Foday Sankoh: 'I'm God'
2003-07-30 22:00
Freetown - Foday Sankoh, who died on Tuesday, was a born-again Christian whose leadership of the rebels in Sierra Leone epitomised the most brutal tradition of rebel fighting in Africa, CNN reports.
His drugged, drunk Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels became known for their viciousness, killing, raping, maiming and kidnapping tens of thousands of civilians.
Up to 50 000 people are thought to have died in 10 years of civil war.
Under Sankoh, rebels made a trademark of hacking off the hands, feet, lips and ears of victims with machetes.
The grizzled, charismatic rebel chief, spread terror in the West African nation but was known to his ruthless fighters as "Popay" or "Papa".
What he thought about himself was shown in June 2002, in one of his last appearances before the UN Sierra Leone war crimes court.
"I'm a god," the handcuffed ex-warlord in matted white dreadlocks told court officials then. "I'm the inner god. I'm the leader of Sierra Leone."
Sankoh, a former wedding photographer and Sierra Leone soldier, trained in the Cold War guerrilla camps of Moammar Gadhafi. His companions there included Charles Taylor of neighboring Liberia, who also has been indicted as an alleged principal culprit in the Sierra Leone terror campaign.
Sankoh's RUF, founded in Libya in 1988-89, launched the insurgency in 1991, bent on winning control of Sierra Leone's government and diamond fields.
Sankoh was captured after his fighters gunned down more than a dozen protesters outside his Freetown home, and had been in UN custody in prisons and hospitals since.
Forceful military intervention by Britain, Guinea and the United Nations crushed the rebels, and Sierra Leone formally declared the war over in early 2002.
Sankoh, born October 17, 1937, had faced a 17-count war-crimes indictment, as well as separate charges in a Sierra Leone national court.
His condition had slowed proceedings, and Sankoh's last appearances in court were in a wheelchair, with Sankoh unable to respond to questions.
Survivors include his wife, Fatou Sankoh, and at least one daughter.