Flight From Freetown
For Edgar V. Thomas ‘05, the recent terrorist attacks in Washington D.C. and New York are a glaring reminder of the constant dark cloud of violence he fled in his native war-torn Sierra Leone. Following the erruption of civil war in this West African, diamond-rich country, rebels gained control of the United Nations-occupied capital, Freetown, where Edgar and his family lived. “I had to pack my whole life into two suitcases,” Edgar recalls in a calm, matter-of-fact tone.
Prior to the outbreak of civil war, Edgar lived what he describes as a “simplistic” and “idyllic” life; his father, an attorney, and his mother, a school teacher, had settled his family in a beautiful part of Freetown nestled between coastline to the west and mountains to the east. Although much of Sierra Leone had been in the grips of civil war since 1991, the Edgar family never felt particularly threatened because they were reassured that Freetown was “as safe as can be” because its security was reinforced by a prominent United Nations presence and a concentrated domestic military effort to safeguard the symbolic center of Sierra Leone’s political life. The evening news often recounted rebel attacks and the Edgar family opposed the rebels because, though they fought against a lackadaisical government, they routinely killed innocent civilians. As Edgar observes wryly, however, “often the time you think you’re the safest, all hell breaks loose”.
In a civil war that spans over a decade and has outlived any number of broken peace accords and cease-fire treaties, it is often hard to recount what led up to the violence that Edgar and his family witnessed first-hand. The two major players in the nations’s civil war are the freely elected government, which is backed by the UN and a host of neighboring West African countries, and a band of militia rebels who, among other things, want to control Sierra Leone’s profitable diamond mines. The rebels call themselves the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and are responsible for the death and maiming of over 10,000 Sierra Leonians.
On Sunday, May 25th, 1997, the unthinkable happened in Freetown. Edgar’s family awoke that morning to the sounds of gunfire, helicopters, and exploding grenades in the streets outside their house as RUF rebels, led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma plundered the city, destroyed local shops and diplomatic missions. Koroma went on to oust the freely elected president of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah because he was dissatisfied with Kabbah’s inability to secure peace in a country that had seen constant fighting for the past seven years. Determined to tear down the existing governmental regime with maximum speed and strength, Koroma reinstated Foday Sankoh to a leadership position in RUF after he had been in exile in nearby Nigeria for starting the civil war in 1991.
Edgar’ first thought was of how his normal routine had been so rudely interrupted: his father was about to go run some errands, he had an exam the following week to prepare for, and he was also planning to go down to the beach with his brother, Victor, later in the day. As the rebels hiding in the hills and stalking the streets continued to fire shots, Edgar stayed with his family inside their house and his thoughts took on a darker dimension. He recalled the many stories he had heard about what the rebels had done in the countryside to innocent civilians, including “murder, rape and mutilation.” With the violence right outside his door, Thoma became convinced that “it was the end” for him and his family.
Huddled in their house in Freetown, Edgar and his family were utterly powerless. They had no idea what the mercenaries meant to do or how long the shooting would last. They waited in their house all day and all night until it seemed safe to venture outside again. “All you could hear were bombs and all you could see was smoke,” says Edgar. The nightmare took an even more frightening turn when Edgar looked out the window to see the President of Sierra Leone’s helicopter over head. Though there were competing reports saying that the President was organizing a resistance movement from within the country, it was clear that he had simply “given up on the country” and fled the war. “At that moment”, Edgar explains, “we knew that the rebels had succeeded—that they had taken over my city”.
For the next few days, Edgar and his family kept themselves prisoners in their own house, as they heard rebels outside with rifles and trucks looting deserted houses and stealing cars. Luckily, they “never came to our home,” but the eminent threat of danger meant that Edgar and his family found it difficult to eat, sleep or carry on with their routine daily lives. “My mom tried to get my brother and I to play computer games to take our mind off it”, Edgar explains, “but we just wanted to find out what was happening and how it was going to end”. News services on the radio were intermittent at best, and full of stories of how Freetown residents houses had been invaded and destroyed. There was no electricity and at night Edgar would “just lie in bed and pray, because there was nothing else to do”.
When it was clear the seizure had succeeded and the street violence had ceased, Edgar begged his father to take him to church. It was the first time he had been outside in days, and he could see bullets strewn over the road. Edgar remembers being surprised that there were “no dead bodies on the streets” because Red Cross workers had feverishly collected all those that had died in the gunfire. The rebels had set up a kind of order amid all of the chaos; The residences of the President and the Minister of Finance had been burnt down, and walking through the centre of the town “was like a wasteland”. The National Treasury had been completely destroyed, and the once-statuesque colonial-era buildings had become mere shells with “4 crumbling walls and not much else.” Cars were burnt out and destroyed and Edgar discovered that his favorite hang-out spot was riddled with bullet holes. Edgar’ original hunch that the nation’s political leaders had “given up” on the country was proved correct—almost all the senior government ministers had escaped, leaving the nation with “an overwhelming feeling of defenseless”.
