wfn.org | CWS Delegation Encounters Trauma, Hope In Sierra Leone

["Church World Service News" <nccc_usa@ncccusa.org>]

CWS DELEGATION ENCOUNTERS TRAUMA, HOPE IN SIERRA LEONE

FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE, WEST AFRICA --  Members of the Church World Service
delegation to West Africa traveled the length and breadth of Sierra Leone
July 9-15 to see for themselves how the country is faring following a brutal
11-year civil war, which ended in January 2002.

Peace has come to Sierra Leone, the delegation concluded. But the
struggle to recover goes on. Elections -- judged free and fair - were held
in June, and the newly elected President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah was inaugurated
July 12 to a five-year term. Ex-combatants are being reintegrated into
communities, and refugees are returning home from Guinea, Liberia and
beyond.

Ex-combatants from the Sierra Leone conflict, defined as anyone who carried
a gun, number between 30,000-45,000, says Albert Kanu, Development Director
for the Council of Churches of Sierra Leone (CCSL).

People are trying to put on a brave face. A war amputee, with three fingers
missing, told the group, You have seen for yourself the pains and struggles
we have borne. Today we are happy. We let go what happened to us because
there is peace in this country.

But just beneath the surface is evident a great deal of pain. Everyone in
Sierra Leone has been deeply traumatized by the war, observed the Rev. John
L. McCullough, Executive Director of Church World Service and head of the
eight-member delegation.

Homes, hospitals, schools and businesses from north to south have been
looted and burned. Unemployment in the formal sector is high, the CCSL
reports.  Survivors of the war ask how they can forgive.

The Church World Service delegation came to Sierra Leone by invitation of
CCSL, as part of a combined invitation last February by the respective
councils of churches of the Republic of Guinea, The Gambia, Liberia, and
Sierra Leone.

Theres been so much pain in this region for such a long time, McCullough
said at a meeting of the CCSL Executive Committee.

Over the course of its visits to all four West African countries, CWS
affirmed its intention to return to the U.S. and advocate for greater world
attention and financial support for Sierra Leone and its troubled neighbors.

U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone Peter Chaveas told the CWS delegation that
the new Kabbah administration is a government with much more credibility,
given its mandate in June in elections that were basically free and fair and
almost devoid of violence. This government has five years ahead of it and
the prospect to do something, Chaveas said.

Chaveas and others told the CWS delegation that international intervention
is crucial for restoring peace in Sierra Leone, and that ongoing
international interest and presence is essential in order to consolidate
peace.  Without it, Chaveas said, Sierra Leone would regress. This is not
even considering what the Liberia conflict could mean. Consolidating peace
in Sierra Leone is a long term project.

Chaveas emphasized, Theres no substitute for getting this economy running
again. This economy is devastated. I lack the words to express how bad
things are.

Its going to be a long, hard process to rebuild. We are
resisting the notion that the humanitarian assistance phase is over, he
added.

CCSL General Secretary Alimamy Koroma acknowledges there has been a flight
of professionals from Sierra Leone, but he contends, lots of capable people
are left, a claim confirmed by the CWS delegation during its Sierra Leone
tour.

CWS Delegation Visits War Sites, Refugee and Amputee Camps

In Sierra Leone, the CWS delegation divided into small groups and spent two
days visiting the Kono, Kenema, Kambia and Koinadugu Districts. Delegation
members visited recent returnees from Guinea, sites of devastation from the
war, and met refugees newly arriving from Liberia.

They sat with paramount chiefs and other traditional leaders and met police
and border guards, local churches, and humanitarian aid workers. One group
slept in tents with UN peacekeepers from Pakistan. Another shared groundnut
stew and other road food brought along by CCSL staff.

In Freetown, the CWS group visited a camp for war amputees, where 230
amputees and 2,000 family members were crammed into tents and fragile
shelters. They need food, medical care, trauma counseling, and prostheses.

Concern Over Sierra Leone Society Hiding Away the Amputees

CWS delegate Susan Sanders, Minister and Team Leader for Global Sharing of
Resources, Wider Church Ministries, United Church of Christ, Cleveland,
Ohio, expressed her concern that Sierra Leone may want to put its amputees
out of sight, considering them a painful reminder of a war everyone wants to
forget.

Sanders, daughter of a World War II veteran and amputee, adds that the CWS
delegation expects there will be followup in the ecumenical community to
get prostheses for these people. They are heroes and should not be hidden
away and forgotten.

