Clap for the Murderers

By Choubby Champo

Somewhere in one of the countries on the west coast of Africa, a ruthless civil war had broken out. A family of four, a husband and a newly pregnant wife plus two children, unluckily got caught up in the quagmire of this cruel war. In an unexpected turn of events, the warlords and their henchmen ordered the rebels to kill some targeted aliens within their captured territories.

The family formed part of those ill-fated aliens. To survive the war, they needed to use all their wits and bravery to outmaneuver the bloodthirsty rebels. For over three years, the family took refuge in dense forests infested with all kinds of wild animals and bloodsucking insects. There was no hospital, no food for the pregnant woman and the family. She had to be delivered in bizarre and difficult circumstances.

This author experienced the bitter conflict and saw the beginning and the end of the protracted war. He recounts a true life story of the acts of brutalities, hate, genocides, deceits, and gross human rights abuses that usually characterize wars.

Follow the saga of human suffering, adventures, and utter dehumanization that human conflicts can cause, also the sex slavery of adolescent girls, culture of indiscipline and impunity, and the sheer uselessness of modern African wars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796054231

Choubby Champo

Choubby Champo, de nationalités ghanéenne et libérienne, fit des études pour être enseignant en langues anglaise et française qui ont débutées au Ghana puis au Sénégal à Dakar. Ensuite, grâce à une bourse d'études, il a pu continuer celles-ci à Strasbourg en Alsace pour une spécialité en pédagogie. Depuis plusieurs années, il travaille pour les Nations Unies d'abord comme employé recruté localement au Bonkoumia puis comme staff international en République Centre Africaine. Choubby Champo est un humaniste par nature et a une grande passion pour l'enseignement, la lecture, la poésie et la danse. Les choses qu'il déteste le plus sont la dictature et l'arrogance, bien que nous respirions tous le même air. L'auteur a vu et vécu la guerre civile libérienne du début à la fin, et donc, Applaudissons les Meurtriers.

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Copyright © 2019 by Choubby Champo.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2019912270

ISBN:                Hardcover              978-1-7960-5424-8

                          Softcover                978-1-7960-5425-5

                          eBook                     978-1-7960-5423-1

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Rev. date: 01/13/2020

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CONTENTS

Innocence

Foreword

Acknowledgment

I Am Writing This Book

Introduction   Why I Wrote This Book

Chapter 1     Make No Decision When Angry

Chapter 2     The First Encounter

Chapter 3     The Incursion

Chapter 4     Baaji Town

Chapter 5     The Bathuran Church

Chapter 6     Wild Yam Expedition

Chapter 7     The Advent of OPKO and the Roundups

Chapter 8     Arjillo

Chapter 9     Belmonto

Chapter 10   The Concentration Camp

Chapter 11   The Decision

Chapter 12   Struggling to Stay Alive

Chapter 13   Facing the Rebel Tribunal

Chapter 14   Thierno Diallo

Chapter 15   The Second Tribunal, the Heroic Role, the French Language Played

Chapter 16   The Journey Back to Baaji

Chapter 17   The Plight of an American Missionary

Chapter 18   The Outrage

Chapter 19   A Day Not to Be

Chapter 20   The Torture

Chapter 21   Refuge in the Bush

Chapter 22   Farewell Town, Hello Jungle

Chapter 23   Paying Prices for Merest Survival

Chapter 24   Palm Cabbage

Chapter 25   The Year 1991

Chapter 26   The Delivery

Chapter 27   After the Delivery

Chapter 28   So Far, So Uneasy

Chapter 29   The Wild Pineapple Patch

Chapter 30   Lamentation

Chapter 31   To Kill or Not to Kill?

