IRIN Focus on the West Side Boys

The act that guaranteed international notoriety for Sierra Leone's West Side Boys was the abduction of 11 British soldiers and a Sierra Leonean colleague on 25 August, but the kidnapping had been preceded by a string of other crimes, sources in Sierra Leone said. The gang of ex-soldiers and criminals led by Hassan Bangura, alias Colonal Bomb Blast, robbed, raped and abducted civilians in recent weeks from its jungle hideout in the Occra Hills, some 40 km east of the capital, Freetown, according to Human Rights Watch. Most of the West Side Boys are between 17 and 40 years old, Sierra Leonean Army Information Officer Major John Milton told IRIN. No one knows exactly how many they are, although Milton said they numbered at least 200. The majority, he said, are young, uneducated criminals who spend much of their time on drugs. They are a "scruffy" lot with unkempt hair, who dress in an array of military and civilian garb and adhere to "jungle justice", he added. Many of them were sprung from the Pendemba Road maximum security prison in Freetown when the now defunct Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and its Revolutionary United Front (RUF) allies invaded Freetown in January 1999. That was about 11 months after the West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, ousted the AFRC, which ruled the country together with the RUF from May 1997 to February 1998. When ECOMOG again drove the AFRC/RUF from Freetown - about two weeks after the January 1999 invasion - the West Side Boys fled to the Occra Hills. In May 1999, the RUF and Sierra Leone's government signed a peace treaty that became effective on 7 July 1999. However, at the end of July, UN officials, ECOMOG soldiers and journalists were taken hostage in the Occra Hills. Their abductors claimed that then AFRC leader Johnny Paul Koroma had been detained by the RUF and clamoured for a bigger stake for the AFRC faction in the Lome peace agreement. They, however, released the hostages in batches during the first 10 days of August. Efforts to encourage the group to disarm proved largely unsuccessful despite initial gains made when the late commander of the army, Brigadier General Max Khobe, began the policy, Milton said. Despite an ultimatum they received at one point from the government - that they disarm or be treated as criminals - the West Side Boys have reported only infrequently at disarmament and demobilisation camps. Moreover, they arrived in two's and three's which, Milton said, suggests strict monitoring of movement within the organisation. That is one of many signs, according to Milton, that the West Side Boys are not interested in peace. Others, he said, include the abduction of the 12 soldiers, five of whom were released on 30 August , demands that representatives of their group be included in a new interim government and their rejection of calls for disarmament by Koroma, who announced last month that the AFRC had been disbanded. ''They are overwhelmingly hardcore criminals," Milton said. The group's position vis-a-vis the state has undergone major changes in recent months. When, in May, the RUF abducted over 500 UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) peacekeepers and attacked government troops, the West Side Boys sided with the state, joining other pro-government forces to recapture the northern areas of Lunsar, Rogberi Junction and Masiaka from the RUF. Encouraged by this cooperation, the public feeling was that the group could be persuaded to disarm and be reintegrated into society. "Bomb Blast used to come to Freetown and even army headquarters," Milton said. However, the West Side Boys fell out with the government after incidents in which they tried to assert their independence from army control. One of the first was a heated argument with an army officer in Lunsar that ended in a shootout in which some West Side Boys were killed. In Masiaka, both sides decided to forget the Lunsar incident and work together against the RUF, Milton said, but the West Side Boys insisted on setting up road checkpoints. When the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) brigade commander refused, Milton said, "the West Side misbehaved", forcing the commander to order them out of his sector. Fighting between the two groups erupted and many West Side Boys were killed. After that, they returned to their base in the Occra Hills. "We decided to go our separate ways," Milton added. So far neither the government nor UNAMSIL has made a concerted effort to comb the Occra Hills, although UNAMSIL did clear the Freetown-Masiaka highway of all road blocks erected by the West Side Boys. Milton said a well planned and coordinated attack would also dislodge them from the area. However, whether the army has the hardware and manpower to do so is unclear. The director of administration of the Christian Council of Sierra Leone, Abdul Kargbo, told IRIN that the area, which he has visited, is very hilly, with thick forest and many streams and caves. However, Britain's elite Special Air Service unit has the expertise for deep penetration warfare and would be used, presumably, if discussions to free the detainees failed. "We haven't ruled out any options, contingency plans have been drawn up," AFP quoted Lieutenant-Commander Tony Cramp, the British military spokesman in Freetown, as saying at a media briefing on Saturday. However, he expected a "successful and safe conclusion" to the drama, the news agency said. The government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah also appears to prefer a peaceful approach, Kargbo said. However, indications are that if the talks failed, the government might change its mind. AFP quoted Sierra Leone Finance Minister James Jonah as saying in London on Saturday: "The government has taken the position that we are not going to negotiate." He added: "I believe that in this case, as in other cases, a good deal of firmness will produce the release of these officers."