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NEWS STORY
The Guardian Andrew Meldrum July 31, 2003 Foday Sankoh, the indicted leader of a brutal 10-year terror campaign in Sierra Leone, died yesterday in United Nations custody in a hospital in the capital, Freetown. Sankoh, 65, had suffered a stroke two years ago. His death is viewed as marking the end of an era for a special breed of vicious African warlords. Although he died peacefully, the fact that Sankoh was on trial in an international tribunal for crimes against humanity sent a message across Africa that rebel leaders will be held accountable for violence against civilians. "By putting Sankoh on trial, the United Nations sent an unmistakeable signal across the continent that there is no impunity for rebel leaders, even in internal conflicts," said Aileen Marshall, senior advisor of the Washington-based Global Coalition for Africa. "He was a feared warlord who was adept at assembling a notorious band, particularly of child soldiers, but he never achieved political legitimacy," said Angela McIntyre of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa. "He was part of a particular school of thugs and warlords that preyed on vulnerable youths. The only one left now is Charles Taylor." In June 2002, in one of his last court hearings in which he spoke, the rebel leader, in white dreadlocks, uttered a chilling statement. "I'm a god," the handcuffed ex-warlord said. "I'm the inner god. I'm the leader of Sierra Leone." Months later he had a stroke and became incapacitated. The court was told he was in a "catatonic, stuporous state" Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front, founded in Libya in 1989, launched an insurgency in Sierra Leone in 1991 bent on winning the country's diamond fields. His rebels made a trademark of hacking off the hands, feet, lips and ears of victims with machetes. Military intervention by Britain, Guinea and the United Nations crushed Sankoh's forces and Sierra Leone formally declared the war over in early 2002. Another indicted by the international court in Sierra Leone is the Liberian president, Charles Taylor, who is accused of supplying Sankoh's rebels with arms in return for diamonds. story url
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