Chapter 32   No One Else, but African Men

Chapter 33   Kokosiaakoo or Kokosikoko or Assibey

Chapter 34   So Much I Try

Chapter 35   The Bitter Honey

Chapter 36   African Wrappers in Mystery

Chapter 37   The Dark Times

Chapter 38   The Red-Haired Children

Chapter 39   Illness, the Tormentor, and the Associate

Chapter 40   Hope and Despair

Chapter 41   Bush Cow in Jojeedan Jungle

Chapter 42   Alone in the Jungle

Chapter 43   More Strange Occurrences

Chapter 44   Contact with Oldman Kowu

Chapter 45   Contact with the Outside World

Chapter 46   Even Satan with All His Wickedness …

Chapter 47   Outbreak of Measles

Chapter 48   Going Backward

Chapter 49   Reverend Brisbane, the Man from Brewerville

Chapter 50   No Time to Say Farewell

Chapter 51   The Narrow Escape of Molley Keimah

Chapter 52   The Advent of JMAFF

Chapter 53   Day and Night of Tears

Chapter 54   Struggling in the City

Chapter 55   The Banks and Deceits

Chapter 56   Years of Evil and Treachery

Chapter 57   Bulk Challenge

Chapter 58   Empathy

Epilogue

This book is dedicated to all innocent Liberians, nationals of ECOWAS countries, Lebanese nationals, and other foreign nationals who are supposed to be living today but died untimely in cold-blooded manner because of a few people’s greed for power and money.

Innocence

We were innocent in the best sense of the word,

yet the Awudifuos (rebels) were murdering us.

And instead of the citizens telling them to stop

murdering us, majority of them were gleefully

clapping for the murderers to kill us more. That’s

what I can’t understand up to now.

—Choubby Champo

Foreword

The dark-hearted desperados descended

Caring not of themselves, let alone others

Consumed with hate, cruelty, and greed

With guns that tear flesh and give grief

Maimed, tortured, and killed

Their own kinsmen, aliens, and foreigners

Destroyed their country beyond repair

The Global Elephant Relief Club came in, put the pieces together

And gave the desperados a sanctimonious sanctuary

And the murderers, the hard cash

Some of the murderers brazenly and unconscionably

Paved their way into the noble organization

And double compensated themselves with the

Taxpayers’ hard cash

Boasted and bragged over their immeasurable

Misdeeds and ruthless past

And we the victims left painfully hurt

Empty-handed with sickness everlasting

Destitution, chaos, grief, and harrowing trauma

Haunted and cancer our souls and beings

We only had our tabied¹ hands and arms

To applaud for the murderers

And so, we shouted in great ovation

Peace, freedom, and liberty for all

At last!

Acknowledgment

My deepest thanks to my passionate maternal uncle Mr. Emmanuel Ansu Amponsah, who took care of my education. He greatly inspired me with his love for humanity, education, and charity. May his soul rest in perfect peace.

Secondly, my profound thanks go to my wife and four children—Cecilia O. Champo, Emmanuel A. Champo, Alex A. Champo, Samuel A. Champo, and Queen Kpake Champo—who were always with me during the days of the ordeal that instigated me to write the book and who further stood by me when I was writing the book.

Many thanks to Mark Sean, a US soldier who, in a way, helped edit the first chapters of the book.

Besides, many thanks to my high school best friend, Kwadwo Kyeremeh, who concernedly advised me to study hard and add French to the subjects I did; in a way, his advice saved our lives.

My profound thanks once again go to my sincere friends: Muctar Guy and Roland Nuquay who gave me some technical assistance.

Again, my invaluable thanks go to my former senior UN colleagues—namely, Mr. Greg Tasker, Mr. Towongo G. Wilson, Mr. Philip Johnson, Ms. Jackie Taylor, Ms. Madrine Duncan, and Mr. Stephan Mardaga who showed me real love and concern when we worked together. Furthermore, my thanks go to Papa Beda Matolo, a Tanzanian Masai friend who never stopped brightening my days with laughter. Matolo used to be generous with everything, and his personal bravery as a man knew no bounds.

Finally, I wish to express my deep thanks to all those who helped me bring this book into being.

I Am Writing This Book

Now I’m writing this book

For those who have eyes

To read and read

And for those who have brains

To think and think

And for those who have hearts

To feel and feel

I’m writing this book

Not only to delight your mind

But also to sadden your heart

Not only to burden your mind

But to relieve your brains

I’m writing this book

Not only for my family and me

But for everyone

Who is walking under the sun

Rains, snow, dews

Light and darkness to read

I am writing this book for those

Who have the heart to be touched

And prevent future wars

I’m writing this book for

The chauvinists, the heartless, and the stupid

To be enraged, furious, and vengeful

And maneuver to perpetuate the bloodletting

Now I’m writing this book

For Bonkoumians and the world around

To know that Greater Bonkoumia was not for Forson

Nor the entire Bonkoumia for Forson

But only a small cell of prison is for Forson

And the cell soon a grave it will be

Six feet, no! Five feet in the dirty ground

Now I’m writing this book

For me. No, for you

To know that nothing belongs to man

So far as he lives

And for you to know that all things

In life are as temporary as the weather

That arrogance, hate, and envy that fuel destruction

Belong to him.

