Precarious Cross-Border Operations
I was a first time UNICEF Representative for Sierra Leone, attending the graduation of my son, Amos in USA when, on 25 May 1997, the Sierra Leone army staged a coup d’état in Freetown. Soon afterwards, the Army Junta invited the RUF rebels to join them. UN internationals and the Government fled to neighbouring Conakry, Guinea. My Deputy, Nasim Ahmed contacted me from Conakry and proposed establishing a UNICEF Sierra Leone office-in-exile there. Providentially, the UNICEF Guinea Representative agreed that we could use a vacant floor in their office building. One of our senior National Officers, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh surfaced in Conakry and informed me that he had led a convoy of staff, and their families, who did not feel safe in Freetown, to the Sierra Leone town of Kambia near the Guinea border and under the protection of Guinean ECOMOG troops. I retrospectively approved this move and agreed that he should start organizing a new UNICEF sub-office in Kambia to prepare for a humanitarian response for north Sierra Leone.
After the coup d’état the UN Security Council passed a resolution of sanctions and embargo against the junta of Sierra Leone. A group of Sierra Leone ministers in exile met with the UN Heads of Agencies to explain the Government in Exile’s policy. Their idea was to strictly observe the sanctions and embargo regime to put a stranglehold on the junta so it would quickly collapse. I was the only UN Head of Agency who argued against this policy. I said: “Sierra Leone has the worst human development indicators in the world, very high infant mortality and malnutrition rates, and it will not be the Junta who will suffer from the sanctions and embargo but the civilians and especially the children. I ask for permission to engage in a cross-border operation from Guinea into Sierra Leone for life saving supplies for children like vaccines and medicines. The group of ministers asked to leave the room for a ‘hanging of heads’ - a Sierra Leonean method of consultation where they literally stand in a circle with their heads bent almost touching whilst they talk the matter over and reach a consensus. They came back into the room and declared that their hearts were with the UNICEF Representative but their heads told them they must press for total sanctions and embargo with no exceptions. They were confident that in this way the rebellion in Sierra Leone would be short lived and the suffering of the people minimized. The meeting dispersed and I stayed to talk to Berhanu Dinka, the Envoy of the UN Secretary-General. He told me he would talk to the President in Exile, and the following day informed me that the President had agreed to make an exception to the sanctions and embargo regime for life saving measures for children. This could not be officially documented but the President would request the Guinean Customs to cooperate.
With Nasim, I went to the Guinea-Sierra Leone border to meet the group of national staff who had relocated to Kambia with their families. We discussed the work to be done and their roles and responsibilities. I sat down and, on the spot, wrote out what we had agreed by hand as a charter for the new UNICEF Kambia Office, which would be responsible for UNICEF activities in the north of the country. About 10 national staff, led by Murtada Sesay, opted to stay in Freetown and I established a mission charter for them too.
During the coup d'état the rebel soldiers had run amok in Freetown raping Krio women, and a group of Krio UNICEF staff, with their families, escaped by boat to Banjul, The Gambia where UNICEF Representative Youssouf Oomar kindly received and cared for them. In June 1997 these UNICEF Krio ladies came to meet me in the Conakry Office. They told me that they had found accommodation for their children in The Gambia with friends or family. They had heard I was launching a cross-border operation into Sierra Leone. I realized then that these ladies before me were reporting for duty, despite all they had just been through. I told them what positions I needed in Conakry, for which some were ideally suited, but others would have to work in either Kambia or Freetown if they were to stay on the UNICEF payroll.
Exiled in Conakry. From left: Ray Torres, Marian Tucker, Nance Webber, Cornelius Williams (tall man at back visiting from Freetown), Caroline Charles, Lydia Secker, Josephus Williams with only part of head showing, ?,Blanche Gooding in blue smock, Nasim Ahmed and Tony Nwanze.
