WEST AFRICA: Bockarie's death boosts chances for peace

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ABIDJAN, 9 May 2003 (IRIN) - The killing of West African warlord Sam Bockarie has boosted the prospects for national reconciliation in Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire, two of the countries where he and his followers, killed, raped and looted, diplomats, relief workers and regional analysts said.

But they warned that the gunning down of Bockarie by troops of Liberian President Charles Taylor, his former paymaster, could unleash Bockarie's force of up to 5,000 hardcore mercenary fighters as a new factor of instability in in conflict-torn Liberia.

The Liberian government said Bockarie was fatally wounded in a shoot out with Liberian troops on Tuesday as he tried to cross back into the country from Cote d'Ivoire with a band of armed followers.

But diplomats in the Liberian capital Monrovia have cast doubt on this version of events. Many of them believe that Bockarie was shot dead in Monrovia by Taylor's bodyguards after a violent argument with the Liberian leader.

One senior diplomat in West Africa told IRIN: "Taylor is under intense international pressure from the United States government, the UN and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to stop supporting armed fighters in the region. He is being forced to rethink his links to the likes of Bockarie although he needs their help against his own rebels."

Bockarie, who was 40 when he died, embarked on his career of death and destruction as a mercenary in Liberia in 1989 backing Taylor's successful bid to seize power in a three-sided civil war. Two years later he joined Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and rose to become its deputy military commander. This rebel movement gained notoriety for hacking off the fore-arms of men, women and children as a warning that people should not vote for the country's elected government and for committing an untold number of massacres.

Few will mourn

Nicknamed "Mosquito" for his ability to strike hard and unexpectedly and then melt away into the bush, Bockarie may become an African legend. But few of those striving to restore peace and normality to the region will mourn his passing.

"His activities were linked to the targeting and deaths of relief workers, use of small arms, recruitment of children into war, sexual abuse and exploitation, theft of relief property and massive displacement of people in several countries of West Africa," one senior officer of a relief agency told IRIN in Abidjan.

Desmond Davies, London-based editor of "West Africa" magazine, said he believed Bockarie was a megalomaniac. "His death could bring some stability to parts of the region. He was a trouble maker. Whenever I spoke to him, I got the impression he was power mad," Davies told IRIN.

"People in Sierra Leone will sleep better because he was re-arming and would have returned to cause trouble. In Liberia, his men could cause more trouble," Davies added.

Relief workers in Sierra Leone said ordinary people felt Bockarie's death had removed a shadow from the country's past. "It is a pity that Sierra Leoneans missed the opportunity to see him face trial," one source said. "But the general feeling is of relief - that it was good riddance."

When Sierra Leone's civil war came to an end in 1999, Bockarie refused to be demobilised along with other RUF fighters. He fled to Liberia with about 200 followers and began a career of fighting and pillaging on behalf of new paymasters in other countries.

By then Bockarie had fallen out with his commander Foday Sankoh, who is now under arrest in Freetown, facing charges of crimes against humanity in a special UN-back court.

Moving across the border, Bockarie led a small mercenary group which backed Liberian President Charles Taylor in his own civil war against rebel forces.

But in November last year the Sierra Leonean warlord and his followers crossed another border to join rebels in the west of Cote d'Ivoire in the fight against the government of President Laurent Gbagbo .

According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank which recently produced a report on Liberia, Bockarie served as a military adviser to all three Ivorian rebel movements. Between them, they now control the northern half of the country.

But he fell out with his Ivorian hosts after his men got out of control, looting, pillaging and trafficking stolen goods across the frontier as well as helping to fight government forces. A week before Bockarie met his own end, the Popular Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI) the main rebel movement in the country, chased him across the border into Liberia after accusing him of killing Felix Doh, the leader of its smaller ally, the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO). Bockarie and his men had previously been supporting MPIGO in fighting with government forces near the western town of Danane.

One source told IRIN Bockarie death was welcomed by the rebels because he had become "excess baggage at a time when a ceasefire seems to be taking root".

In Sierra Leone, Bockarie was wanted for trial by a UN-backed Special Court, which has already arrested six other people on charges of crimes against humanity. He was accused of committing and allowing his followers to commit a long list of rapes, abductions and killings.

However, Bockarie was revered by both his own men and the leaders of various fighting groups across West Africa. The warlord, who began life as an illiterate village boy, was said to be an articulate and charismatic military strategist.

From village boy to rebel leader

Bockarie was always a flamboyant character. After leaving his village in eastern Sierra Leone he became a disco dancing champion, diamond miner, hairdresser, waiter and electrician. He embarked on a military career at the age of 26 when he joined fighters in Liberia who were being trained by Taylor to fight the then government of Samuel Doe.

The BBC quotes Bockarie as once saying in an interview: "I cannot tell how many people I have killed. When I am firing during an attack, nobody can survive my bullets."

In the late 1990s, when Sankoh was away, Bockarie used money from illicit diamond sales to reorganise and re-equip the RUF into a strong fighting force. It was after this that he fell out with Sankoh who felt he had become too powerful.

Who killed Bockarie ?