And love, thoughtfulness, hospitality that nurture development

Belong to him

I’m writing this book for we

To know that a neighbor beside you

Is more dangerous than a distant stranger

Now I’m writing this book to support

The belief that human beings are human beings everywhere

But there is a pack of human beings

Who are more maliciously criminal,

And cruelly orientated than others

Who only live in trivia

To achieve trifles

Now I am writing this book to tell you

That when you hide history

You become blind to future dangers

In this book,

Nothing is supposition or imagination based

Actual knowledge and experience are a familiarity

I am writing for your recollection

That the hundreds of civilian aliens, foreigners

That you shamelessly stole from

And murdered in Farouka, Belmonto,

Hallmars, Adrobaac countrywide

Even though killed and gone, their blood is a weapon.

I am writing for you to know

That both praise and condemnation

Know their owners

That when you destroy

I will show you your ruins

Your decaying, stinking past

I want to show you that

The past is your weakness

And the future, your foundation

Xenophobia and hospitality

Lies and truths are wholly yours

The strength of right you possess

To choose among

I am writing for you to know

That every human being is a product of migration

Answer me!

You hateful myopic one!

You brainless brutes!

Do mountains migrate?

For you to know

That calculated cruelty brings nothing to man

That those who only kill, steal, and plunder

To live will know that

That is not the way of life.

I’m still writing for you to know

That time erases many things, but not all

That in a concerted way we welcome good and nobility

And in the same way, we deplore the bad and indignity

I’m writing for you to know that when nonsense is sense

Sense will never be sense

Yes, I’m writing this book so that

Some people would say this is a good read

And others would say this is a damn book.

Introduction

Why I Wrote This Book

The Bonkoumian civil war hesitantly came to an end in 2003. Three years after, the Bonkoumian government and the international community established the Peace and Reconciliation Commission. The aim of the council was to assist Bonkoumians and all the people within the republic to have freedom to tell the members of the committee, one way or the other, all the wicked and inhumane things some people did to them. Then after that, the committee would either find some means to talk concernedly to the aggrieved person or group or to apologize to them to forgive one another and live together in peace as before and rebuild the country.

I heard of the program, and I decided to meet with the facilitators to recount my traumatic experiences during the over-fourteen-year atrocious war. It was in June 2006; by then, I was working with an American international NGO in Agbarnsu, a central town located in Bonkoumia. I asked permission for a two-day leave from my supervisor to enable me to meet with the Reconciliation Commission in Ramosia, the country’s capital.

At about 7:30 a.m., I was already at the car park. I boarded a commercial minibus. By 8:00 a.m., the vehicle had already begun the almost-310-kilometer journey.

That morning, the weather was cloudy and dreary. Having gone for about fifty minutes, the sky began releasing a heavy downpour. Just about two kilometers from a village called Lalofreh, the car broke down. The torrential tropical rainfall was still falling unabated. All of us were despaired, but the driver was confused and in despair the most.

He urged us to get out of the small-sized bus and pushed it for it to start. Wanting the bus to restart and take us out of the terrible rainfall, a few men in the car got out and used all our energy and force to push the car, but our robust efforts yielded no fruitful result. We were all soaked to our underwear that morning. There were two women with babies. The babies who couldn’t understand the situation were howling. Seemingly, they were fed up with the wet and cold weather. Having exerted all efforts and with the vehicle not restarting, we gave up. We stood close to the main road leading to Ramosia and made frantic efforts to get into another car to help transport us to our various destinations.

Some cars passed—some full, others half-empty. Maybe because of our forlorn look, almost all of them refused to pick us out of the torrential rain. By that time, we had been almost remained in the nonintermission rain for about forty minutes. We were feeling cold, and some of us were trembling.

