The meaning of a militia: Understanding the civil defence forces of Sierra Leone

African Affairs

Volumn 106, Issue 425, 2007, Pages 639-662

  Hoffman, Danny ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNOPOLITICS; MILITARY INTERVENTION; SOCIAL NETWORK;

AFRICA; SIERRA LEONE; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WEST AFRICA;

EID: 36249005411     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adm054     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. The original report consists of two major components. The first outlines the history, role, and structure of the CDF. The second is a detailed reading of the Iron military expert witness report. I combine the two here. Much of what follows is repeated verbatim from the 'Expert Report on the Kamajors of Sierra Leone,' though I have changed the formatting and heavily edited and abridged the text. I have included transitions and background material where necessary, and have contextualized the analysis further in terms of its implications for thinking beyond the limited scope of concern to the Special Court. In keeping with the style of the original report, and in the interest of protecting some sources, I have not named most of my interview subjects here. I draw heavily on the transcripts of the Special Court testimony as a way to contextualize both my argument and the Court archives. When doing so, however, I have used only those parts of the testimony that I find credible based on my own field interviews or sources outside the transcripts themselves. I do not know if my original report will be publicly available as part of the Special Court archives, though my assumption has always been that it will be. With the exception of the names of a few of my informants, no part of my report or testimony was closed. As of the time this article was revised for publication, there is no verdict in the CDF trial of Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa. Hinga Norman's death on 22 February 2007 means that there will be no judgement in his case.
2. This version of the origins of the term CDF comes from the author's interviews in Freetown and Monrovia with individuals who claimed to have been part of the deliberations setting up the CDF. This account of the origins of the term are at odds with some of the Special Court testimony, notably that of Hinga Norman. See Norman's testimony on 26 January 2006, p. 58.
3. The pre-war figure of the kamajor is dealt with in more detail in Joe Alie, 'The Kamajor militia in Sierra Leone: Liberators or nihilists?' in D. J. Francis (ed.), Civil Militias: Africa's intractable security menace? (Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 2005), pp. 51-70;
4. Mariane Ferme, 'La figure du chasseur et les chasseurs-miliciens dans le confit sierra-léonais',Politique africaine 82 (2001), pp. 119-32
5. Matthew Hill, 'Where to begin? The place of the hunter founder in Mende histories', Anthropos 79 (1984), pp. 653-6;
6. Melissa Leach, Rainforest Relations: Gender and resource use among the Gola, Sierra Leone (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1994);
7. Kenneth Little, The Mende of Sierra Leone: A West African people in transition (Routledge, New York, 1967 [1951]);
8. Patrick Muana, 'The Kamajoi militia: Civil war, internal displacement and the politics of counter-insurgency', African Development 22 3/4 (1997), pp. 77-100;
9. Alfred B. Zack-Williams, 'Kamajors, "sobel" and militariat: Civil society and the return of the military in Sierra Leonean politics', Review of African Political Economy 73 (1997), pp. 373-98.
10. Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Ceasefire Monitoring Group.
11. Richard Iron, 'Military expert witness report on the Civil Defence Force of Sierra Leone' (2005), part A1, Exhibit 97, Case SCSL-2004-14-T, The Prosecutor of the Special Court v. Sam Hinga Norman, Moinina Fofana, Allieu Kondewa.
12. The Special Court for Sierra Leone, 'The Prosecutor against Samuel Hinga Norman, Moinina Fofana, Allieu Kondewa, Indictment' case no. SCSL-03-14-1, 5 February 2004. (19 June 2007), p. 4.
13. Ibid., p. 3.
14. Ibid., p. 4.
15. Ibid., p. 5.
16. The AFRC (Armed Forces Revolutionary Council) was the name adopted by the military junta when it took power in 1997. Although he apparently wrote reports for the RUF and the AFRC, only the report on the CDF was actually used by the Prosecution.
17. Richard Iron, 'Military expert witness report on the Civil Defence Force of Sierra Leone' (2005), part A1.
