SIERRA HERALD

AFRC Junta Leader heading the Army?


The appointment of a junta operative as S O Williams as head of the army is not good news for our fledgling democracy.

This was the man who was a key member of the junta's military operations against civilians who had refused to recognise the murderous junta. It was S O Williams who, during those trying times for the people of Sierra Leone, when civilians lived by the second not knowing what was in the offing against them that he, S O Williams threatened to raze Freetown to the ground should ECOMOG forces based at Jui move an inch towards Freetown.

We would again remind our readers about the startled and unbelieving look on the faces of the ECOMOG officers when they heard this on the communication system. One of them replied to S O Williams' threat - "But you are talking of your capital Freetown - you are not talking of the Nigerian capital...it is your own country and your capital...."

This is the same man in that junta outfit that planned quite a good number of horrendous attacks against the civilian population including such murderous violations like the type perpetrated against the civilians of Mabaylla during the early days of September 1997.

S O Williams was a part of the junta military machinery that launched the murderous attacks of August 18, 1997 when students and other pro-democrats organised a demonstration against the AFRC/RUF junta headed by Johnny Paul Koroma. A number of students were killed. Students were gang-raped in the massive junta crackdown.

S O Williams was at post when journalists and others believed to be against the excesses of the junta were arrested, beaten, tortured and locked up in metal containers at Cockerill military barracks where he had his office in the same building as S F Y Koroma, Johnny Paul's elder brother who was then the CDS under junta rule.

S Williams knew and condoned the numerous abuses committed against perceived opponents of the junta and must have heard of the numerous cases of murder, rape and arson that were being carried out by the junta and did nothing about it - even when he heard of the atrocities being committed against the "captured" female students that were held at the then OAU villas occupied by the likes of Alex Tamba Brima and Idrissa Kamara aka Leatherboot.

He did nothing about all these atrocities. S O Williams still has to give account of his role during the invasion of Freetown by junta forces that left more than five thousand unarmed and innocent civilians dead with many more wounded and more than a million traumatised.

We would urge the desperate men and women of AFRC Mk2 parading as civilians who have no respect for the finer elements of democracy to take note of a part of President Obama's speech when he was in the Ghanaian Parliament. He stated amidst great applause that "Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions" and should be heeded by the Ernest Bai Koroma cabal that has now found a way of using those weapons against the opposition. . .

The appointment of S O Williams effectively means that those weapons now in the hands of the military, (or so we are made to believe) could now be used in joint operations by the military and police and as we have suggested before do not be surprised to see new types of uniforms being issued just before the elections that would make it difficult to distinguish the OSD from military personnel.

Time to bring in UN blue helmets with a no-nonsense mandate. There has to be more than the traditional Chapter 7 mandate regarding the rules of engagement.