Suddenly, we saw a high-top Toyota jeep speeding and coming from Agbarnsu way. We were giving up in stopping cars because none of the drivers had the heart to assist us. All the same, I raised my arms, brandishing the speeding car in an attempt to stop it, while the others were despairingly looking at me. That time around, a jeep slowed down a bit and passed us. It stopped and reversed toward us. Then the driver eased off the road and parked in a safe place. There were two Europeans sitting in the front part of the car. There were only three men and a lady at the rear part of the jeep. It was a Red Cross vehicle. The white driver and his colleague threw a sign for us to board it.

Apart from a wet small daily book and a pen, I had no luggage. The other passengers hastily went into the defective minibus and brought in their luggage. The driver was patient. With our drenched bodies, we squeezed ourselves in the jeep, and off we went.

I reached Ramosia without any incident. I went to Korsino Seaside on Ninth Street, where the program was. The program was truly going on. It was in a story building with many offices both downstairs and upstairs. There I met a couple of persons who were there for the same purpose.

After some time, my turn came and I went in. I met a young man of about thirty years sitting behind a desk with a lot of files on his table. Even though he was sitting, he appeared to be tall. He was slightly bright in complexion and had an elongated face. After brief pleasantries, he asked me to narrate my part of story to him.

I took my time carefully and summarized how Forson’s Forces (militia), headed by Oliver Varney, massacred about four hundred Ojakromanaians who were rounded up in both Amadechay County and Grand Cape Mount County and brought them up to Belmonto Concentration Camp and how, during that initial period of the civil war, most of the senior awudifuos who orchestrated those murderous acts were mostly from Gazziboottan County. After those horrendous nightly acts, the awudifuos dumped most of the bodies into the Hermon River and some into wells in Belmonto. It was not only Ojakromanaians but also a greater number of Mammothirians, Mfannians, Bonkouttans, etc. who didn’t get any good place to hide were all slayed by Forson’s rebel group. I told him that during that time, most sound people, including me, used to wonder whether Forson’s awudifuos and some other factional awudifuos’ hearts were made of flesh and blood like the normal human beings’ hearts.

From time to time, the secretary would ask me to pause to enable him to pen down all that I was telling him.

I also told him how the French language helped me slip through the crack. Again, I told him how Forson’s awudfuos massively brutalized my family and me because of our Ojakromanaian nationality. They were determined to murder my family. To avoid being killed, my wife and I, including our two children, took refuge in a secluded thick forest for about three years. We were therefore plunged into purely and utterly dreadful human conditions ever.

The secretary apparently wrote down everything I told him. He then asked for my contact number, and I gave it to him.

You will hear from the commission in about a month’s time, so you can leave for another person to come, he said.

The man showed no emotion; he just indifferently told me those words. Thenceforth, I paid particular attention to my phone, wishing and hoping that one day the program leaders would call me to meet with the hearing board once again. A month passed, two months passed, and six months passed, but nobody called me from the Reconciliation Commission. Nobody cared; the commission had taken me for granted. The said silence on the part of the commission really upset me beyond endurance.

Had they shown some concern, I would not have written the said book. Their concern could have salved my mind, and I was going to let everything go. For three nights, I was sleepless because of the nonchalant attitude of the Reconciliation Commission. On the fourth night, to free my mind from the war trauma and the Reconciliation Commission’s dispassionate attitude, I vowed and resolved to write a book.

After everything else, I know a little English, likewise French, and didn’t intellectuals say the pen is mightier than the sword? hence Clap for the Murderers.

Chapter One

Make No Decision When Angry

In August 1985, having returned from France to Ojakrom, alias Ghana, after some years of studies, I decided to go to Bonkoumia, a country somehow closer to Ojakrom. The decision was a hasty one, and my wife vehemently dissuaded me from embarking upon such an adventure. I refused to tell any of the members of my large extended family and further asked my wife to do the same. I did that to avoid the normal Akans²’ customary family meetings that might pressure me to abandon such a decision.

Other major reason in this perspective, which served as the main root cause, was that some of the family members, particularly my senior brother, had grossly mismanaged the money-generating machines, like cars and a milling machine, I sent home to him while I was in Europe. Further, he squandered the money I remitted to him to use for buying an acre of land and building a house on it.