18. Ibid., part B2.3.
19. David Francis, 'Introduction' in D. Francis (ed.), Civil Militias, pp. 1-29.
20. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties (Metheun and Co., London, 1967), pp. 36-7,
21. cited in Gani Joses Yoroms, 'Militias as a social phenomenon: Towards a theoretical construction' in D. Francis (ed.), Civil Militias, p. 34.
22. See, for example, Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark battles in the rise of Western power (Anchor Books, New York, 2001).
23. For an interesting commentary on the comparative project of a number of key military historians, see Laura Miller, 'My favorite war', The New York Times Book Review, 21 March 2004, p. 23.
24. See Greg Jaffe, 'Marines rediscover a 1940s manual', The Wall Street Journal, 8 April 2004. (18 June 2007).
25. See Paul Richards, 'New war: An ethnographic approach' in P. Richards (ed.), No Peace No War: An anthropology of contemporary armed conflict (Ohio University Press, Athens, OH, 2005), p. 3.
26. See Mariane Ferme and Danny Hoffman, 'Irregular combatants and the international human rights discourse in the Mano River conflict zone', Africa Today 50, 4 (2004), pp. 73-95.
27. Sobel is a colloquialism for soldier/rebel, or members of the armed forces who colluded with or impersonated RUF fighters and preyed on rural communities.
28. Amos Sawyer, Beyond Plunder: Toward democratic governance in Liberia (Lynne Reinner, Boulder, CO, 2005).
29. This has been traced in important ways by Richard Fanthorpe, 'Locating the politics of a Sierra Leonean chiefdom', Africa 68, 4 (1998), pp. 558-84;
30. Richard Fanthorpe, 'On the limits of liberal peace: Chiefs and democratic decentralization in post-war Sierra Leone', African Affairs 105, 418 (2006), pp. 27-49;
31. Mariane Ferme, 'Staging politisi: The dialogics of publicity and secrecy in Sierra Leone', in J. L Comaroff and J. Comaroff (eds), Civil Society and the Political Imagination in Africa (Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL, 1999);
32. Mariane Ferme, The Underneath of Things: Violence, history, and the everyday in Sierra Leone (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2001);
33. Paul Jackson, 'Reshuffling an old deck of cards? The politics of local government reform in Sierra Leone', African Affairs 106, 422 (2006), pp. 95-111.
34. Testimony of Samuel Hinga Norman, 30 January 2006, pp. 43-4, 46. This tension was supported by the author's own interviews in the region.
35. For further analysis of this "micro-political context" and discussion of Norman's chieftaincy as it played out in Court testimony, see Tim Kelsall, 'Politics, anti-politics, international justice: Language and power in the Special Court for Sierra Leone', Review of International Studies 32, 4 (2006), pp. 587-602.
36. Ndogboyosoi is a Mende "bush devil" (see Anthony Gittins, Mende Religion: Aspects of belief and thought in Sierra Leone (Steylar, Nettetal, 1987). Alternative spellings include 'ndorgborwusui' and 'ndorbgowusui.'
37. The Ndogboyosoi affair and other local conflicts are described in greater detail in Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2006), p. 66;
38. Jimmy Kandeh, 'Ransoming the state: Elite origins of subaltern terror in Sierra Leone', Review of African Political Economy 78 (1999), pp. 349-66;
39. David Keen, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone (James Currey, Oxford, 2005), p. 18;
40. John Massaquoi and Francis Fortune, 'Grassroots peacebuilding in Pujehun' (Conciliation Resources, 2000) (18 June 2007)
41. Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest: War, youth and resources in Sierra Leone (Heinemann, Portsmouth, 1996), p. 22.
42. Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest, p. 91.
43. Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, p. 66.
44. June 2005 testimony, p. 31, lines 22-8.
45. Patrick Muana, 'The Kamajoi militia', p. 78.
46. Doug Henry, Embodied Violence: War and relief along the Sierra Leone border (Southern Methodist University, unpublished PhD dissertation, 2000).
47. Krijn Peters and Paul Richards, "Why we fight": Voices of young combatants in Sierra Leone's civil war', Africa 68, 2 (1998), pp. 183-210.
48. Testimony of Albert Nallo, Special Court for Sierra Leone, 11 March 2005, p. 50, lines 13-18.
49. See also testimony of Defence witness Ishmael Koroma, 22 February 2006, pp. 24-34, 38.
50. Military expert witness report, part B2.1.
51. Charles Piot, Remotely Global: Village modernity in West Africa (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999), p. 18;
