles illustrated the power of a mob. At least 10,000 people stood outside the house at the height of the protest. They were enraged by the collapse of the peace agreement that was supposed to end an eight-year civil war. Cameras rolled as stones flew, the gates came down, Sankoh’s bodyguards opened fire and the Libyan-trained guerrilla leader, himself a former cameraman, jumped over the back fence. After politely asking a neighbor for a glass of water, Sankoh melted away.
The mob took revenge on the building. Every stick of furniture, every electrical outlet, every appliance had been stripped. Water bubbled from a broken fountain in the foyer and dripped from the ceilings. Upstairs the terra-cotta floors were strewn with papers, documents, photographs–and thousands of unused syringes.
The detritus was a snapshot of the life of a guerrilla turned politician. Two yellowing family photos showed Sankoh as a babe in arms and as a child. Papers floating in a shallow slick of water were a grab bag from a Big Man’s files flung open. There was the first page of a petition, dated April 4 and signed by Americans from Boston, complaining about Sankoh’s penchant for atrocities. “I was troubled to hear that the Revolutionary United Front was using child soldiers in their campaigns. In doing so, they are brutalizing a new generation of Sierra Leoneans.” Nearby floated photocopies of cards from a board game in which players evidently draw from among the world’s most infamous villains. On the top of the pile: Charles Taylor, the president of neighboring Liberia, Sankoh’s closest ally. His card read: “Profession: Corrupt Dictator. Henchmen: 1,000s. Swag: $2.8 billion. ‘Invading Liberia in 1989, he seized control of the diamond, gold and timber areas in the north, causing a civil war which lasted seven years and killed 150,000 people before he was “elected” president’.”
Also drifting in the dirty water was an April 26 letter to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Sankoh’s rebels went on the offensive that week, following the departure of the last Nigerian peacekeeping troops. Sankoh wrote, “although I felt disappointed at the departure of your soldiers from Sierra Leone, nonetheless, I know we shall always work in unity and brotherly love.” A regional commander wrote in care of “the special branch,” asking for medicine for his men. A memo in bold felt-tip pen set up a meeting with an international businessman with contacts to supply crude oil or rice and to “buy/sell precious minerals.” A woman wrote from Burkina Faso begging for news of her husband, who left home to join Sankoh with only the shirt and pants he was wearing; he hadn’t been heard from since. The children are hungry, she said.
In the shade of a shed outside the house, the detectives listened as the speakers in the stadium droned on: “never forget the principles, the reason we are willing to die.” And with Sankoh still on the loose, there’s little hope the dying will end soon.
