The Order to Kill Comes Softly

Foday Sankoh's vanity emerges in the presence of photographers. He allows the cameras to come close and quite clearly holds an expression and a pose for the lens until the shoot is over. Then he gets back to sneering, throwing out the angriest of accusations even at his milder detractors. He can rant energetically for 15 minutes at a go, claiming his purported atrocities are concoctions of his enemies. "Pure fabrication" are words he repeats over and over, and he has nothing but disgust for nonmembers of his Revolutionary United Front.

With his followers, however, Sankoh is calm, warm, even grandfatherly. And when he gives commands, he delivers them softly. But what terrible orders they are. Operation Burn House was a campaign of arson. Operation Pay Yourself was one of looting. Operation No Living Thing saw mass executions and the mutilation of anyone within reach. His 15,000 to 45,000 soldiers follow him as if he were a god. And Sankoh believes he is divinely inspired. Says he: "God chose me to lead the revolution that will save Sierra Leone."

Despite their obedience, none of his soldiers appear all too happy to be part of the revolution. In Sierra Leone there is very little choice: once in the R.U.F., there is nowhere to go, particularly with the horrors the R.U.F. is accused of. During the war, Sankoh's troops--some as young as 10 and many drugged with narcotics--amputated arms and legs, gouged out eyes, sliced open pregnant women and stewed bodies for food. Says a U.N. official: "He gives an order, and his boys implement it. No questions."

Born 63 years ago in the southern town of Bo, the ambitious Sankoh was too poor to attend secondary school and instead joined the army, then run by Britain, Sierra Leone's colonial master till 1961. However, he reached only the rank of corporal and was assigned to radio duty. He was further embittered by serving as part of a U.N. peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a civil war that saw the assassination of that country's leader, Patrice Lumumba, whom Sankoh admired. After a brief and unhappy stint as a cameraman in Britain, Sankoh supported a 1971 coup attempt in Sierra Leone, was found guilty of "failing to report a mutiny" and was jailed for seven years. The humiliations were the kernels of his revolution.

The self-proclaimed savior's speeches are filled with religious imagery, claims of divine apparitions and stories of supernatural powers--not needing food, for example, because heaven sustains him. But his R.U.F. feeds on earthly stuff: the illegal sale of diamonds smuggled out through neighboring Liberia. Sankoh has ties to that country's President, Charles Taylor, whom he met in Libya during military training in the '80s and who also blasted his way to power. Sankoh may be moving his base to Liberia.

After last year's abortive peace deal, Sankoh told his countrymen, "I am genuinely sorry for all the pain and grief that my revolution has caused you." He's apparently changed his mind about the pain.