Sasha today in its history.
Author: Sasha
This article is Sasha's original and will not be reprinted by any media
What kind of monster is the brutal RUF founder Sankoh? 19 April 1971: The Republic of Sierra Leone is proclaimed.
The life of RUF's founder, Foday Sankoh.
Sierra Leone is a small country in West Africa, also known as Lion Rock.
When the Portuguese colonists came here, they found that the mountains were full of lions, and they were frightened and hurried back to the ship, hence the name of the country.
Sierra Leone has a hot climate and a territory of only 70,000 square kilometers, which is relatively small in Africa.
In ancient times, the country was covered by rainforests and swamps, as well as a variety of vicious infectious diseases that were daunting to outsiders.
Therefore, Sierra Leone's location is not remote, and the land is not far from the once powerful kingdoms of Mali and Ghana, but it has never been touched by its neighbors.
By the 15th century, the Portuguese had sailed to Sierra Leone and considered Freetown (Liberty City) to be a good port.
Thus, the Portuguese set up a stronghold here and began their colonial career in Sierra Leone.
The local population was black and economically underdeveloped, unable to provide even food. The Portuguese did not value Sierra Leone, and sometimes plundered black slaves here.
In the early 19th century, the British defeated Portugal and captured Sierra Leone, which did not declare independence until 1961.
Sierra Leone was very poor, and when the Portuguese arrived, the native blacks did not even know how to wear clothes, both men and women were naked.
Their weapons were also very backward, with only javelins and swords made of wood, and had not even begun to use metal weapons.
Faced with portuguese gunfire, Sierra Leonean blacks were naturally vulnerable and enslaved for 500 years.
After independence, Sierra Leone's weak economy was still manipulated by British plutocrats, and its politics were also influenced by major powers such as Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
With a population of 6 million, Sierra Leone is not a very populous country in Africa. Unfortunately, there are up to 18 races in the country, two of which together make up half of the population and the rest of the 16 races. The issue of race set the stage for the subsequent civil war in Sierra Leone.
In recent times, a number of minerals have been found in Sierra Leone, especially diamond mines.
The West considers Sierra Leone diamond reserves to be as high as 23 million carats, ranking 7th in the world. There are many diamond mines in the country and is known as the "Country of Diamonds". In 1972, the country produced a diamond weighing 969 carats called the "Star of Sierra Leone", the third largest diamond in human history, which shocked the world.
Naturally, diamonds are not as valuable as everyone thinks. Sierra Leone currently exports about $200 million a year in diamonds, averaging only $40 per civilian.
Therefore, Sierra Leone cannot achieve food and clothing on diamonds alone, let alone become rich.
With only 50 to 60 per cent food to be self-sufficient, Sierra Leone is arguably one of the poorest countries in the world.
Successive rulers have been to blame for this.
Before Sierra Leone's independence, the British legally plundered the diamonds here.
After independence, wealthy merchants in Europe and the United States used a different method, first by economic means of plunder, and then simply tried to manipulate the warlords of Sierra Leone in an attempt to obtain huge profits from diamonds.
Successive dictatorships in Sierra Leone have been very corrupt, not only embezzling the benefits of diamond exports and never distributing them to the people, but also deliberately letting the people engage in the diamond industry and not cultivate the land. As a result, most of sierra Leone's population is engaged in diamonds, even the elderly and children are involved, and a large amount of land is not cultivated. There is no shortage of diamonds in the country, but there is a shortage of rice and flour, and people often starve with diamonds in their hands.
Ironically, because the country's wealth has been embezzled by a small number of people, most ordinary Sierra Leoneans have dug up diamonds for a lifetime, but they have only seen wool diamonds and do not know what kind of polished diamonds are!
Since independence, Sierra Leone's political situation and domestic economy have been very chaotic, especially the economy has long been in the last few places in Africa, and the people's life expectancy is short.
The local people are very dissatisfied with the status quo and very much want to change, which provides a stage for careerists.
Foday Sankoh was born in 1936 to an ordinary family of a tribe in the country.
Due to his family's poverty, Sankoh began his education at the age of 10 and dropped out of school before he could finish elementary school. In order to mix food, the young and strong Sankoh joined the British army of the West African colonies and learned some military knowledge.
In the all-illiterate black army, the literate Sankoh was an intellectual, and was quickly reused as a radio sergeant, with good treatment and income.
Sankoh was an ambitious man who soon joined the rebel group within the army and became a minor leader.
He believed that if the coup succeeded, he would become a senior officer.
The coup d'état failed in 1976 and the rebel ringleaders were shot. Sankoh was only a minor role and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. In prison, Sankoh was often abused and beaten by guards, creating a great hatred for the government.
