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Liberia: RUF Insider Tells of Diamond Mining, Killing of Recruits, Failures of High Level RUF Commanders to Act on Crime Reports
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GUEST BLOG
6 March 2008
Posted to the web 6 March 2008
The monitors of former President Charles Taylor's trial report for www.charlestaylortrial.org
The court resumed after lunch.
Pros: Before we broke for lunch, you were explaining the system of mining in Ngaiya, can you repeat what the system was called?
Witness: It was a two pile system.
Pros: Can you briefly describe the two pile system?
Wit: If civilians dug out the gravel, I would instruct my personnel to pick up the gravel - I would do it myself at times - and divide it to two piles. One would be for the RUF/AFRC movement, and the other for the civilians. We used to see diamonds in the gravel.
Pros: The part given to the civilians - what happened to it?
Wit: Sometimes we will tell them to wash it for themselves.
Pros: What happened after they washed it?
Wit: It would still be around. Security would be around them. If they had a big diamond, that would be seized from them. The mining unit would still be around. After divided the gravel, we should not go too far away from them (civilians) as possible as they may get a very big diamond and we would then take it to the diamond office, and if the office had something to give to the civilians, they would.
Pros: Did civilians find big diamonds during the two pile system?
Wit: Yes.
Pros: Were these big diamonds taken away from them?
Wit: Yes.
Pros: Was there ever an occasion where civilians did not want to give their diamonds to the RUF?
Wit: They would refuse to give them, and we would use force to make them give their diamonds to us.
Pros: What happened to civilians refused?
Wit: We were told that we should beat the civilian or kill him.
Pros: Were people beaten or killed for refusing to give their diamonds?
Wit: That used to happened. We used to beat civilians who resisted giving the diamonds to us, the mining unit.
Pros: Were any civilians killed for this reason?
Wit: In my own mining areas, I cannot recall but for the beating, yes that used to happen.
Pros: Yengema was one of the mining areas under your control. Was there an RUF training base in Yengema?
Wit: Yes, I knew about a training base in Yengema.
(problems with the questions - not included in this account)
Pros: Was there an IDU office that was operating in Kono?
Wit: Yes.
Pros: Was there a joint security office in Kono?
Wit: Yes
Pros: Did you know the commanders based there?
Wit: I did not know the commander but I knew some of the personnel.
Pros: Are you able to tell the court if the IDU personnel in Kono were treated in the diamond mining areas that you were in charge of?
Wit: Yes.
Pros: Did the IDU office in Kono know how the civilians were treated in the diamond mining areas?
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Wit: They were supposed to know.
Pros: Why do you say they were supposed to know?
Wit: Because there were security personnel who were supposed to have representatives in those areas who were reporting about activities in those areas.
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