By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
A close study of the relationship between the people that have been opportune to rule over Sierra Leone and some non-African powers will reveal a startling reality: the less intellectually endowed rulers have clearly received more support from the “international community” and their rogue neo-colonial financial institutions than rulers perceived to be intellectually savvy or patriotic to their countries of origin.
Until the ‘misstep’ of the threatened mass deportation of persons of Indian ancestry from Uganda, one of the most vicious, dumbass, ignorant and senile rulers who any country has ever had the misfortune to be governed by, who also happened to be an acclaimed cannibal, ‘field marshall’ Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, had a most cordial, near fraternal relationship with the erstwhile colonial masters of his country, the United Kingdom, and by extension, the “international community”.
In a similar vein, a kleptocrat-per-excellence, butcher of his population and sadistic despot who stole so much from his richly endowed country that he once had the effrontery to loan money to his country, Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was a much ‘loved’ and ‘respected’ African ‘leader’ in the corridors of power in Paris. This ‘love’ and ‘respect’ for Mr Mobutu by the erstwhile colonial overlords of the DRC, France, and by extension the “international community” continued until the very last days of the brute’s regime.
Similar support for despots whose hands are soiled with the blood of their countrymen and whose pockets are lined with loot from their country’s treasury, by the “international community” permeates the entire African continent across history and into the present. It really takes spectacular intellectual depravity for anyone to deliberately set out to hurt his own country, and deplete its resources only to enrich foreign domains.
Sierra Leone has been particularly afflicted with this syndrome with some of ours receiving the most support from the “international community” and rogue financial institutions like IMF/ World Bank both whilst in office and some after being forced out/leaving office (such as the old despot, Sir Milton Margai, Siaka P Stevens) and perhaps the most patriotic {and devious, if you factor in his role in the NPRC massacre of 1992} been cut short the moment they begin to display some common sense (such as Brigadier Andrew Terence Juxon-Smith, Captain Valentine Strasser and Major Johnny Paul Koroma).
The relationship between the “international community” and leaders in Sierra Leone who have shown a remarkable disposition towards the wellbeing of their populations and a willingness to assert an independent and patriotic disposition ( Late President Ahmad Tejan Kabba) is, on the other hand, hardly cordial, mostly fraught with suspicion and certainly no mutual ‘love’ and ‘respect especially at the end of his last five years and in his first term years when he went to the Islamic Republic of Iran’.
He was later systematically isolated with very nasty campaigns sponsored by the World Bank and IMF, portrayed as pariah and evil and efforts made to effect ‘regime change’ either via direct coups or energetic support for a stooge that propped up as ‘opposition’ elements headed by Ernest Bai Koroma, elements that were effectively backed by a deluge of “civil society activists”, “international election observers” and international right organisations. Like what they did to the late leader of Burkina Faso, Captain Thomas Sankara, who tried to exhibit a semblance of intellectual sagacity.
It is perhaps, thus, no surprise whatsoever that the most vilified, rulers in Sierra Leone and heads of any African country, also happen to be the ones or that is/are by far the most loved by Western leaders and their rogue neo-colonial financial institutions.