52. see also Michael Jackson, Minima Ethnographica: Intersubjectivity and the anthropological project (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998), p. 3.
53. Caroline Bledsoe, Women and Marriage in Kpelle Society (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 1980).
54. Mariane Ferme, The Underneath of Things, p. 106.
55. Author interview, 13 April 2006, Bo, Sierra Leone.
56. Testimony of Samuel Hinga Norman, 30 January 2006, p. 55, line 29 and p. 56, line 1.
57. This is a case I have documented in interviews in 2001 and 2006 with key figures in the Panguma area. The information here and in my further discussion of this case below is drawn from these interviews.
58. For example, Defence witness Ishmael Koroma notes that a local businessman in Blama was a 'Kamasoi chief. See testimony from 23 February 2006, p. 43, lines 5-10. The use of the term Chief Kamajor for important local individuals was also mentioned in various of the author's field interviews.
59. Author interview, 15 April 2006, Kenema, Sierra Leone.
60. In his testimony before the Special Court, Albert Nallo makes reference to this individual and his claims to the title of general. See testimony of Albert Nallo, 10 March 2005, pp. 62-4.
61. This was a well-known case among CDF members in the Bo region. I have written elsewhere about the performative dimensions of this individual's claims to authority. See Danny Hoffman, 'Like beasts in the bush: synonyms of childhood and youth in Sierra Leone', Postcolonial Studies 63, 1 (2003), pp. 295-308.
62. There is noway to establish exact numbers, but in the course of my own research I have encountered enough such stories to confirm that it was a frequent occurrence.
63. Author interview, 13 April 2006, Bo, Sierra Leone.
64. This is a theme repeated in almost every interview the author has had with CDF commanders at all levels.
65. Testimony of Samuel Hinga Norman, 2 February 2006, p. 27, lines 20-4.
66. The United Liberian Movement for Democracy, or ULIMO, formed in Sierra Leone in 1991. ULIMO forces were primarily Mandingoes and Krahns of Liberian descent opposed to Charles Taylor. ULIMO is discussed in the testimony of Defence witness Albert Demby, 10 February 2006, p. 5, lines 7-12.
67. No Peace Without Justice, 'Sierra Leone conflict mapping report', p. 49. (18 June 2007).
68. The Brookfields Hotel was the base of operations for many of these combatants.
69. Human Rights Watch, 'Youth, poverty and blood: The lethal legacy of West Africa's regional warriors' (Report 17, 5(a), March 2005).
70. Gendema is on the Sierra Leone side of the border, and Bo Waterside or Bo Njala is on the Liberia side. The Mano River Bridge connects the two. Gendema is also sometimes spelled Njendema or Jendema.
71. This is a point made repeatedly in the literature on the war, from journalistic coverage of the conflict (see Matthew Tostevin, 'Sinking into depths,'BBC Focus on Africa, 4, 3 (July/September 1993), pp. 23-6) to scholarly analysis (see Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa;
72. Paul Richards, 'War as smoke and mirrors: Sierra Leone 1992-1993, 1994-1995, 1995-1996', Anthropological Quarterly 78, 2 (2005), pp. 377-402).
73. For further analysis from elsewhere in the region, see Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The destruction of Liberia and the religious dimension of an Aftican civil war (New York University Press, New York, 1999);
74. Mary Moran, Liberia: The violence of democracy (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 2006).
75. See Danny Hoffman, 'The civilian target in Sierra Leone and Liberia: political power, military strategy, and humanitarian intervention', African Affairs, 103, 411 (2004), pp. 211-26.
76. For just one of the many recent writings related to this point, see Peter Redfield, 'Doctors, borders and life in crisis', Cultural Anthropology 20, 3 (2005): 328-61.
77. See also Paul Richards, 'New war'.
78. See Danny Hoffman, 'Like beasts in the bush'.
79. See Caspar Fithen, Diamonds and the War in Sierra Leone: Cultural strategies for commercial adaptation to endemic low-intensity conflict (University College, unpublished PhD dissertation, 1999).
80. See Danny Hoffman, 'The city as barracks: Freetown, Monrovia, and the organization of violence in contemporary West African cities', Cultural Anthropology 22, 3 (2007), pp. 400-28.
81. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The future of terror, crime, and militancy (RAND, Washington, DC, 2001).