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17. High We Exalt Thee, Realm Of The Free
Written by Clifford Nelson Fyle
Music by John Joseph Akar
Performed by The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
From the CD Complete National Anthems of the World Vol. 5 [Marco Polo, China 1998]
High we exalt thee, realm of the free;
Great is the love we have for thee;
Firmly united ever we stand,
Singing thy praise, O native land.
We raise up our hearts and our voices on high,
The hills and the valleys re-echo our cry;
Blessing and peace be ever thine own,
Land that we love, our Sierra Leone.
One with a faith that wisdom inspires,
One with a zeal that never tires;
Ever we seek to honour thy name,
Ours is the labour, thine the fame.
We pray that no harm on thy children may fall,
That blessing and peace may descend on us all;
So may we serve thee ever alone,
Land that we love, our Sierra Leone.
Knowledge and truth our forefathers spread,
Mighty the nations whom they led;
Mighty they made thee, so too may we
Show forth the good that is ever in thee.
We pledge our devotion, our strength and our might,
Thy cause to defend and to stand for thy right;
All that we have be ever thine own,
Land that we love, our Sierra Leone.
Amadou Kamara One
We don’t know an awful lot about Amadou Kamara, but we wish him well.
Amadou Kamara drives a taxi in Washington DC and he’s having a hard time of it. The recession is killing business: fewer people are using taxis, and now the County Executive and the County Council have announced that they are going to increase the basic cab fare from $1.50 to $3.00 for every seventh mile.
In an interview published in the February 4 2009 edition of the Washington Informer, Kamara told journalist Odell B Ruffin ‘I can do different things during the day, but when you have a family to take care of something has to give for me, The reality is the fare can continue to increase, but if there is no business, it doesn’t matter.’ [1] In his article, Taxi Drivers Still Struggle for Work, Ruffin informs us that Amadou Kamara is an immigrant from Sierra Leone.
We don’t know how long Amadou has been in Washington, and we cannot say whether he migrated to America because of the civil war in Sierra Leone or the hardships of life in the aftermath of the war. We don’t know what – if anything – happened to him, his family and friends during the war – 75,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the eleven-year war and two million people, nearly half of the population, were displaced. [2]
The object of the war was to secure control of the country’s diamond resources and to maintain the conditions that kept alive the global trade in illegal Sierra Leonean diamonds, and it’s quite possible that like most Sierra Leoneans, Amadou Kamara and his family saw sufficiently little of the billions of dollars generated by the diamond mining industry to warrant his driving a taxi in Washington DC. For all the wealth created from the sale of its most valuable natural resource, Sierra Leone is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Up to 70 per cent of the country’s 5.7 million people live below the poverty line [3]. The life expectancy is 44 years for women, 41 years for men. Amadou Kamara is 48. [4]
We don’t know whether Amadou knows it, but his migration from Sierra Leone to America places him in a history, a continuum of migration between America and Sierra Leone which began in the 17th century, when Sierra Leone was a major location in the transatlantic slave trade and the first slaves were brought through and from Sierra Leone to America, in 1625, in a human cargo industry that flourished until 1807, when the trade in humans was made illegal.
This history also includes the destitute African American and West Indian slaves, servants, and former slaves, known as the black poor. 400 of them set sail from London to Sierra Leone in 1787, having been promised land – fraudulently acquired from a Temne chief – and freedom by the St George’s Bay Company, who felt sending the black poor to Africa would be cheaper than keeping them in London. The company had a point: most of the settlers were dead in two years and of the hundred or so survivors, many drifted into the only work available, the slave trade.