UNICEF financial transactions were controlled organizationally through a computerized system. The UNICEF Sierra Leone National Information Technology Officer, Josephus Williams had evacuated from Freetown to Kambia, and on to Conakry, bringing with him a backup of all the UNICEF Sierra Leone financial transaction data. In Conakry we tried to reconstitute the UNICEF Sierra Leone database, but we could not get it to work. Because I was the former UNICEF Information Technology Director, Josephus and I had quickly developed a close working relationship. We were in the Conakry office late one night trying to resolve this problem, when we both stopped and looked gravely at each other. Josephus averted his gaze to the floor, and it was for me to voice our joint conclusion. “We have to bring out the Freetown computer to Conakry; the system is already installed and functional on it!” Josephus nodded gravely and looked grim. He knew that he was the only person who could reliably fulfill this mission and didn’t relish negotiating with the Junta/RUF checkpoints enroute. After a pause he said “OK, I’ll leave tomorrow morning”. I had MS Bah, my resourceful driver, accompany Josephus and they returned safely a few days later with the Freetown computer. We soon had the UNICEF Sierra Leone system up and running in Conakry. From then on, I authorized all Sierra Leone transactions by satellite phone, recorded in a log. We instituted a controlled courier mail system whereby, the Freetown and Kambia offices submitted the substantiating documents when they could, and we in Conakry would record the transactions in the organizational financial computer system. This ad-hoc system worked perfectly.
Operations Officer, Tony Nwanze and I flew to Abidjan where all West and Central African UNICEF Representatives and Operations Officers were gathered to attend the biennial Programme and Administrative Budget Review. The peer group of Representatives, chaired by the Regional Director, reviewed each country office programme and budget and after making any necessary amendments, forwarded it to New York HQ for final approval. Since I was intending to continue operations in Sierra Leone I needed to undergo this statutory process. I had prepared a country programme and budget for Sierra Leone for the next two years with enough specificity to pass muster but with enough vagueness to be able to adapt to changing circumstances. The Regional Director and fellow Representatives treated me with kid gloves, full of sympathy that a first time Representative, whose only background was in HQ Administration posts, was undergoing the acute crisis that was Sierra Leone. UNICEF Representatives usually have either diplomatic or social development backgrounds (health, education, or social welfare), and Representatives with management backgrounds like me are rare. I thought that especially in a crisis setting, the management skills of the Representative are the most important. I had specialist staff in the programme areas and found I could learn what I needed without much difficulty. Although I did not voice this at the time, in fact I rather relished the challenges I was now facing.
National Communications Officer, Nance Webber helped me send HQ and Regional Office, first daily and then weekly, Situation Reports explaining what was going on and what we were doing about it. Presumably they felt that everything was under control, or at least as under control as possible under the circumstances, since they did not question what we were doing. I did not ask permission for the various unusual procedures I had established since I knew that the bureaucrats in HQ and the Regional Office would have difficulty to stick their necks out to approve what they no doubt would consider a risky practice. I am not sure whether such leeway is possible now, but at least at that time the strength of UNICEF was the decentralized powers given to a Representative, and I was happy to take those powers and run with them.
Once our first order of supplies arrived in Conakry, vaccines and vaccination materials and basic health supplies, we had to embark on the logistical cross border operation in earnest. In recognition of his ‘fixing’ skills, I made my driver, MS Bah a Logistics Assistant. One of his key tasks was to secure the customs clearance from Guinea into Sierra Leone, this at a time when there was an international sanctions and embargo regime on Sierra Leone. Although the Sierra Leone President in exile had informally approved our cross-border operation, and the Chief of Guinea Customs had been asked to cooperate, nothing in Africa works smoothly and every potential hitch in process is a moneymaking opportunity for gatekeepers. Sometimes MS Bah took a whole day and sometimes two to secure the customs stamps on our shipping documents. UNICEF has a strict policy not to pay bribes, but MS never explained how he managed to secure these approvals.
Having the customs documents duly stamped in Conakry proved to be a necessary but not sufficient condition to actually getting our supplies across the border. I motored to the border with Nasim to negotiate with the Guinean Colonel, Camarra, who commanded the border crossing. At the border I found a long line of vehicles carrying everything imaginable including food into Sierra Leone and going the other way vehicles loaded with Palm Oil and Palm Wine from Sierra Leone. So much for the international sanctions and embargo regime. We found the Colonel in his baked mud compound plumb on the border. I explained to him UNICEF’s mission and how we were striving to save lives of Sierra Leonean children and that the President in exile and the Conakry customs chief had all approved our cross-border operation. I showed him the signed and stamped customs clearance for the first shipment. He gave me that very African slow smile and said: “Mr. Representative, in Conakry Lansana Conteh is in charge; here on the border I am in charge.” However, what seemed most important to the Colonel was that I – the UNICEF Representative – was coming to him in supplication and he very graciously assured me of his cooperation in the UNICEF humanitarian mission for children. On parting he smiled meaningfully and asked that I come to visit him from time to time - with a present. In this way our supplies started to flow smoothly across the border.