Sankoh argues that sierra Leone's political situation is actually being manipulated by countries such as britain and the United States, and that black politicians are only the spokesmen of the great powers.
The old colonies had collapsed, and the Great Powers were still exploiting the people of Sierra Leone through new economic means.
The country's chronic poverty and high levels of government corruption, especially the coup d'état at both ends of the three-day period, have left the population with serious dissatisfaction with the authorities.
Sankoh believes that as long as these public opinions can be harnessed to rebalance relations with the great powers, it will not be difficult to seize power in Sierra Leone.
After his release from prison, Sankoh did not immediately pull the pole to start a fight, he first tried to get rich legally.
He started as a photographer in the diamond mines, worked part-time as a wedding photographer, and started a diamond smuggling business. However, he is not good at business, and these businesses have lost money.
After a few years of doing it, Sanko couldn't continue, and once again considered the gun inside the world.
After all, Sankoh has been in the army for many years and is well-known in the Sierra Leonean army, which has a strength of only 10,000 or 20,000 troops. More crucially, he easily found the backstage, and there was more than one person.
One is the famous Libyan leader, Muammar El-Qaddafi, who considers himself the hegemon of Africa. Gaddafi is willing to contribute money and weapons to support Sankoh in building up his forces and overthrowing the current Anglo-American-backed Government of Sierra Leone.
Another person who is also important is the warlord charles Taylor in Sierra Leone's neighbours. Taylor, also an anti-government group supported by Gaddafi, has seized a third of Liberia's territory and later claimed the country's president. It is said that Taylor has the support of other big countries behind him, and the background is deep.
Distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors, and in order to contain his political enemies, Taylor vigorously supports Sankoh and provides a lot of weapons and ammunition.
Sankoh, on the other hand, is different from other warlords in that it has its own theory of brainwashing.
Here we must mention the big drug lord Kun Sha in the Golden Triangle.
Kun Sha was originally just a warlord in Shan State, his father was Han Chinese and his mother was a Shan (Chinese Dai). Because her mother was the daughter of the local Shan toast, and the uncles were useless, Kunsha inherited as a toast when she became an adult, and later married another toast's daughter and became a warlord. Kun Sha was clever enough to expand his territory with the help of drug trafficking, monopolizing most of the drug trade in the Golden Triangle.
Before 1971, Kun Sha was criticized by thousands of people because he was a notorious drug dealer, and was repeatedly suppressed and even arrested by the Burmese government, and his subordinates and allies did not despise his drug trafficking and harmful behavior.
So, in 1971, at the suggestion of Chief of Staff Zhang Suquan, Kun Sha used a new theory, held high the banner of "Shan State Independence and StateHood", and reorganized the troops into the "Shan State United Army" (SUA for short). As a result, Kun Sha glorified his warlords and drug trafficking to make money as a revolutionary war for the independence of the people of Shan State. The international community began to sympathize with Kun Sha, believing that the Shan were indeed the target of suppression by the Burmese government, and it was understandable that drug trafficking might be a forced military spending.
In fact, Kun sha has long regarded himself as a Han Chinese, and chief of staff Zhang Suquan is an officer of the Kuomintang's lone army, who is in charge of the life and death of the Shan people. The so-called independent establishment of Shan State is simply a big fool.
Sankoh is the same.
Sankoh glorified his military campaign as a revolution to liberate Sierra Leone. He argues that the current enslavement of the nation by whites in a different way remains the relationship between slaves and slave owners. The Government of Sierra Leone is just a lackey of white people. If the Negro wanted to truly liberate himself and become a free man, he had to overthrow the black puppet government in Freetown and seize power over the state.
His theory of black dominance and the retaking back his own wealth and power was supported by many Sierra Leoneans.
Sankoh soon pulled up a force in the jungle, the famous RUF, the Revolutionary United Front.
Although Sankoh has been in the military for many years, his military ability is very mediocre. He also knew this, and usually did not actually direct the battle, and the officers under him were responsible for the battle.
Sankoh was primarily responsible for propaganda and politics, as well as controlling the various military leaders.
With the support of outside forces and the corruption of the Sierra Leonean government forces, RUF quickly grew.
Just 3 years later, RUF has occupied most of the country's countryside and controlled some cities. Of particular importance is that RUF controls the country's main source of revenue, the diamond-producing region. Sankoh was well versed in politics and secretly contacted the big jewelers in Europe and the United States.
Under a U.N. ban, they whitewashed these blood diamonds (diamonds exported from war-torn areas) and sold them at lower prices in exchange for a large amount of military spending. For countries that can export $100 or 200 million a year, smuggled diamonds can be exchanged for tens of millions of dollars, and they can receive sufficient weapons, ammunition and military salaries.