After the black poor came the black loyalists, African American slaves who joined the British army after being promised freedom – in Canada initially – if they fought for the British in its war against its rebellious American colony. The black loyalists arrived in Sierra Leone in 1792: once settled they regarded themselves as a racial elite, different to the whites in power, superior to the sixteen indigenous ethnic groups that dominated the island. The loyalists believed they were God’s chosen people and that Sierra Leone was their promised land [5] – although as it turned out they made their fortune not by land but by waterborne trade with neighbouring islands under the auspices of the island’s owners, the Sierra Leone Company. For them, Sierra Leone was a kind of social and economic experiment. The company was committed to ending the slave trade and the black settlement was meant to be a self governing state under the protection – and ownership – of the British government, with a constitution ‘bound by social contract, rooted in history, in the institutions of the Anglo Saxon monarchy and of Israel under the Judges’, as one of the company’s founders, Granville Sharpe, put it. [6]
But the Sierra Leone Company was also committed to finding ways other than slavery of turning a profit from Africa’s wealth. Trade rather than agriculture turned out to be the answer and they nurtured the loyalists mercantile potential with these gains in mind, which was fine by the settlers: they had no luck whatsoever with farming and by all accounts didn’t much care for it, probably because it reminded them of the life they’d left behind, which is ironic because indigenous Sierra Leoneans were prized by slave traders for their agricultural knowledge and are said to have brought the large scale cultivation of rice to America’s plantations. Anyway, the black loyalists were joined by ‘liberated’ or ‘recaptive’ Africans – Africans rescued en route to slavery by the British navy and resettled in Sierra Leone. By the mid 1800s there were over 70 thousand liberated Africans living in Sierra Leone.
Thinking about this long and fragmented history of movement, it occurred to us that Amadou Kamara could have among his ancestors any of the Africans who journeyed back and forth across the Atlantic, from Sierra Leone to America, the West Indies and Britain, as slaves, returning to Sierra Leone searching for freedom, and creating the first modern African state. Or maybe he hails from the indigenous groups who by the mid 19th century were usurped by the settlers and coerced by the British who expanded their west African empire from the governor general’s base in Freetown. By the mid 19th century, the migrants from the New World and the liberated Africans had formed the core of a distinct ethnic group, the Creole or Krio people, a small relatively wealthy educated elite who identified closely with Victorian England, and through which, in addition to the local chiefs, the British ruled Sierra Leone, earning the Krio, the chiefs, and the British the anger of Sierra Leonean indigenes and making Sierra Leone the scene of at least twenty riots, strikes, and civil protests in the seventy years between 1884 and 1956. [7]
By the mid 1950s much of Freetown had descended into poverty and unemployment. The British paid little attention to the well being of the mass of Sierra Leoneans with the effect that many of the once resplendent colonial settlements, built by the loyalists, were now sprawling shanty towns populated by disaffected, hostile youths.
Civil and political unrest continued into the weeks leading to Sierra Leone’s independence in 1961, the year Amadou Kamara was born. A state of emergency was declared a week before independence after a campaign of sabotage by the opposition All People’s Congress Party, led by Sakia Stevens [8] – which gives us the impression that even from the start, the stability promised by independence was fatally fragile.
The rest is history, the history of events and conditions orchestrated by Stevens, which led to the civil war. Stevens even set the tone for how the war would be fought: he introduced the use of children as militarised thugs in the early 1960s, recruiting his notoriously brutal Special Security force from the Freetown ghettoes.
Stevens rose to power in 1967 and held on to it until his retirement in 1985. His legacy was one of state sponsored corruption, kleptocracy, and violent political repression which extended to the destruction of state institutions and served to silence political, military, and civil opposition. Stevens accelerated illegal diamond mining to such a degree as to cause the collapse of official diamond exports and is alleged to have set an example of diamond theft to the tune of 3.4 million dollars. By the end of the 1980s Sierra Leone was burdened with a criminalised economy, spiralling debt, high unemployment and extreme poverty, a government with no control of the country’s finances, virtually no basic political or social infrastructure, and the implosion of Stevens’ political party, the All People’s Congress. [9]
When Stevens died in 1987 Sierra Leone, the first modern African state, and the former intellectual centre of West Africa, had become one of the poorest countries in the world. Two years later the country was at war with itself.