After my next overseas trip, I visited the Colonel at the border. I found him as usual in his baked mud compound in vest and shorts with two young ladies lolling in hammocks in the shade. After the usual greetings, I gave him some Swiss chocolates I had picked up whilst on a fundraising trip to Geneva. The Colonel looked at this present with a mixture of sadness and exasperation. “I can’t eat chocolate but I do like to eat US$ dollars,” he finally said. “Do you have some for me?” I politely told him that as UNICEF Representative I could not give him US$. Furthermore, anything I would give him was a personal present from me – not from UNICEF. I told him that since now I knew he did not eat chocolate I would think of a different present next time. The Colonel looked at me with another mixture of emotions – this time I think it was incredulity and resignation. He graciously recommitted his cooperation to our mission and I left feeling that he must be getting so much from the other illicit traffic across the border that he could afford to treat us as his personal charity case.
One of our drivers, a short wiry middle-aged man, was known to be irascible with a short fuse. One day the news came to me that this driver had been asked to pull the large UNICEF truck over at the border and, in his anger at this affront, had backed into the guard-post and knocked it over. The Colonel asked to see me urgently to resolve this unfortunate incident, so off I went to the border to meet him. As usual the Colonel was in vest and shorts with a different brace of girls swaying in their hammocks on either side of him. The Colonel rose to greet me and looked me sternly in the eye: “You know Mr. Representative that I have cooperated fully with UNICEF’s important humanitarian operation but knocking over the guard-post is a really serious matter since it is a military installation. I need US$100,000 to rebuild it”. I kept a straight face at this ludicrous demand. The mud and stick ruins of his miserable military installation were visible from where we were sitting; its replacement would not cost more than US$50. I responded: “You know Colonel that UNICEF is a very correct organization. No one is obliged to give donations to UNICEF; all our income is from voluntary contributions including children in Europe and USA going door to door collecting coins to help other children in Africa, not only in Sierra Leone but also in your own country Guinea. UNICEF cannot part with money unless it is against specifications and a formal contract, which results from tenders from at least three independent contractors”. The Colonel’s eyes almost crossed at the thought of this procedure. After some more talk we agreed that he would negotiate with UNICEF Kambia on specifications for a new guard-post, which would be superior to the one knocked down, and that we would arrange to build it ourselves. In subsequent renegotiations with UNICEF Kambia, the Colonel agreed to accept US$100, the upper limit of our petty cash transactions, to be paid to him personally and he rebuilt the guard-post with the same mud and stick materials drawn from the ruins, thereby pocketing the entire sum himself.
UNICEF vehicles were plying the route between Kambia and Freetown and had to pass many roadblocks manned by rebel forces, mostly a mixture of Army Junta and RUF children. These experiences were very unsettling for our staff since these kids were usually drugged and their behaviour very volatile; anything could set them off. Of course, they asked for money to allow the vehicles to proceed – it would be unthinkable to pass up such a wonderful money-making opportunity. UNICEF policy is not to pay money for such things. What to do? One suggestion was that we disguise these payments as miscellaneous petty cash, but I was concerned that if we acceded to these cash demands there would be no end to the squeeze. MS came up with the solution: give anti-malarial pills to the rebel soldiers manning the checkpoints. This was a much appreciated and perfectly acceptable road toll, and since child-soldiers were usually manning the checkpoints we were supporting health outcomes for Sierra Leonean children.
After the junta came to power in Freetown, houses of well-off people were looted, but not my house on Cape Sierra. MS periodically checked up on my house whenever he made trips to Freetown and found it guarded by RUF kids who proudly declared they were guarding the house of the UNICEF Representative. MS dispensed them anti-malarial tablets, and their declarations in defense of ‘UNICEF House’ became fiercer.
Child Soldiers on the road between Kambia and Freetown 1998. RUF have red berets; the two middle kids are Army regulars. Painting by my mother Edith after a photo taken by UNICEF staff.
The junta period lasted May 1997 – February 1998. Dr. Sheku Kamara, Director General of Medical Services, and most senior civil servants in the Ministry of Health, had escaped to Guinea in an ambulance. UNICEF international Health Officer, Dr. Anne Vincent, sitting in Conakry, was effectively the surrogate Sierra Leone Minister of Health coordinating with the national UNICEF health staff in Sierra Leone by sat phone. UNICEF had historical relationships with the Sierra Leone District Medical Officers, and of course with the Heads of Department of the Ministry of Health in Freetown. We just picked up where we had left off before the coup. Anne was a former MSF head of mission and worked well with those International NGOs who were still active in country. With these partnerships, we ran immunization campaigns and provided basic primary health care for the Sierra Leone population
The prolonged Sierra Leonean civil war, with villages and towns attacked and civilians fleeing had created a big problem of children separated from their families. In Conakry, Ray Torres worked with child protection NGOs to develop a process for caring for these children, tracing their families, and reuniting the children with them. We created a computer system to manage and help match separated children with their families. Cornelius Williams in Freetown was the operational lynchpin of the Separated Children project, effectively acting as the surrogate Minister of Social Affairs, coordinating the Child Protection actors in Sierra Leone. The Separated Children project became a national system, operating successfully during all the period of the Junta, and continued afterwards.