Therefore, I made the said decision while I was utterly upset and had no ears to listen to my three-month-pregnant wife, who was by then a well-established civil servant in the country. With the approval of neither my wife nor relatives, I embarked upon the said journey and I reached Ramosia, the country’s capital, safely. I was not hoping for greater things in Bonkoumia³, but somehow at the back of my mind, I thought I could pass through that country to get back to Western Europe once again. I put up with some ex-schoolmates. After spending a few weeks in Ramosia, I detected that all was not well politically in the country. Apparently, the country was on the verge of social hostilities. I decided on two occasions to return to Ojakrom and forget about Bonkoumia; however, some Ojakromanaian friends concernedly advised me against that decision and encouraged me that with my level of education, I stood a better chance of getting a good job sooner or later. But I was not convinced; I could sense after only one month of being in the country that the people’s sociopolitical life was not as polished and satisfying as it appeared to be.

For instance, I was putting up with two Ojakromanaian friends, Ofori and Abraham, in Raffi Town, near an airport. Our yard was greatly inhabited by the low-income local populace. I observed that they went to bed very late and woke up late in the morning and, during the day, the women especially would be in sizable groups with some musical tapes, plaiting hair and playing songs almost the whole afternoon. Most of them were not engaged in any fund-generating activities. Idleness tinged with laziness was very rife among the people in the communities. It was, therefore, a mystery to me how they could survive. Later on, I started seeing palpably that begging was quite endemic in the society. The women especially, and sometimes men too, would habitually beg for toothpaste, condiments like salt, onion, cooking oil, and money.

Politically, there was a lot of suppression and bullying from the police, soldiers, and the immigration officers everywhere. Extortions of money from aliens by immigration officers in the plain streets of Ramosia were a common sight. Parking of commercial vehicles and bullying of hardworking drivers by the national police with the intention to extort money from them were also widespread. All those visible corruption and bullying compelled me to believe that the various national security forces thought that just because they wore special government uniforms, they were permitted to do anything they liked. In fact, they considered themselves to be above the laws of the land.

There were a lot more human rights abuses beyond the above-stated facts, but the central government indifferently watched and endorsed them. Somehow, a fair greater number of Bonkoumians in a furtive way used to heap blames on President Eddoekka’s regime. They blamed Eddoekka for lopsidedness because he had employed his ethnic group (the Jojeedans) more and had given them some unrestrained power to do whatever they wanted. After a few months’ experience in the country, I started realizing that the general ideas held by the cross section of the population about the regime in some measure of way were justified. Some Bonkoumians were highly troubled by the unfairness of life in the country, but there was nothing in actuality they could do.

The country was sinking into deeper waters of disgruntlement and tribal hatred, but Eddoekka and his junta thought that they would be able to steer the political affairs of the nation as they had been doing for the past nine years and some months.

And just as the suppressive and ethnic mind-set administration persisted, so did the smoldering fury and disgruntlement of the majority of Bonkoumians.

Chapter Two

The First Encounter

I had more than my fair share of bullying, torture, and extortion of money from me by the Jojeedans in the latter part of November 1985.

One Joseph Atotoagou staged a coup d’état against President Eddoekka’s regime, but he woefully failed. Instantly, a dust-to-dawn curfew was imposed—that is, from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., no one must be seen outside. Since I was born, I had not experienced curfew, but there is a saying that goes, Travel and see. And so, traveling compelled me to see and observe the said curfew put in place by Eddoekka’s junta.

One night, I decided to write a letter to my wife, whom I left back home. I was sitting at the table writing, and the other two friends who were hosting me were lying down. It was about 8:00 p.m., and all the surroundings were silent and calm. I heard some boots thumping on the sandy ground behind the window. Before I could reach the other end of the small room to switch off the electric light, the soldiers were already standing behind the short transparent window with the two guns menacingly pointed at me, almost tearing the net in the window. I could see the black muzzles of the guns ready for action.

A commanding voice followed. You move, we shoot you in that damn room.

But I have not broken any curfew law. I am in my room, I replied with confidence and boldness.

My man, carry your ass from there and open that damn main door, and you will know whether you have broken curfew law or not.