The first post independence generation, those children who grew up between the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s, suffered the worst consequences of the war and its aftermath. They fought the war as child soldiers and were forced to commit serious human rights violations, including terrorising civilians and amputating limbs. They were forced into prostitution or into working in the diamond mines. Or they fled the war and sought refuge in neighbouring Liberia, Guinea, and Gambia. After the war they became migrants, settling in Gambia, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, France and the Netherlands, or like Amadou Kamara, they managed to make their way to America, which, according to figures published in 2007 by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, accepted 6,745 Sierra Leonean refugees in 2005. [10]
We wonder what Amadou’s thoughts are on the war and its effects on young people. It’s a question that for us leads right back to the beginnings of independent Sierra Leone and the prayer inscribed in Sierra Leone’s national anthem, ‘that no harm on thy children may fall.’ The prayer evokes the possibility, too awful to visualise or abandon once brought to mind, of harm toward children as a sign of national crisis and a cause for international concern, even as it evokes, as if by premonition, the very violence toward, and by, children that would characterise independence, and against which the song’s plea for divine injunction proved useless. In the aptly named Snapshot of a Country Devastated, the Women’s Commission for Refugees and Children present us with the findings of their visit to Sierra Leone in February 2008. The visit was part of the Commissions’ Displaced, Out-of-School Youth Initiative, a three-year global research and advocacy project that sought to increase attention and support for quality programmes for displaced young people. Here is an excerpt from their report, Country At A Crossroads:
‘Today, Sierra Leone is ranked lowest in the world on the UN Human Development Index. One in eight women dies during pregnancy or childbirth, compared to one in 8,000 in the developed world. One in four children dies before reaching his or her fifth birthday. Sierra Leone has a very young population, with more than 31 percent between 10 and 24 years old. Less than one-third of females over age 10 can read and write. Without access to school and few economic opportunities or skills, young people are often left idle and are more vulnerable to sexual abuse and economic exploitation.
Key Findings:
Six years after the war ended, young people in Sierra Leone continue to be marginalised and lack opportunities. At a time when international support is waning, the country is at a critical juncture. Greater investment in and attention to young people are urgently needed, in particular quality education, which requires that teachers get paid a living wage; opportunities to get back into the formal school system through catch-up classes to make up for years lost because of the war; investments in keeping young people in school, including income generation for families to make up for lost income when their children go to school; and skills training that is directly linked to market demand for young people for whom formal school is not an option.’ [11]
In just over ten horrific years Sakia Stevens, his successor in intent, Foday Sankoh and his army of illicit diamond miners, thugs, junkies, thieves, rapists, and children, and Sankoh’s political accomplices, most notably, Liberian president Charles Taylor, erased the gains made in education during the colonial period, destroyed the possibilities suggested by independence and had all but crushed Sierra Leone’s human resources even as they robbed the country of its most highly valued natural resource, diamonds. It’s as if, in passing or by design, they were trying to erase all the signs of Sierra Leone’s history. And so, as Amadou Kamara’s taxi disappears down some empty Washington street, and fades into the distance of our narrative, we wish him well, and hope that the future denied to him and his family in Sierra Leone is not denied them in their new home.
Amadou Kamara Two
‘We don’t know an awful lot about Amadou Kamara…’
Amadou Kamara’s virtual presence is fading.
He is, or was, a diamond prospector, and has, or had, a post box, or maybe an office – in California, we think, for his company, the Sierra Leone Yuba Sutter Diamond Mining Company Incorporated, and a website, slysdiamondmining.com, whose domain name expired in October 2008, and which seems to be disappearing from the net piece by piece: when we first checked the site a few days ago there were pictures and some autobiographical statements from Amadou. Most of that material has been removed. We don’t know why. We’re not even sure the site still exists. Still, here’s a fragment we transcribed from slysdiamondmining.com, in which Amadou tells us about his life and his beliefs:
‘I was born and raised in Magburaka, Kholifa Chiefdom, and Tonkolili District Northern Province of Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a promised land with minerals such as diamonds, gold and iron ore. I grew up in a village that surrounded by wealth of minerals where I was diving for gold to finance both my primary and secondary school education. In mid-90s, I migrated to the United States through athletics sponsors to seek the American dream and pursue my education in medicine. While in school preparing for medical school as my major, I developed an interest in studying the diamond market as minor studies.’ [12]
Amadou developed his interest in the diamond market. The absence of any supporting personnel on slysdiamondmining.com gives us the impression that he may be the sole representative of the Sierra Leone Yuba/Sutter Diamond Mining Company Incorporated. Last time we looked at the website, he was looking for investors. He had a wish list too:
‘HEAVY EQUIPMENT NEEDED TO EXPAND OUR DIAMOND MINING VENTURE IN SIERRA LEONE IS AS FOLLOW:
1. CAT 325 L EXCAVATOR OR
2. D8H CATERPILLER
3. DUMP TRUCK WITH A CRANE
4. 1 OR 2 SIX INCHES WATER PUMPS
5. TRANSPORTATION TRUCK FOR THE WORKERS’ [13]
It is highly unlikely, though not entirely impossible, that this Amadou Kamara of whom we now write, is aware of, has perhaps met, or may even be related to the Sierra Leonean taxi driver whose name is also Amadou Kamara. Maybe on a trip to Washington, maybe on business, maybe not, Amadou Kamara hailed Amadou Kamara’s taxi, and the two men got to talking…
Amadou Kamara’s involvement in Sierra Leone’s diamond mining business inscribes him into a history of the migration of Sierra Leone’s wealth through the mining, trading, and selling of diamonds. It’s a history documented by Partnership Africa Canada, whose study, The Heart Of The Matter – Sierra Leone, Diamonds & Human Security, helped bring about some of the changes in Sierra Leone’s diamond trade since its publication in 2000 [14]. The document makes a convincing case for its claim that the war could have gone on until there was nothing left but the gold and diamond mines – a kind of perpetual condition of lawlessness and disorder: the point of the war may not actually have been to win it, but to engage in profitable crime under the cover of warfare. [15]
The document also made clear the centrality of diamonds to the civil war: the Revolutionary United Front rebels exchanged diamonds for arms and drugs in brazenly open smuggling operations through Liberia and other countries in the region. Conducted by Ian Smillie, Lansana Gberie, and Ralph Hazleton, the document names the major protagonists, bit part players, and background figures in this story, beginning at the beginning, in the eastern province of Kono, the fourth largest city in Sierra Leone:
‘Sierra Leone diamonds were discovered in Kono District in 1930, when a small geological survey team led by N. R. Junner and his assistant, J. D. Pollet, picked up a crystal by the Gboraba stream. The team had been examining stream-bed gravels for heavy minerals; instead the crystal turned out to be a diamond. The next day, the team found another diamond at the same site. Their discovery was extraordinary. The Sierra Leone colony, Britain’s first in West Africa, had been suffering from economic stagnation and depression for nearly a century because of its dire lack of resources. But their discovery, which was duly reported to the colonial authorities, elicited little interest until Junner brought it to the attention of the De Beers-controlled Consolidated African Selection Trust (CAST), based in the Gold Coast (now Ghana). A prospecting party from CAST arrived in the country in March 1931; that same month, the first hint of the widespread nature of diamond occurrences in Sierra Leone was received when Pollet found two more diamonds in the gravel of Kenja stream, near Pava, about 50 miles south of the original discovery. […] In 1935, the colonial authorities concluded an agreement with the Sierra Leone Selection Trust (SLST), a subsidiary of CAST, which gave the company exclusive mining and prospecting rights over the entire country for 99 years. In return, SLST was to pay income tax at the rate of 27 per cent (later increased to 45 per cent) on its profits […] in the four years after mining intensified (1948-1952), SLST paid over £3 million in taxes to [the British] government.’ [16]
Under the auspices of De Beers, diamond mining quickly covered a quarter of Sierra Leone [17]. De Beers was formed in 1880 by Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia. Rhodes’ ambitions included bringing the entire world under British rule [18], which he didn’t quite pull off, and the control of the sale of all the diamonds therein, which for most of the twentieth century, his company almost did. And a lucrative business it was, too. Smillie, Gberie, and Hazleton inform us that ‘From 1930 to 1998 approximately 55 million carats were mined (officially) in Sierra Leone. At an average price in 1996 dollars of US $270 per carat, the total value is close to US $15 billion’ [19]. And from its offices in Freetown, De Beers was, the report says, directly involved in the business. With those kinds of profits its easy to imagine that from the grave, Cecil Rhodes, a Bible man himself, would have agreed with Amadou Kamara’s claim that Sierra Leone is a promised land.
Withdrawing from Sierra Leone did little to dent De Beers’ monopoly. By the end of the 20th century De Beers was producing about half of the world’s rough gem diamonds, and through its marketing branch, the Central Selling Organisation, was marketing approximately 70 percent of the world diamond production. [20]
The company entered the 21st century in rude health, which is more than can be said for Kono, one of the most underdeveloped districts in all of Sierra Leone and the district with the country’s largest deposits of diamonds. In February 2009 the Mexivada Mining Company began diamond mining in Kono. In 2008 the biggest mining outfit in Sierra Leone was Koidu Holdings. A private company owned by Israeli diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz, Koidu Holdings mines the deepest vertical kimberlite pipe in the world. The company was the object of peaceful protests – or riots, depending on whose version of events you subscribe to – by Kono residents in 2007 against Hoidu’s failure to resettle and compensate them after displacing them through their mining activities. Mines and Communities reported advocacy group Network for Justice and Development as saying that 5000 people were in need of rehousing: Hoidu had the figure down at 155. Police responded to the protesters with tear gas and live ammunition. Two people were killed. The government suspended Hoidu’s operations for six months.