During the Junta period, schools in Sierra Leone were closed, and children were not only losing learning opportunities, but also, being out of school, they were vulnerable to exploitation. The UNICEF Kambia group launched informal schools and recreational activities for the town. These proved very popular, drawing in children from the surrounding area, and the huge demand required increasing expansion of these activities. One UNICEF supported activity was a soccer league. I was asked to attend the final of the league championship and present the trophy to the winning team. At that time, the UN Security regime did not permit UN internationals to enter Sierra Leone. However, as a life-long soccer-playing enthusiast, I could not resist accepting the invitation and snuck across the border. It seemed that the whole of Kambia area attended the soccer match. The players were very enthusiastic and skillful despite the poor condition of the pitch. When I rose to the podium to present the trophy to the winning team there was a huge, prolonged roar from the crowd. I understood that this was not just about a soccer match; it was about how this town was surviving during the Junta period and UNICEF’s integral part in that.
The Ministers in exile in Conakry were not happy that I had secured an exception to the sanctions and embargo regime, albeit an unofficial one. There was no rational justification for their unhappiness since a visit to the border would make clear that the sanctions and embargo regime was in fact being flouted massively on a daily basis. In Fragile States like Guinea small sums of money can fix anything. Every study ever made of sanctions and embargo regimes shows that the leaders of the country being targeted are not affected but the ordinary civilians are - massively. The Sierra Leone Junta was not overthrown quickly as the Ministers-in-Exile had hoped, in fact it took more than 9 months, so my insistence to provide humanitarian assistance to women and children was surely vindicated. At any rate, the Ministers in exile set up a Commission, headed by Foreign Minister in-exile, Shirley Gbujama and comprising the Chief of Guinean Customs and several other officials, to oversee the President-in-exile’s agreed exceptions to the sanctions and embargo regime. UNICEF was the only UN agency operating in Sierra Leone and the other parties to the exception on sanctions and embargo ‘to save children lives’ were ICRC, MSF, Action Contre La Faim (ACF) and World Vision International (WVI). At the first meeting of the commission UNICEF, ICRC and the NGOs gave an accounting of what we were sending across the border. The Sierra Leonean members of the Commission were clearly unhappy that anything was allowed across the border but they wanted to be convinced that each item was for the expressed purpose of saving children’s lives. They were adamant that no food could go into Sierra Leone since they declared that the junta would confiscate it and use it as a resource for war. Regarding nutritional supplies for malnourished children, I argued that in fact this should be considered as medicine since it had to be administered according to strict medical protocols. In fact, whilst this was true for therapeutic milk, we were also sending in BP5 biscuits, which were an essential supplementary food for children though certainly not medicine. After two meetings of the Commission, the Sierra Leone Government in exile lost interest and we agreed to dispatch monthly reports on our activities.
My international Child Protection Officer, Ray Torres and Operations Officer Tony Nwanze both transferred to other UNICEF offices and after that I was the de-facto Operations Office and I worked directly with Freetown based Cornelius Williams on Child Protection issues. My deputy, Nasim ran the supply and logistics operation and of course, Dr. Anne was de-facto acting Sierra Leone Minister of Health. We three UNICEF internationals worked very well together and with our Sierra Leone national team who performed magnificently. Once a quarter, I held a Programme Progress Review in Conakry, bringing Murtada Sesay from Freetown and Jalloh from Kambia, where we made various administrative and programming decisions including approval of quarterly programme budgets. These meetings always included a review of future likely developments and contingencies. In this way we adapted to the changing situation in an effective manner.
After 9 months, Nigerian ECOMOG troops moved against the Junta/RUF and we returned to Freetown to resume more normal operations. The Executive Director, Carol Bellamy visited Sierra Leone to present all national staff with their well-deserved award for staff excellence. Without exaggeration I believe that during the Junta/RUF period UNICEF saved several hundreds of thousands of children lives. Looking back, the cross-border operation was truly one of the highlights of my UNICEF career of 31 years.
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