In the 1990s, the Soviet Union collapsed, the Warsaw Pact collapsed, and a large number of Soviet-made weapons were dumped on the international market. Sankoh used hundreds of millions of dollars from the sale of blood diamonds to buy large quantities of weapons and ammunition.
In the famous movie "The King of War", the brother of the male protagonist was shot and killed indiscriminately in order to protect innocent women and children when trading with RUF. The male protagonist is a large arms smuggler who runs rampant in Eastern Europe and even the world, specializing in smuggling warsaw Pact weapons to the war zone.
The boss of RUF in the movie is to exchange a handful of diamonds for two truckloads of new weapons.
In order to obtain diamonds, RUF often raided villages and kidnapped a large number of young and middle-aged men for hard labor.
Workers who slacken off will be severely beaten or even shot, diamonds will be brutally executed by slitting throats and beheadings, and corpses or heads will be hung for public display.
Ruf did not have any strength at first, its combat effectiveness was inferior, and it was not difficult to deal with.
But the Government of Sierra Leone is so bad that the mud can't hold up the wall.
In 1992, the junta of Joseph Momo collapsed, and the new Government of Strassell was equally corrupt and resentful. Due to the infighting in the government, they did not have the energy to deal with RUF, allowing this force to become a fire.
As soon as the Sierra Leone military junta stabilized, it began an all-out offensive against RUF.
After all, the government army had the advantage of numbers and firepower, RUF lost troops, retreated, and retreated into the jungle, and was once forced to the border in 1993. Fortunately, with their backs to Liberia, they can get the strong assistance of the dictator Taylor, and they can hardly stabilize their positions.
Gaddafi and Taylor provided massive military reinforcements, and guns and ammunition were quickly transported to RUF.
The weapons are gone, but there are no soldiers! At this time, there were few left in the RUF control area, and the adult men here were either arrested to work or forcibly incorporated into the army, and there were no more people arrested.
So RUF set its sights on minors.
They recruited a large number of Scouts, ranging from 10 to 17 years old, most of whom were only 12 to 14 years old.
RUF carried out cruel brainwashing education and violent persecution for these children who were not deeply involved in the world.
The first thing many children do when they enter RUF is to blindfold a person and shoot him to death.
They were then uncovered and found to be their father or brother lying in a pool of blood.
And that's not all, they were even forced to rape their mothers and sisters.
Why? It is to make the children completely become killers and cut off all contact with the outside world. After they had done such a disastrous thing, there was no room for them but RUB, and they had to board the thief ship.
In addition to giving children tobacco, alcohol, and women, RUF brainwashed them with theory so that all the atrocities they did were correct and just.
For a small number of stubborn children, RUF let them use cocaine to confuse their minds and control them.
Children who really refuse to cooperate with RUF or are too timid to kill people will become the target of other children's killing practice.
Therefore, these boy scouts fight particularly cruelly, without fear of being killed by the enemy, especially after taking drugs, they dare to do anything, and risking death to charge is a small meaning.
They are accustomed to killing and mistreating prisoners of war and civilians in locally controlled areas, who are often tortured and killed by various cruel means, including beheading and digging hearts, burning and flooding, unloading eight pieces alive, etc., like the devil.
Years later, an adult Boy Scout recalled: "When I was 9 years old, a group of rebels came to the village. The boss told my parents to take me away. The father angrily objected and was beaten to death on the spot. The gang also said that if I didn't go with them, they would kill my mother and my brothers and sisters. There is no way but to listen. Arriving at the camp, I stabbed these letters (RUFs) in my chest and began to train us harshly to become militants. ”
"Recruits started by practicing disassembling and assembling rifles, and then practicing shooting. Not all recruits survive, and some children are too young to complete the shooting and are shot as targets. A few days before I went into the first battle, I started forcing us to take drugs..." "My right temple was cut, and the wound was stuffed with heroin and plastered. All of us smoke marijuana. After becoming addicted to drugs, I felt that nothing mattered, and began to become ferocious and aggressive. When we go to action, we take drugs 3-4 times a day. Drugs are distributed by bosses and older children. During the first battle, we broke into a village and encountered no resistance. The boss ordered that all the villagers be killed so that they could no longer 'engage in politics'. When I shot an elderly man, I was scared. Then the leader put his rifle on my back and said, 'Shoot!' ’”
"We did all kinds of evil deeds, and I have seen countless atrocities, such as cutting open the abdomen of pregnant women with knives and cutting off the hands, feet and heads of babies. We rape girls with impunity, and most of them rape and then kill.
The government soldiers or policemen who were captured by us tortured them with all kinds of cruel means, such as cutting off their genitals, dragging them to death in a truck, and burning them to death."