As the daughter of an amputee, she said, I know that amputees can live
good and full lives.

At the amputee camp, Ishmael Darami, a middle-aged man with a bright smile
who had lost both hands, told the CWS delegates, We are concerned first and
foremost for the children. They need education.

As for me, said Mr. Darami, who is Amputees Association National
Coordinator, I take courage for the future. God can do something good for
me.

The delegation also met a 15-year-old girl whose family had moved to
Freetown from The Gambia. When the rebels entered Freetown in 1999, they
killed her mother, father and brother in front of her, then swung a machete
at her and cut off her right arm from the shoulder. She ran and was the only
member of her family to survive.

Mohammed, 16, lost a leg in a landmine while fleeing rebels. Asked his hopes
for the future, he said he wants to study computers.

The Rev. Canon Benjamin Musoke-Lubega, a CWS delegation member, was
especially moved by a four-year-old boy whose right leg had been amputated
by rebels when he was only two months old.   I have a son that boys age,
he said.  He says that despite international media attention around the
amputees, they seem to be getting few services.

Need For Healing, Lasting Peace, Trauma Recovery

The CWS delegates concluded their Sierra Leone visits wrestling with issues
of forgiveness, impunity, and what is need for healing, trauma recovery and
lasting peace.

I am struck by the magnitude of what we have seen, CWS McCullough said.
So much more than I had imagined. And I had imagined a lot. The people of
this country have suffered so much. So many people share in the
responsibility-- within this country, within the region and internationally.

Its imperative, he urged, that we learn our lessons from this because it
should never be repeated.

While CWS program response to the visit is currently in process of being
fully developed, McCullough said one thing is clear, and thats helping
people with trauma recovery, an area in which CWS has particular expertise.
McCullough explained that such work would be carried out in collaboration
with CCSL and the Sierra Leone government.

Even a government minister with whom the delegation met said, You see some
us sitting in front of you and you think we are sane.  Probably we are not,
she laughed, and added, We are all traumatized and we need trauma
counseling. I have a house now that I cant go to. That house is no longer
habitable. Thats traumatic.

Reintegration with Justice

The CCSL has been assigned responsibility for reintegration work in four
chiefdoms in northern Sierra Leone.  The CCSL says that communities to which
ex-combatants are returning need practical, social and psychological
support, given the brutality of the war-- especially that imposed by the
rebel forces as they looted, raped, killed, and amputated on their sweep
from Sierra Leones north to Freetown along the Atlantic Ocean in the nation
s south.

The CWS delegation heard considerable disgruntlement, says McCullough, that
ex-combatants were getting all the attention and help to reintegrate, but
that those who were hurt by them, especially the amputees, are getting
nothing or almost nothing.

Sensitive to that concern, the CCSL is serving both ex-combatants and those
who suffered at their hands.  Its reintegration work has reached 350
ex-combatants and 150 bright and impoverished youth in host communities.

In Sierra Leone, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a Special Court
are preparing to undertake the difficult task of balancing the need for
justice with the need to forgive.

Sierra Leoneans said to us, How can people who committed atrocities like
these be allowed to go free? People have to be held accountable for their
actions, McCullough said.

A man in the amputee camp told McCullough that the ex-rebels are now being
integrated into the army. They go around in the streets asking people,
Please forgive me, he said,  and they hand out candies.

That is an insult to their victims, said McCullough. People have to deal
with the root causes.  He also says the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
needs adequate funding.

CCSL President and Chair of Sierra Leones Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, the United Methodist Bishop Joseph C. Humper, says the war
ravaged not only the infrastructure but the lives of the people. In order
to avoid a repetition of what happened, we need every ounce of support.

Bishop Humper says the country needs experts, and resources to address the
needs of children and aged and to address this great enemy called the
HIV/AIDS pandemic. We need help to revitalize our churches and to not lose
our young.

As long as young boys are roaming our streets with no job, our work is not
finished, Bishop Humper added, referring to reintegrated young men and
child soldiers. They have to expend their energy somewhere, for good or
bad.

Need for Economic Development, Skills and Leadership Training

Delegate Kirsten Laursen, CWS Deputy Director of Programs, says the group
learned that one of the biggest needs the country has over the next five to
15 years is training.

According to Mrs. Shirley Gbujama, the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender
and Childrens Affairs, she explains, Sierra Leone has gold, diamonds,
cocoa, and fish, for starters, so it expects less dependence as the economy
picks up.

