All aboard Gaddafi?

You can catch the 6 am bus from Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown to the southern capital city Bo. You would spend about 5 hours on a bright green luxury bus, probably the most comfortable way of travelling between cities in the country. These days, with developing world events you would pay closer attention when people call it the Gaddafi buse. This is because some of the best vehicles owned by the public in Sierra Leone were donated by the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the popular name has stuck.

'Gaddafi mosque' in central Freetown-photograph by Allison Cross

Gaddafi has always supported Sierra Leone, although some times in less admirable ways. He was one of the main supporters of the 11 year civil war in Sierra Leone pumping money and arms into the hands of RUF rebel leader Foday Sankoh and Liberian president Charles Taylor. In 1985, Taylor went to Libya and received military training as a guest of Gaddafi, this is where he met Sankoh and the rest is bloody history. Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission even recommended that Libya pay reparations for its role in the conflict.

In recent years his support has come in the form of food aid, transport and money to build a beautiful mosque in the eastern part of Freetown. This is now popularly known as the Gaddafi mosque and is indeed quite striking. Apart from this there are partnerships to build hotels, mine rutile, bauxite and iron and also introduce the Libyan mobile network GreenNet into Sierra Leone which launched earlier this month. This is why the government has been completely silent on the issue of the February 17 revolution. While the Arab League has condemned Libyan actions, there hasn’t been a peep out of the African Union. While many receive aid from Libya, others are terrified of him because of his keenness to prop up rebel leaders and dictators.

In the past, Freetowners have been in awe of Gaddafi and his maverick presence. Freetown resident Vickie Remoe in her blog Sweet Sierra Leone recounted the excitement on the streets when he came to visit in 2007. Today, people I speak to denounce him as a lunatic. For many it brings back memories of the civil war and of citizens turning on their own. Our office driver Amidu Kuyateh who like me has been glued to the BBC World Service for news updates is horrified. “I don’t care how much he’s done for Sierra Leone, he also helped start our war and now he will kill his own people to hold on to power,” he says.

Yes, his symbolic presence in Freetown is hard to miss. But if he is exiled I’m sure Sierra Leone, cash strapped as they are, would not welcome him with open arms.

Goodbye Mr Peacekeeper

Starting this week in Freetown, Sierra Leoneans will miss a familiar sight they’ve grown used to. The resident battalion of Mongolian peace keepers in their khaki uniforms and blue berets are finally leaving the country. UN peacekeepers formally left the country in 2008 but the Mongolian Guard Force have protected the Special Court for Sierra Leone since January 2006 and managed the movements of high profile detainees like former RUF rebel leader Issa Sesay and former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Last week in a colourful ceremony, they handed over the Court’s security to the Sierra Leone Police.

Here’s a few pictures from the handover ceremony. Photographs courtesy Peter Andersen, Special Court for Sierra Leone

Red Valentine

Over the past week Freetown’s been painted red. Not by yours truly but by store owners and street hawkers trying to make a quick buck on the back of Valentine’s Day. The worst affected are the sidewalks outside schools and colleges where white teddy bears, plastic red roses and mushy cards have taken root. The tuck shop outside my office on the central Wellington Street has a temporary sign out ‘We also sell Valentine’s Day gifts’. The clothes boutique down the road has hung out all its red dresses and accessories. All in all it’s a bit nauseating.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Valentine Grinch. I still remember my first big Valentine’s Day at age 16 when I bought my boyfriend at the time a giant stuffed heart that squeaked ‘I love you’ when squeezed. Unfortunately my mother discovered it along with the love poem I’d written and it was the end of that teenage romance. My most recent Valentine’s Day was the day I broke up with my boyfriend. Not a very successful Valentine’s track record.

I remember watching an episode of the OC where it was suggested that Valentine’s Day be declared a national holiday. Now that’s something the fundamentalist Hindu political groups in India would definitely object to. As I was growing up, every year the moral police of the Shiv Sena party in Mumbai would vandalise the city’s Hallmark stores and harass young couples holding hands. Valentine’s Day it seemed was eroding moral fibre, not fundamentalism.

A popular Valentine’s Day event in Freetown is the outing. This is basically a bunch of hormone high youngsters let loose on a beach outside Freetown for an all-night party. On the main road downtown, there’s a banner advertising one by a group called Desperate Chicks.

What would be my perfect Valentine’s Day gift? If the power stayed on all night. National Power Authority, will you be my Valentine?