Edgar’s family soon had a decision to make. They heard on various radio reports that “Americans were coming!” Edgar’s mother, originally from the US, discovered that an US jet carrier boat would be arriving the next day to transport all American citizens to the nearby Guinea. With RUF leaders declaring that no one would be allowed to leave the country because the entire state was on lock down, the Edgar family faced a perilous decision. “I really didn’t want to go”, Edgar recalls. “But deep down, I knew that if I stayed, I risked capture by the rebels, who wanted to force all young males to join their side”. Indeed, RUF rebels have been accused of enlisting children as young as six years old in their guerilla army. Not knowing how long they would be gone or how they would get to the US after reaching Guinea, the decision to board the boat was a hard one for Edgar and his family to make; his father, compelled to protect the family’s house and belongings eventually decided to stay behind.
Edgar, his mother and brother said goodbye to his father and traveled covertly to the beach through the scrub, watching and listening for rebel soldiers positioned to spy for civilians escaping the country. When they finally got to the beach, the Edgar family met snipers who were poised to protect them as they ran for the boat. “I honestly thought I would never see him [my father] again,” Edgar says, “and I felt worried and guilty at the same time about leaving.”
Edgar, his mother and his brother eventually found a way to come to the US; from their new home in Memphis, Tennessee they watched as the political and economic situation in Sierra Leone remained dire. The RUF signed a peace treaty with the UN-supported government in July of 1999, but broke it in May of 2000 by capturing 500 UN peacekeepers. Then in November of 2000 another peace accord was signed and some of the violence in the western part of the state, including Freetown, subsided. The RUF still controls much of the east, however, including Sierra Leone’s prosperous and contentiously coveted diamond mines.
Separated from his father and living on the other side of the world, Edgar, his mother and brother had to begin life anew. “Once we settled in Memphis, we had to find a house, a car, a school…and basically just start all over again”, Edgar says. “All I had were the clothes in my suitcase, because I had fooled myself into thinking we were only going to be away from Sierra Leone for a week or so”. Edgar had visited the United States before on vacation, but the move from war-torn Africa to the American south would prove difficult for him. “I had always wanted to live in the United States”, Edgar recalls, “but it wasn’t all it was cut out to be…but at least for the first time in a long while I felt completely safe”.
As they had been throughout the entire crisis, Edgar’ family was crucial in keeping him grounded. “I hung out with my brother [Victor] because we had been through it all together”, he says. “He was very important for me, because we were really the only constants in our lives”. Although Victor tried to immerse himself totally in American culture, Edgar made a conscious effort to retain and display his Sierra Leonian heritage—by keeping his distinctive accent, for example, and playing soccer instead of basketball. Keeping in touch with his father was more difficult. “Dad was still in Sierra Leone, and I began to play scrabble as a way to remind me him”, Edgar explains. “When the bombing started, he taught me to play and ever since then scrabble has been a really important link between me and my dad”.
The first few months were a period of total shock for Edgar, but he slowly became acclimated to high school life and went on to become Student Council president and voted “Most likely to succeed” by his high school class. “I found the best way to cope was to keep busy, because then I didn’t need to think too much about what had happened”, he confides. He goes on to say, “I started making friends and became involved in school activities…I think that really helped”. Now a Harvard first-year, Edgar finds the ‘ordinary’ aspects of college life the hardest to get used to. “I had never seen snow before and the American food was hard to adjust to. We sometimes try to make Sierra Leonian food, but its just not the same over here”, he explains ruefully.
Edgar has not been back to Sierra Leone, but has been able to see his father once a year when he travels to the United States. He retains a deep affinity for his homeland, and looks forward to the time after college when he can go back. “I want to return and help rebuild—I don’t know exactly what I will be doing, but I know I will be there”, he says. Edgar plans to study economics and wants to return to Sierra Leone before heading to graduate school in business. The violence in much of Freetown has subsided and the UN and neighboring African countries have been proposing various war crimes courts and tribunals to punish the men responsible for 10 years of bloodshed. On May 26th of this year, in a promising reversal of past wrongs, the RUF released 600 children, between the ages of 6 and 10 years. old who had served as ‘soldiers’ in the rebel army. With her sons at Harvard and in boarding school, Edgar’s mother returned to Freetown and to her husband, whom she hasn’t lived with for the last five years. As Edgar puts it in his typical down-to-earth style, “I went on FOP, and Mom went to Freetown” where she and his father live in their home that was never destroyed.
With his surrogate country facing its own version of violence and attack, Edgar finds himself once again having to rely on strong family ties to get him through this difficult time. Though his parents are again in Sierra Leone, Edgar knows that “you don’t realize how much you love your family until you think you might never see them again…and I’ve been in that situation too many times.”