June 23, 2002

Drivers of public buses here in Sierra Leone like to write a personal

message on the front of their bus. So if you stand on a street corner in

Freetown for an hour and watch the buses pass, you will get quite a taste of

each driver’s personality and creativity. Among my favorites are “JESUS IS

THE BREAD OF LIFE”, “IT’S NOT HARD TO FIND A POOR MAN’S HOME,” and “FORGIVE

YOUR ENEMIES, BUT REMEMBER THEIR NAMES.” But I have thought about one

message above all others. It is a statement that summarizes the pointless

and brutal civil war, a war not about ideology, but about stealing as much

money as possible from diamond mining and poor people. Written much smaller

than most of the back of a bus, I almost missed it: “THE EVIL THAT MEN DO.”

Unemployed and with no prospects, Mohammed sits on the beach every day. His

story is all too common here. When the RUF finally advanced on Freetown,

they came to his house with machine guns and asked his father a question:

“Are you for or against the RUF?” “We are poor people, we don’t know

anything about government!” his father responded. But when angry rebels

with guns confront you with this question, there is only one answer that

will save your life, and his father eventually provided a satisfactory

response. The rebels then decided to steal anything of value from the home

in order to make their visit time well spent. Later that day, Mohammed’s

little brother was getting water outside when he was struck by a stray

bullet and killed.

On that same day, the rebels also came to John Koroma’s home. Luckily, John

had bought two live chickens earlier in the week. When the soldier that

entered the house noticed the birds he declared “I am hungry, so if you give

me your chickens I will let you all live.” John was very relieved. “I

thank the Almighty,” John told me. “Because my own blood was exchanged for

the blood of the chickens on that day.”

As the rebels continued to occupy Freetown, conditions for the average

citizen only got worse. Most of the government and anybody else with money

fled across the border to Guinea and The Gambia, leaving the rest of the

people to fend for themselves.

For Mohammed, the whole day revolved around

getting food to eat. Moving carefully and avoiding rebel patrols and a

number of rotting dead bodies, he would walk to the beach almost every day

and attempt to fish from the ocean. However, once in a while he would

encounter the rebels. Some were child soldiers no older than ten, barely

able to carry their weapons. For whatever reason, they ignored him.

John had to collect his relatives and friends together in one house. At one

point, forty seven people were living under his roof. “How do you feed all

these people?” the landlord asked. “It’s not me,” John replied. “It’s the

Almighty.” John would also venture out of the home for food and supplies.

Early in the rebel incursion, he was walking down the street when he noticed

the Deputy Finance Minister being attacked. Outnumbered and fearing for his

own life, he did not intervene. The rebels poured gasoline on the Minister

and burned him alive. Later in the week John returned, and noticed the body

was still there. Stray dogs were feeding on it, and for his own sanity,

John had to turn his head away. The evil that men do.

Meanwhile, in the countryside, the rebels had already left their mark,

destroying everything in their path and amputating limbs from innocent

people. One man told me that when the rebels came to his village they

offered him a choice: they would kill his daughter or his wife or they

would cut off his arm. Like any loving parent and husband would do, he laid

down his arm on a stump and allowed the rebels to remove it with an axe.

And he is only one of thousands who had to make this choice. The evil that

men do.

Since most of the world was asleep to the problem, the only thing that saved

Sierra Leone from complete destruction was the intervention of the Nigerian

army. Since the rebels did not have a cause besides making money, once an

opposing force of equal strength showed up, most retreated back into the

bush with little resistance. For the amputees, if they were able to survive

the initial bleeding from the amputation and cauterize their wound in an

open flame, Nigerian army doctors would eventually reach their village and

treat the wounds.

Now that the war is over, the people are trying to bounce back from the evil

that men do. But jobs are scarce, and most people are just scraping by.

For women my age, their opportunity to go to college was destroyed by the

war, and now since most of their families were killed, they have to provide

for themselves somehow. And so a shocking number have turned to

prostitution. Sarah lost her father in the war, and now must provide for

her mother in the countryside. But she is offended by the term

“prostitute.” “I’m not a prostitute,” she told me. “I’m a survivor.”

Many other women share her view. “I had no option…but to resort to this

unfancied trade,” a woman named Mariama told the Freetown newspaper. “I

regretted it, though, but one can not help it. As a displaced family of

eight, and no source of income, it dawned on me that life must go on.” So

many people have turned to prostitution that a common saying among Sierra

Leonean women today is “money na han, bak na gron,” which roughly means “if

you want me to lie down on my back, you have to give me money.” The evil

that men do.

It is almost time for me to leave this country. I have been having a hard

time dealing with the evil that men do. The suffering in this country is

just so overwhelming, yesterday on the beach I just broke down in tears.

Mohammed found me there. He said it was OK…he too has cried many times for

Sierra Leone. Despite all these terrible things that have happened, the

people here are upbeat. Nothing in their future could be worse than in

their past. But they need us to help them and to listen to their stories.

And if you have read this far, you have already taken the first

step.