Memorandum submitted by Professor Paul
Richards[137]
A RECIPE FOR POTENTIAL LONG-TERM FAILURE?
British peacemaking policy in West Africa
1. The British government has invested hugely
in peacemaking in the Mano River conflicts, in particular in Sierra
Leone since the peace-stabilising intervention of British armed
forces in May 2000. By not addressing underlying social grievances
in this regional crisis these investments strengthen only one
side in a deeply rooted conflict, and potentially stoke up worse
instability over the longer term.
2. Historically, the linked crises in Liberia
and Sierra Leone reflect the slow pace of emancipation from domestic
slavery, due to the dominance of coastal mercantile elites and
exigencies of colonial rule (Liberia—although nominally
independent in the colonial period—adopted the British-devised
system of "indirect" rule, ie local government through
chiefly and land-owning elites).
3. A recent study by historian Trevor Getz
(comparing Ghana and Senegal)[138]
argues that the educated West African coastal elites (as well
as interior traditional rulers) were among the major proponents
of the idea that domestic slavery was a benign "family"
institution. The French and the British both needed to placate
"nationalist" merchant elites as well as interior rulers,
and soft-pedalled post slavery social reforms.
4. Ghana and Senegal rendered domestic slavery
illegal at the end of the 19th century. The system lasted much
longer in the Mano River countries. Sierra Leone did not abolish
domestic slavery until 1928. Liberia followed suit in 1930. A
study by a historian of slavery in Sierra Leone (John Grace) found
practices and attitudes formerly associated with domestic slavery
still widespread in rural areas in the 1970s.
5. In World Bank post-war social assessments
for Sierra Leone (2004) and Liberia (2005),[139]
I found institutional practices directly rooted in domestic slavery
continuing to affect marriage, labour and the administration of
justice in both countries, if somewhat disguised (eg as "community
labour", ta yenge in the Mende language).
6. In various studies with ex-combatants
and rural youth about the causes of the war in Sierra Leone complaints
about these abuses are frequent. Impoverished, vulnerable youth
object to exploitation through forced labour and marriage. Fined
by customary courts they refuse to pay and become vagrants, vulnerable
to recruitment by militia forces. Similar data have come to light
in Liberia.
7. When the restored Kabbah government was
asked at the Edinburgh Commonwealth leaders' conference in 1998
what it needed to consolidate its rule, it prioritised a request
for help in reinstalling paramount chiefs and "customary"
courts. The British tax payer was asked to support a full-scale
re-implementation of "indirect rule".
8. Houses for Paramount Chiefs were to be
built with ta yenge (now sanitised as the willing contributions
of volunteers anxious to rebuild their communities). In a work
on customary law revised in 1948 a colonial District Commissioner,
Fenton, noted that the British could hardly find candidates for
chieftaincy after the chiefly rebellion of 1898 (itself a protest
at the threat to abolish domestic slavery) until they awarded
chiefs the right to demand free labour. The symbolism of British
peacemaking was unfortunate, to say the least.
9. In a conference sponsored by the French
Foreign Ministry in 2003 I read a paper arguing that rebel movements
such as the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone systematically
exploited the vagrancy of rural youth stemming from unjust rural
institutions incompletely transformed from those designed to administer
a world of domestic slavery. I was answered by James Jonah (the
Electoral Commissioner for Sierra Leone in 1996) and Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf (now president of Liberia). Both argued I had sentimentalised
militant youths, who (in their eyes) were ruffians. The Krio word
used to refer to footloose youth is rarray. It has various
etymologies, but one local interpretation is "run-away",
ie the vagrancy of the slave.
10. I wrote to Douglas Hurd, as Foreign
Secretary, in October 1991, pointing out that the Revolutionary
United Front was interested in a limited British military intervention
in the war, to ensure a level playing field for discussion of
their grievances (which included lack of transparency over the
diamond wealth and lack of educational opportunities for the children
of the poor). The reply stated the UK had no significant strategic
interests in Sierra Leone, and the causes of the conflict were
obscure.
11. Fourteen years later not much has been
done to address that obscurity, but not for lack of opportunity.
The Paramount Chief Restoration project in Sierra Leone was accompanied
by a very good initiative. Detailed discussions were held with
all government-accessible chiefdoms about underlying causes of
war. Despite many absences (notably of migrant farmers and fighters)
these discussions revealed the generality of rural grievances.
But the process was never extended to the rest of the country,
nor was any serious effort made to pressure the Sierra Leone government
to address these grievances. In 2003 I asked a British government
social affairs adviser why nothing had been done. His answer was
"priorities change".
12. If justice for the poor, based on listening
to their grievances, is not a priority of British peace-making
in Africa then I conclude that the real priority is making the
region governable for political and commercial interests. Collaborating
with the region's mercantilist elites serves "business as
usual", but it may not prove a sound strategy in the longer
term. If no one is willing to address deep social grievances the
rural poor will continue to find their own interlocutors. Finishing
off the RUF (or al-Qaida or the Taliban) will be followed by the
rise of even more extreme opportunist champions of the deeply
impoverished and desperate.
January 2006
137 Paul Richards holds the Chair of Technology &
Agrarian Development in Wageningen University (The Netherlands),
and is Professor of Anthropology at University College London.
He lived in Nigeria during the Biafran rebellion and studied that
conflict as part of his research in the western Niger Delta. He
has undertaken fieldwork in various parts of Sierra Leone since
1977, including work in the Gola Forest on the Liberian border,
and survived parts of the war with his family in the town of Bo.
He published a book on the conflict in 1996 and has recently directed
major studies on post-war social conditions in Liberia and Sierra
Leone. He is a British citizen. Back
138
Trevor Getz, Slavery and reform in West Africa: toward emancipation
in nineteenth-century Senegal and Gold Coast. Athens: Ohio University
Press, 2004. Back
139
Paul Richards, Khadija Bah & James Vincent, Social capital
and survival: prospects for community-driven development in post-conflict
Sierra Leone. Social Development Papers: Community Driven Development/Conflict
Prevention and Reconstruction, Paper No. 12, April 2004. (Washington
DC, The World Bank, 2004), Paul Richards, Steven Archibald, Beverlee
Bruce, Wata Modad, Edward Mulbah, Tornorlah Varpilah & James
Vincent, Community cohesion in Liberia: a post-war rapid rural
assessment. Social Development Papers: Conflict Prevention and
Reconstruction, Paper No. 21, January 2005. (The World Bank, Washington
DC, 2005). Back
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