ANB-BIA SUPPLEMENT

A price of approximately US $ 5,000 has been placed on the head of Johnny Paul Koroma,
Sierra Leone’s former junta leader. 
But who will be able to trace him?

The biggest problem facing Sierra Leone’s police these days, is to track down Johnny Paul Koroma, who disappeared after escaping arrest in January. J.P. Koroma is a Member of Parliament and leader of the Peace and Liberation Party (PLP), which currently has two seats in parliament. He was also head of the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) which ousted President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s government in 1997.

Koroma’s problems started when an investigation into a shootout at the military engineering installation at Wellington, east of Freetown, on 13 January this year, led police to his house in the west of Freetown. While police were searching his house for «evidence», J.P. Koroma disappeared. He later claimed through the local media and the BBC that the whole event was a ploy to eliminate him because he has strong support in the armed forces. Indeed, a large percentage of the armed forces including the police, had voted for him during the 14 May 2002 elections.

The «Westside Boys»

A fortnight prior to the Wellington shootout, two of J.P. Koroma’s henchmen — Gullit and the self-styled «Brigadier» Santigie Kanu (also known as «Five-Five»), who were renegade soldiers loyal to the AFRC during the war, were among a group arrested at former president Joseph Saidu Momoh’s confiscated house, where they were suspected of holding secret meetings for plotting subversive activities. After interrogation, Gullit and the others were released because police said they had found no evidence incriminating them. They were ordered not to use Momoh’s residence, so they went to J.P. Koroma’s house. This may have caused suspicion to fall on him and encouraged him to go back to the jungle.

Gullit and Co. were leading figures in a faction comprising mainly renegade soldiers of the Sierra Leone Army, known as the «Westside Boys», who gained notoriety because of their involvement in abductions, rape, stealing vehicles and pillaging villages in their areas of deployment. The days of the Westside Boys came to an end when they made the mistake of abducting British soldiers. An operation carried out by the British contingent in Sierra Leone, led to the arrest of their leader, the self-styled «Brigadier» Kallay. Most of the Westside Boys went on the run but later responded to the call for disarmament.

An «attempted coup»

Now, back to the Wellington shootout. The authorities described it as an «attempted coup d’etat» and there were a number of arrests. On 3 March, seventeen people appeared in court — among them, Brigadier «Five-Five»; Alhaji Kamanda (alias «Gunboat»); Daniel Sandy (alias «Hard Guy»P; Sellu Bockarie (alias «Very Fast»). Among the seventeen on trial, five are soldiers and twelve are civilians including a female pastor of an African evangelical mission, Reverend Elizabeth Bai-Marrowe. The twelve civilians charged in court are mostly high-ranking PLP officials.

J.P. Koroma’s Party, the PLP, has made persistent complaints that since their leader’s escape, they are being harassed by the police. The 3 March edition of the Independent Observer reported that another senior PLP official has also disappeared, and this has prevented the party from convening elections. Hon. Hassan Kamara is a PLP Member of Parliament. In early March, in Parliament, he insisted that J.P. Koroma «is still the leader of the party. As far as I am concerned, there is no vacancy in the PLP leadership and his salary as an MP is still running». He added, however, that he has advised J.P.Koroma to give himself up to UN troops or British troops.

With Johnny Paul Koroma still at large and rebels in neighbouring Liberia making sporadic attacks on towns and villages in the southeastern border, Sierra Leoneans are becoming increasingly concerned. But British Ghurkas who have arrived in the country say, «There is no cause for alarm». They have promised to make a rapid deployment if the need should arise. The presence of a team of British military training officers, has also helped to calm people’s fears somewhat.

In the meantime, there’s a reward available for any-one capturing Johnny Paul Koroma — 10 million Leones (approximately US $5,000).