Theyre hoping that by 2015 they wont be looking to donors for resources.
But they need education and skills training now, she says, and they will
continue to do so in the future.

Laursen says women especially need training. Women are weavers now, so that
s progress, because it used to be taboo, only men did it. Training is also
needed, she says, in peacemaking, management and leadership.

200 Years of Pent-Up Frustration Followed by Blowup: But Now, Hope

Sierra Leones current situation is the culmination of 200 years of
exploitation, McCullough observed, first by colonial powers and later by
corrupt government with the backing of greedy international interests.

There has been a failure of government, of social services, of the economy,
and a lack of available health care and education. The years of pent-up
frustration finally just blew up.

But, says the CWS delegation, in Sierra Leone there is hope. In Kono
District there are a lot of survivors, McCullough said. Most are looking
to the future. They want to get the children back in school. There is a lot
of emphasis on education. There is a need to heal both survivors and
victimizers, say CWS delegates.

Mrs. Shirley Gbujama, Sierra Leones Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and
Childrens Affairs, a Methodist, briefed the CWS delegation on her ministry
s work to locate lost children and reunite them with their families, and
reintegrate child soldiers into their communities. We get children back to
school, she said, and get older children involved in skills training so
they will be able to support themselves. She described a  workshop for
street children organized by the ministry, saying, We dont just give them
food and clothing, but find out why they are on the street.

Many, who are contributing significantly to the support of their whole
family, call the minister Aunt Shirley.

A related project, headed by Mrs. Bintu Magona, Executive Secretary,
National Commission for War Affected Children and an expert in child
counseling, is organizing psychological care and initiating an innovative
Voice of Children radio and television station that will give children
airtime to ask their questions and speak their minds.

Sierra Leone Church Council Heading Reintegration, Helping with Workstarts
and Microcredit

CCSL coordinates reintegration projects designed in each community to fit
participants interests. If participants are interested in farming, CCSL
helps connect people to sources of seeds and tools, find a blacksmith to
make tools, or supply goats to the community. The church council is also
involved in job creation, beginning with microcredit for women, targeting 25
women in each chiefdom, and later extending the program to youth and men.

In areas where we are implementing CWS projects, we have started with the
women, giving them small grants to start small-scale businesses, Kanu said.
CCSL gives startup capital for petty trading (bread, biscuits, small
household items, canned milk, or fruit). Others get capital for seeds, all
on a revolving loan scheme.

We are of the opinion that we cant keep helping them. They have to help
themselves, Kanu said. As return on investment is plowed back into a
revolving loan fund, more people are brought into the cooperative-reaching
as many as 12,000 individuals in a year. CCSL performs the program in
partnership with local churches and other community based organizations.

Notes of Hope

CWS Sierra Leone visit ended on a note of hope with an impromptu concert by
the CCSL Gospel Band-- a program of CCSLs Youth Desk-- and a gala farewell
banquet.

The 20 or so young members of the Gospel Band are preparing to tour Sierra
Leone with their music of peace and hope.  They performed a mini-concert for
the CWS delegation.

One song, adapted from Bob Marleys No Woman, No Cry, became Know Jesus,
Know Life. By the end of the mini-concert, several CWS delegation members
were on their feet dancing with band members and with each other.

The CWS delegation continued on to the fourth leg of its tour in Liberia,
where the mission ended Thursday July 18 in a meeting with Liberian
President Charles Taylor.

CWS delegates included the Rev. John L. McCullough (United Methodist); the
Rev. Canon Benjamin Musoke-Lubega of The Episcopal Church, New York City;
the Rev. Philip Reed of Missionaries of Africa (Roman Catholic), Washington,
D.C.; Ms. Susan Sanders (United Church of Christ), Cleveland, Ohio.

CWS staff participating in the delegation included Victor Hsu (Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.), Senior Advisor to the CWS Executive Director; Kirsten
Laursen (The Episcopal Church), CWS Deputy Director of Programs; Moses Ole
Sakuda (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Associate Director, CWS Mission
Relationships and Witness Program, and Carol Fouke-Mpoyo (United Church of
Christ), Media Liaison for the CWS delegation.

-end-

CONTACT:  Carol Fouke-Mpoyo, CWS Delegate and Media Liaison
                Phone: (212) 870-2252
                E-mail: carolf@ncccusa.org

                Jan Dragin/Boston
                Phone: (781) 925-1526
                Fax: (781) 925-2311
                E-mail: jdragin@gis.net