"The political implications of Norman’s death as we prepare for the already slated 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections will be enormous. Prior to his death, he requested all former commanders, fighters, friends and family members to support Charles Margai and his Peoples’ Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC)."
By Mohamed Bangura,Toronto, Canada.
The recent announcement of the death of the former Deputy Defence Minister of Sierra Leone, Retired Captain Chief Sam Hinga Norman in Dakar, Senegal has provoked more controversy as well as conspiracy theories.
Appointed by President Kabbah following the victory of the Sierra Leone People’s Party in the 1996 presidential and parliamentary polls, Hinga Norman became the public face of the government in dealing with security matters. As such, he commanded enormous respect across the spectrum of not only Sierra Leoneans, but also the international community at large. This political buoyancy was however short-lived with the torpedo of the government by combined rag-tag rebels of the mercurial Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and a cross-section of renegade military personnel headed by fugitive Johnny Paul Koroma of the infamous Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in 1997.
The coup, which could have been prevented to save the precious lives of innocent and unsuspecting civilians from the barbarism of the rebels, was made possible by president Kabbah himself who later told the nation that he had known about the coup three days earlier. Instead, Kabbah vamoosed to neighbouring Guinea along with his cronies running a pseudo government in exile.
Instead of joining his boss in Guinea to dine from the handouts given by the international community, Hinga Norman stood his ground and mobilized local hunters and mounted internal resistance against the marauding rebels masquerading as political leaders in Freetown. Interestingly, as the civil resistance gained momentum, President Kabbah in a BBC interview boasted that he would return “pretty soon”.
With assurances from Hinga Norman that there was resilience on the part of the militia who later became known as the Kamajors (meaning local hunters in the Mende language) the Kabbah government in exile contracted the British based private military company Sandline International with the indefatigable support of the former British ambassador to Sierra Leone, Peter Penfold, for the supply of arms and ammunition to the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and the organized civil defence forces with the expressed mandate to oust the junta from power.
With this plan in place, Kabbah assured Sierra Leoneans from his presidential villa in Bellevue, Conakry that “we are surely going back to power. I have given instructions to Hinga Norman, my deputy defence minister to use all the power at his disposal to restore the government”. What a Machiavellian feat. This, by all indications meant that the late defence minister had the tacit support of not only the government, but that of the president personally. This could be seen in the shipment of a consignment of food to the Kamajors as a form of encouragement.
But with politics bastardized as serving the best interest of one’s political disposition, Kabbah in league with the international community initiated a kind of Special Court to try those who “bear most responsibility for the atrocities against civilians during the course of the war”. Looking for a scapegoat to legitimize the so-called United Nations backed Special Court, Hinga Norman became the immediate sacrificial lamb. He was roped before the court to answer to charges ranging from war crimes to the recruitment of child soldiers. This selective justice has warranted observers to question the possibility of Hinga Norman establishing a parallel “military” without the uncompromising support of president Kabbah and the government for the that matter.
Also, what legal logic was used to arrive at the conclusion to prosecute Hinga Norman by virtue of his role as head of the civil defence forces in spite of the fact that he was taking instructions directly from president Kabbah, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the country? Well, other conspiracy theorists have postulated that president Kabbah at one point became frenetic over the popularity of Hinga Norman that he jokingly accused him of whether he wanted to succeed him (an euphemistic way of saying whether Norman wanted to overthrow him).
Added to this theory is the recent speculation by Kabbah insiders that Hinga Norman was poisoned in jail before he was transferred to Dakar, Senegal where he succumbed to his death. No wonder Norman was so demonized by the government that not a single government functionary, his former cabinet minister-colleagues inclusive, dared visit him in detention out of fear of encountering the wrath of His Excellency, the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Order of the Rokel, Chancellor of the University of Sierra Leone, Minister of Defence and Chairman Sierra Leone Commercial Bank Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. In essence, politics in Sierra Leone has succeeded in eroding the moral fiber of a cross-section of ministers who would kowtow to the president just to stay in power.
The political implications of Norman’s death as we prepare for the already slated 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections will be enormous. Prior to his death, he requested all former commanders, fighters, friends and family members to support Charles Margai and his Peoples’ Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC). This, to say the least, means the die is cast with regrads to the SLPP’s alleged determination to use all means, including thuggery and intimidation, as evidenced in recent skirmishes in Kamakwei when SLPP thugs attacked All Peoples’ Congress Party (APC) supporters, to win the elections.
Indeed, history teaches nothing if the SLPP government could not reverse the sordid trends of political thuggery and intimidation, selective justice, corruption and political opportunism, vices predominant during the reign of the kleptomaniac APC rule, in order for the country not to relapse into chaos similar to the dark chapter in our beloved country from 1991 until the cessation of hostilities in 2002.
It is in this spirit that one will support calls for an international investigation into the untimely death of the late Chief Sam Hinga Norman if only credence could be lent the the rationale behind the formation of the moribund Truth and Reconciliation Commission charged with the responsibility of fostering peace and reconciliation in Sierra Leone.
* The author, Mohamed Bangura(photo) is the head of PMDC-Canada.
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