Beginning in 1993, the RUF launched a full-scale counteroffensive and occupied most of Sierra Leone in 1995.
The Sierra Leone government army was too weak in combat, and in desperation, it cost a lot of mercenaries at a high price, south African mercenary EO company.
These professional mercenaries were indeed powerful, and after getting the conditions to run the diamond mines, they attacked all over the line, and soon they severely damaged RUF, once again beating them to death.
Interestingly, EO companies are also cunning. In order to maintain their own interests, they can obviously basically annihilate RUF, but deliberately let their main force break through.
In this way, mercenaries can fight in the country for a long time and occupy the high-income diamond mines for a long time.
The monopoly of diamond mines by EO companies has annoyed the big jewelers in Europe and the United States. They tried their best to put pressure on Sierra Leonean government forces and eventually scrapped their contract with EO.
As soon as EO's mercenaries were withdrawn, the RUF launched an all-out offensive and the civil war continued to be sawn.
By 1996, the civil war had lasted for years and the country was devastated. In this small country of 6 million people, 50,000 people died, 2 million people became refugees, and the country nearly collapsed in the civil war.
The people were dissatisfied with the atrocities committed by RUF in burning and raping and plundering the population, and turned to support the government. Under pressure from the international community, the country has been elected. The popularly supported Kabba's election as president caused rufopteration.
They are carrying out bloody revenge in areas that support Kaba. Because Kabbah's campaign slogan is "The future is in your hands (meaning to vote for Kabbah)," RUF cut off the hands or one hands of those who dared to vote.
Today, when you travel to Sierra Leone, you can still see many beggars without arms.
After Kabbah came to power, he signed an armistice with THE RUF under the mediation of the great powers, declaring the end of the civil war.
These were RUF's slow-down tactics, and they quickly recovered and began attacking again in 1997.
The Kabbah government's army was no match for the RUF, and even the capital, Freetown, was captured and many neighborhoods were bloodied. The brutal killing of prisoners of war and innocent civilians of the Kabbah Government has aroused widespread outrage and resentment in the international community.
The African Union decided to intervene with troops, leading the way with Nigerian troops, crushing RUF in one fell swoop, and even Sankoh was captured alive.
RUF is a hundred-legged worm dead but not stiff, and soon launches a counterattack to rescue Sankoh.
However, after successive blows, RUF's strength is not what it used to be.
From 1997 onwards the civil war continued, and ruf gradually weakened. First, the civil war has greatly depleted the vitality of the country, the people hate the war, but also hate the RUF that launched the war, their supporters are getting fewer and fewer; the second RUF backstage Gaddafi and Taylor, successively got into trouble and took care of themselves. Qaddafi clashed with the U.S. military, which led to tension in the country. Taylor was caught up in Liberia's civil war, with more than half of the country occupied by the enemy.
In 1999, in coordination with the great powers, Sankoh agreed to an armistice, recognizing the legitimate government of Kaba. Sankoh took office as vice president, maintaining his current position. Under the agreement, Sankoh needs to stop using blood drills to expand the army. In 2000, the United Nations sent peacekeeping forces into the RUF-controlled area to supervise the diamond mines, which completely annoyed Sankoh.
The RUF went so far as to kidnap hundreds of peacekeepers as hostages, a knock-on effect. RUF was violently attacked, and the people of Sierra Leone rose up against RUF. At that time, Sankoh considered himself vice president, no one dared to move him, and he dared to stay in the capital Freetown to openly engage in politics.
Who knows, the people kept storming his mansion and throwing a lot of stones. Sankoh, who had suffered this loss, immediately ordered the guards to shoot. The guards fired, killing 26 people on the spot, which caused public outrage.
Countless people rushed into the mansion at the risk of death, and Sankoh's guards, seeing the anger of the crowd, did not dare to shoot casually, and hugged their heads. Sankoh knew that something was wrong, and urgently put on a set of women's clothes and tried to hang out with the servants. But he was very famous and was quickly recognized by the people. After the people punched Sankoh in the old fist, they stripped naked and paraded in the streets.
The disgraced Sankoh collapsed, and in 2002 RUF collapsed completely, and Sankoh and other leaders were arrested.
In March 2003, Sankoh was transferred to the UNICYP Special Court for trial, awaiting him on 17 counts of crimes against humanity.
At trial in March 2003, Sankoh, who appeared in a wheelchair, was unable to answer questions from the judge. Sankoh had filed a request to the UNAMSIL for health reasons to postpone the trial, but was refused.
A few days later, Sankoh suddenly suffered a stroke that ended his sinful life.
The three letters of RUF are also deeply engraved in African history.
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