A few months earlier over a thousand desperate small time local miners rushed Hoidu’s concessions in the hope of striking it at least a little bit lucky [21]. Partnership Africa Canada’s Annual Review Sierra Leone 2006 gives a context for their desperation:
‘Koidu Town, capital of Kono District, has been growing by 150,000 a year since 2002, according to UN officials. The town was completely destroyed during the war, and its (then) 200,000 residents mostly scattered. Since the war ended, there has been a boom in diamond mining, and many of the new migrants are petty traders or miners, most of them young.
A report prepared by Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Youth and Sports with UNDP funding in May 2004, ‘Mining and Marginality: Kono and Tongo Fields,’ notes that of 550 miners interviewed in Kono, 465 claimed they started mining after the war; 75% were between the ages of 21 and 30, and all cited poverty and ‘survival’ as reasons they went into mining. The report notes that for 70% of 852 miners interviewed, ‘mining remains the most attractive option for the bulk of the young men who cite poverty (39%), survival (37.2%) and financial (23.7%) as the primary cause’ for moving into Kono. The report notes that an overwhelming 88% of 175 miners interviewed in Kono were illiterate.
Rural Kono has a poverty level of 79.6 %, urban Kono has 56.3 % of ‘total poor’ compared to Freetown’s 17.1 %. […] Annual Review interviews in Kono in August 2005 revealed that a miner earns about 2,000 leones (about 85¢) a day for sustenance.’ [22]
And here we return to Sierra Leone’s national anthem and its refrain, ‘land that we love.’ That line brings us back to the land, and to a case study on the environmental effects of extensive diamond mining, conducted during the civil war by the Trade and Environment Database.
The study says that the activities and toxic effects of the mining companies ‘force communities to relocate to other areas, and cause the degradation of the vast expanse of land exploited, risk of flooding of surrounding villages from dredging ponds, siltation in tidal creeks, and dislocation of several villages.
The activities of Sierra Leone’s two large-scale mining companies result in land degradation through loss of vegetative cover, soil erosion, and contamination of water sources. Small-scale mining of diamonds and gold raises similar issues on a different scale. Artisanal mining results in deforestation and land degradation; and stagnant water collects in excavated areas which are abandoned by the miners, providing breeding ground for mosquitoes. Frequently, there are clashes between the farming communities and the mobile artisanal miners who are creating health hazardous conditions for the resident farmers.
The environmental impact of small-scale diamond mining activities is severe, devastating the land by clearing and digging up vegetated areas. After an area is mined the land is left exposed and degraded, unsuitable for farming or any other activity. When the mining is carried out on hilly areas and slopes, severe erosion takes place and flooding can result. In certain locations miners not only remove vegetation and economically valuable trees but their activities also divert surface drainage. Siltation in river systems is a common problem to be faced by communities living downstream. Water collects and stagnates in the dug-out areas contributing to health hazards, potentially increasing the incidence of malaria and other water borne diseases.
[…] Communities interacting with water sources contaminated by mine wastes are exposed to diarrhoeal diseases. Mining activities cause heavy siltation in river beds and creeks, which reduces coastal coral and fish populations that feed and breed in it. Toxic wastes in the water sources contaminate marine life making them unfit for human consumption. [23]
The study carries a warning for the future of Sierra Leone:
‘The pressure on natural resources, although categorically rated ‘medium/high’, will be exacerbated by continued mining and a lack of policy initiatives to combat the growing problem of unkempt and environmentally hazardous mining areas. The direct impact is real and constant and thus a threat to the maintenance of scarce resources and existing community areas. This requires a need for regulatory and legislative action on the part of the Government to address the issue before it becomes one of severity.’ [25]
…and on the relationship between the people and the land, the distance between them, and the possible effects of this distance for Sierra Leone’s future:
‘Many environmental issues stem from a lack of cultural tradition pertaining to land ownership and resource management. The lack of a land-holding tradition leads to short-sighted behaviour resulting in degradation of land. Land is not regarded as a long-term asset that belongs to people to manage or mismanage. They are therefore not likely to worry about future problems with their own land, arising out of current mismanagement.’ [26]
On his website Kamara wrote ‘I invested in a 6 inch used gold dredge that I shipped to Sierra Leone for the purpose of prospecting. When I arrived in Sierra Leone March of 2003, First, I obtained all necessary mining permits and secure the mining claims.’ [27]
We’re not sure what Amadou Kamara would make of the Trade and Environment Database’s study, but it appears to be the case that having succeeded in separating the people of Sierra Leone from the wealth of the world beneath their feet, mining operations large and small now threaten to devastate the Sierra Leonean landscape. We wonder how Kamara’s mining venture turned out, and what he’s doing these days…
Sources
[1] Taxi Drivers Still Struggle for Work, by Odell B. Ruffin, Washington Informer, 4 February 2009.
