Young men live like warriors

David is posing with his gun for the camera. With 35 fellow combatants he is guarding a check-point in the town of Bo in the south of Sierra Leone. They are all young men, who joined the Kamajors, the Civilian Defense Force (CDF) in the area. After years of fighting in the nine-year civil war they have little prospect of another life. ACT members support the reintegration of these youth into the civil society.

"The war has diverted our course", 23 year old David says. Sierra Leone has been experiencing ther ravages of civil war since 1991. Although talks between the government and the RUF rebels have resumed there is no quick solution in sight. The UN has deployed 13,000 troops in its biggest peace keeping mission ever, but there is a stalemate between the UN soldiers and the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who still occupy more than half of the country - primarily the diamond producing areas.

David and most of his companions joined the Kamajors four years ago. "The rebels were maltreating us, raping our mothers, killing our brothers and taking our families away. Therefore we joined the Kamajors", David says. "Our homes were destroyed, some of our family members have been abducted by the rebels and we don’t know whether they are alive or not".

In the beginning they had only machets to fight, David explains, only with some local hunters having guns. Therefore, when they killed a rebel they took his weapons and property. They were able to establish Kamajors zones, for example around the town of Bo. After a peace accord was signed in July 1999 the CDF accepted the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme run by the government for ex-fighters. David and his friends were taken to a camp and their weapons confiscated. But after the rebels escalated holstilities last May many of the Kamajors got their weapons back.

David was a student, when he joined the Kamajors. Most of the others were farmers. "We are now living as warriors", David says. He and the others are critical about the CDF administration. Although the government promised to distribute rice to the CDF fighters, nothing came through to the provinces.

The young men complain that they don’t get any salary and many of them have families to support. David for example has a wife and two small children, a six month old daughter and a three year old son. He wants to go back to college and get an education. "I can’t live like this", David complains. He and his friends see no prospect of a new life. Now the Kamajors make their living from the money they demand from the drivers passing the checkpoint.

Originally the Kamajors were a small and exclusive group of hunters (kamajors is the native name for hunters). Everybody who wants to join the group has to undergo an initiation. David and his friends were initiated by a woman, Madame Munda Fortune. The group has an aura of magic and mysticism. While fighting the Kamajors wear special cloth which they believe is bullet proof. This believe of magical power is also shared by the people.

During the civil war the exclusive Kamajors society became a group, which every young man could join, because they were needed for fighting the rebels. The disarmament of the CDF combatants has started, but many of them don’t want to hand over their weapons as long as the RUF rebels are not disarmed.

However, people are becoming concerned about the huge number of CDF fighters. "The Kamajors are causing a lot of problems", Martha, coordinator in the R&R department of the Council of Chiurches in Sierra Leone (CCSL), a member of the ACT alliance, says. She points out that they are "molesting, harrassing, beating and even killing people". In some villages they take over the role of the authorities. David and his friends see themselves as an "administrative body".

"Some Kamajors harrass people to get unlawful money from them", Martha explains. There are concerns that a new militia is evolving from the Kamajors, which are mainly young people. Egon Nielson from the Lutheran World Fedaration (LWF), another ACT member, says that there are reports that some of the Kamajors group are already fighting alongside with rebels on the Liberian border. And fightings between different groups of Kamajors are reported as well.

CCSL wants to support the reintegration of the Kamajors. The department is thinking of organizing workshops for a number of the fighters in reconciliation and civic education, but also in skills like fishing or pig farming. "We are pushing very strongly in that", says programme director Marcos Melaku. The department has already experience with workshops for ex-rebels. There are up to 45,000 fighters from CDF and RUF to be disarmed in the country. But there is hardly any job to find for young people. So the ex-fighters could end up in the streets already filled with young men hanging around.

Another ACT member, the United Methodist Church, is targeting the ex-fighters as well in their peace and civic education project, which is funded by ACT partner Christian Aid. 150 people have been trained to work in the communities for their integration. The Methodist Church is also managing a camp in Kenema, distributing seeds and running microcredit programmes.