Bockarie was killed just two months after a UN-backed Special Court had indicted him and seven others, including Sankoh, on charges war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.

Two weeks ago, the Court said Bockarie and another of its wanted men, former military junta leader Johnny-Paul Koroma, were hiding in Liberia. It demanded that President Charles Taylor hand them over.

According to the Liberian government, Bockarie was killed while crossing into Liberia from Cote d'Ivoire with a small unit of bodyguards near the border town of Bin-Houin early in the morning of 6 May. But diplomats in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, and Abidjan believe he was killed in Monrovia.

The Special Court too doubts the Liberian version, insisting that Bockarie had previously been hiding in Kahnple village, in northeastern Liberia with 40-50 armed former RUF rebels.

Bockarie, diplomats told IRIN, met Taylor in Monrovia the day before he was killed and threatened to "spill the beans" if he were handed over to the Special Court. Angered, Taylor ordered his arrest. But Bockarie and his guards resisted. "Indications are that Bockarie was killed in a shoot-out in Monrovia, probably to destroy evidence," one diplomat in the Liberian capital said.

Boost for reconciliation in Sierra Leone

Bockarie was a key figure behind the violence and brutality that characterised Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war. It started in March 1991 when RUF rebels, supported by Taylor, crossed the border from Liberia.

According to Physicians for Human Rights, 53 percent of displaced women and girls who had face-to-face contact with RUF rebels experienced some form of sexual violence. One third of those who reported sexual assault said they were gang-raped. Up to 4,000 people suffered amputations of limbs, mainly by RUF and thousands of others suffered other abuses.

Officials at Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) said Bockarie's death would discourage any remnant rebel loyalists and enhance national reconciliation. "The threat to peace would have been abetted to a large extent by his death," Dan Adekara, TRC spokesperson told IRIN. "His absence will bring out more responsive individuals to push forward the reconciliation process."

Another analyst in Freetown said that Bockarie's death had dealt a severe blow to those contemplating a revival of rebel activity in Sierra Leone. "Given the lack of leadership structures within Sierra Leone's remnant rebels both in the country and outside, and with Sankoh in jail; his death weakens the idea of rebellion in this country further."

Bockarie's men agitated in Liberia

Estimates of the size of Bockarie's force in Liberia vary from just a few hundred to up to 5,000. Diplomatic sources in Freetown and Monrovia said the group had set up a base at Gbanquor village, 10 km from Sclepea town in north central Liberia.

The sources told IRIN that the Liberian government and two country's rebel groups, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), were all seeking the support of Bockarie's private army this week, but the group's loyalty would probably go to the highest bidder.

"At the moment they are agitated by their leader's death. They are unhappy with the Liberian government," one diplomat said. "But these are paid fighters. The highest bidder gains their support. Presently war-torn Liberia is the most conducive space for them. They could ally with Taylor's government, one of the Liberian rebel groups or with another Sierra Leonean fugitive, Johnny Paul Koroma."

Koroma, who came to power in Sierra Leone in a 1997 coup, is also wanted by the Special Court in Freetown. He went into hiding in January and, like Bockarie, appears to have fled into exile and become a mercenary

The court has accused Koroma of training a 3,000-strong force of heavily armed men for Taylor at Foya Kamala in northern Liberia known as the "Special Monitoring Unit." The court said it mainly consists of former RUF fighters and Liberians.

Diplomats believe Taylor is creating the unit to counter MODEL, a new rebel group active in eastern Liberia which they believe to be supported by the Ivorian government.

Taylor, according an ICG report of 30 April, is the key to instability in West Africa because of his support for armed foreigners like Bockarie, who have turned up fighting in several countries in the region.

Impact on Cote d'Ivoire

The West African peace keeping force in Cote d'Ivoire hopes Bockarie's death will help stabilise the situation in the west of the country. "From a military stand-point his death is a good thing. It reduces those we have to deal with by one," Lt. Col Mathieu Bony of the ECOMICI told IRIN. "Even if another leader of his rebels emerges, he wouldn't have the same charisma to impede our efforts to pacify western Cote d'Ivoire."

According to the ICG report on Liberia, Bockarie helped plan successful rebel attacks on the western Ivorian towns on Danane and Man in November 2002. He was particularly close to MPIGO and MJP, the two smaller rebel movements active in the west of the country, both of which are believed to be backed by Taylor.

Diplomats told IRIN the Ivorian government was cautiously optimistic that Bockarie's death could enhance the peace prospects in the country.

The ICG report quoted eyewitnesses as saying "Mosquito" was seen in the MPCI rebel stronghold of Bouake, advising the rebels, at the start of the Ivorian conflict in September last year.

However some analysts remain skeptical that Bockarie's disappearance from the scene will make much difference to Cote d'Ivoire.

Prof. Ouraga Obou, dean of the Law Faculty at the University of Abidjan told IRIN: "I don't believe his death will impact the Ivorian crisis. The future of the conflict cannot be linked to one man. I believe more in negotiations between the Ivorian army and the rebel movements, rather than that one individual is the problem."

[ENDS]