Blood Diamonds by Greg Campbell

Author:Greg Campbell [GREG CAMPBELL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-12-23T05:00:00+00:00

6

WAGING PEACE:

Taking the Conflict out of “Conflict Diamonds”

Makeni, Sierra Leone

WE FOUND RUF MAJOR Gabril Kallon hungover from a night of indulgent marijuana and gin intake; there was apparently little else to do in Makeni, the RUF’s northern stronghold, except get blinded on drugs and wait to see what would happen with the UNAMSIL peace agreement. Even in his exhausted state, Kallon was a fierce person. In his mid-twenties, he had the eyes of an experienced killer, a look I’d seen almost everywhere in Sierra Leone, a look that said life can be taken without a second thought. He was an important cog in the RUF diamond machinery, a man whose brutality inspired enough terror in his countrymen that they would abandon any place the RUF wanted for itself.

I was sitting on the front porch of Kallon’s compound, a pink concrete house that, according to the sign still standing in the front yard, was once the Makeni headquarters for Concern, an aid organization that had fled the city like most other groups. Makeni was the RUF’s political and military base in the summer of 2001 and most peacekeepers were unwelcome there. I’d hitched a ride with three employees of the UN’s World Food Program to meet some RUF leaders, an endeavor that, until I ran into Kallon, proved almost utterly fruitless. I’d had a five-minute conversation with Eldrid Collins, one of the RUF’s military leaders turned political bosses, but he wasn’t happy that I’d arrived unannounced in the middle of a strategy meeting. I told him the name of my guest house in Freetown and he promised that his men would look me up in a few days for a formal interview, something that never happened.

So I wandered the pulverized town of Makeni with Aya Schneerson, one of WFP’s directors, as she scouted the market for aid food being resold on the black market. Hundreds of RUF supporters and refugees were jammed into the market, a four- or five-block maze of kiosks, rough timber food stands, upturned buckets, and gaunt faces, all centered around a dump truck that reeked of fish. Shirtless men stood on top with shovels, yelling down into the crowd, selling the skinny fish by the spadeful. Movement was practically impossible without resorting to shoving and jostling and the cacophony was deafening: hundreds of people yelling, screaming, mumbling, laughing, and crying, a sardine tin of humanity that emanated body heat like sun-baked asphalt.

We made our way to a quiet corner of the teeming market and bought Cokes, wondering about our next move. We hadn’t found any illegally sold aid food and we hadn’t found any RUF leaders who had time to talk with us. Just as we were contemplating leaving for Freetown, a tall black woman in an ankle-length dress recognized Aya. She was one of Kallon’s wives and she offered to take us to him.

“Is it far?” Aya asked.

“No, no,” the woman answered. “Small-small walk.”

Based on that description, we decided to leave the WFP Land Cruiser and

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