http://www.washingtoninformer.com
[2] The Heart Of The Matter – Sierra Leone, Diamonds & Human Security. Ian Smillie, Lansana Gberie, and Ralph Hazleton, Partnership Africa Canada, 2000.
http://www.pacweb.org/e/pdf/heart%20of%20the%20matter.doc
[3] http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/474ac8d50.pdf
[4] Ruffin
[5] The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870, by James W. St. G. Walker University of Toronto Press 1993.
http://books.google.co.uk/books
[6] Granville Sharp, quoted in Legal Development and Constitutional Change in Sierra Leone 1787 – 1971, by W.S Marcus Jones, London, 1981, in A Dirty War in West Africa – the RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone, by Lansana Gbere, Indiana University Press, 2005
http:// www.books.google.co.uk/books
[7] History of Sierra Leone
http:// www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sierra_Leone
[8] http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/27/newsid_2502000/2502411.stm
[9] War, Poverty and Growth in Africa. Lessons from Sierra Leone, by Victor A.B Davis, Centre for the Study of African Economics 5th Annual Conference, Understanding Poverty and Growth in Africa, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University, 18-19 March 2002
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=author:%22Davies%22+intitle:%22War,+Poverty+and+Growth+in+Africa+Lessons+from+Sierra+Leone...
[10] Sierra Leone’s amputees: A refugee in Chicago, by Matt Rusling, Medill News Service, January 2008
http://www.immigrationhereandthere.org/2008/01/sierra_leones_amputees.php
[11] Country at a Crossroads: Challenges Facing Young People in Sierra Leone Six Years after the War (Women’s Commission for Refugees and Children) (April 2008)
http://www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/themes/refugees/default.htm
[12 & 13] The Sierra Leone Yuba Sutter Diamond Mining Co., Inc. slysdiamondmining.com
[14] Since 1999, PAC has undertaken a programme of policy research, education and advocacy to ensure that the international diamond industry operates legally, openly and for the primary benefit of the countries where the diamonds originate. It has also extensively published reports that have uncovered the secret dealings and James Bond-style manoeuvres of the middlemen and smugglers in the industry who operate often with the full knowledge and approval of governments (or rebel movements), and act as conduits for diamonds smuggled from neighbouring countries. Illicit Diamonds – Africa’s Curse, by Rasna Warah UN Chronicle Online edition
http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2004/issue3/0304p20.asp#
[15] The Heart Of The Matter – Sierra Leone, Diamonds & Human Security. Ian Smillie, Lansana Gberie, and Ralph Hazleton, Partnership Africa Canada, 2000
http://www.pacweb.org/e/pdf/heart%20of%20the%20matter.doc
[16] Smillie, Gberie, Hazleton
[17] War, Poverty and Growth in Africa. Lessons from Sierra Leone, by Victor A.B Davies. Paper presented for the African Economics 5th Annual Conference, Understanding Poverty & Growth in Africa, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University, March 2002
www.csae.ox.ac.uk/conferences/2002-UPaGiSSA/papers/Davies-csae2002.pdf
[18] Rhodes: The Race for Africa, Thomas Anthony, London Bridge, 1997. ISBN 0-563-38742-4. Quoted in Cecil Rhodes, Wikipedia
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Rhodes
[19] Smillie, Gberie, Hazleton
[20] De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited/De Beers Centenary AG http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/De-Beers-Consolidated
[21] MAC: Mines and Communities
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=8351
[22] Annual Review Sierra Leone 2006, Partnership Africa Canada
http://www.pacweb.org/e/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=65#other
[23 – 26] Sierra Leone Mining and Environment (LEONE Case) Trade Environment Database
http://www.american.edu/TED/leone.htm
[27] The Sierra Leone Yuba Sutter Diamond Mining Co., Inc. slysdiamondmining.com
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