One was already violently shooting some threatening shots into the air and heavily thumping and booting the main door with some maddening rage. The other one was vigilant on me with the muzzle still pointed to me. Fury was building in me, and therefore, I wanted to remain put and adamant until they did whatever they wanted to do; after all, curfew was not meant for people peaceably indoors but for wayward wanderers.

Again, my mind went back to my pregnant lady back home, and that sobered me somehow. Besides, two days previously, a handful of angry soldiers whom everybody in Raffi Town described as Jojeedans stormed into one fine building and cold-bloodedly stabbed one fine elderly man all over, and later on, they viciously pressed him into a private car’s boot. That was my first time ever seeing such a gross human abuse—a mortally wounded man being again forced into a car boot. And according to the neighbors, his only crime was to speak against the incumbent regime.

The entire eyesore episode unfolded before me, and what really astonished me was that, all the local dwellers of Raffi Town were observing the scene as if it was normal. Some were even cracking some jokes, showing their indifference in that regard. Apparently, the people were used to such aberrant events in that nation.

Now going back to the opening of the doors for the soldiers, I further decided to sacrifice myself instead of involving Ofori and Abraham, my roommates and hosts, in this unreasonable encounter. In my pajamas, I made some bold and daring steps and first opened the room’s door and, secondly, the main house door—they were of forest structure, that is, short and thick (plump) in stature.

The opening of the door and the grabbing of my clothes were simultaneous. One of them grabbed my waist flesh together with my clothes, trying in every unreasonable manner to raise me from my feet. But his clumsy structure couldn’t allow him to do that.

The other drew a long military combat knife and menacingly pointed it to my throat. In an effort to balance myself, I managed hard and grabbed a very heavy mahogany⁴ table placed in the corridor way closer to our room door.

My man, let’s go out. Will you go out or not? he commanded.

One of them viciously kicked my shin, and I yelled in pain. I still bear that scar.

You can’t be assaulting me like this and still want me to go out, I protested.

Yes! Hein, we know now that you are from Freetown. You are the people who passed through the border to cause trouble in our country.

You leave your dirty and useless country like Bonkoutta (Sierra Leone) to come to a sweet country like Bonkoumia to come and cause trouble, hein?

They intensified the physical assaults—viciously kicking and blinding me with terrible blows all over my face and the back of the neck. At the same time, they were raining vulgar insults at me. Their intention was to make me release the heavy table so that they could force me outside and probably satisfy their hidden diabolical plan.

I tightly held on to the table with the right hand and defending my face especially with the left hand. I felt that the beastly battering of the face had made my lips crack, and my nose was profusely bleeding. I started tasting warm salty blood, in fact, my own blood.

Fortunately, one of the doors opened, and it was Dr. T. (a man popularly called Dr. T. but was not a doctor).

He intervened with concern. My men, this man is not a Bonkouttan man. He’s an Ojakroman (Ghana) man. He recently joined us in this house. In fact, he is a well-behaved man. He even teaches our children almost every day. Not at any time I’ve found this man causing any trouble. He is a very well-behaved gentleman.

Instantly, Dr. T.’s intervention made the guys soften their hostile and torturous attitude toward me now.

How do you prove that this man is not a Bonkouttan man? one of the soldiers questioned.

Officer, just leave him to bring his passport, Dr. T. sincerely pleaded.

He slackened his grip on my waist and finally left me to go get the passport.

I entered the room, and to my great surprise, great apprehension had made Ofori and Abraham disappear from the room, apparently suffocating themselves under the dwarfish form of a bed. While searching for the passport in my traveling bag, one of them entered and commanded that I must, in fact, bring the whole bag outside. My whole body was aching from the two soldiers’ vicious attacks, yet I managed and took my valise with my traveling documents and despicably handed them to the soldiers. In less than three minutes’ time, they had checked the documents; believably, their illiterate minds couldn’t help them to decipher all that was in the passport, etc. But instead of handing them over to me, they rather held on to them and started making some other demands.

I had spent barely three months in the country, and therefore, I often found it hard to understand the Bonkoumian English. The Bonkoumian English, even though closer to Standard English, is a debased form of the American English.

One of them grabbed my decent traveling bag and wasted all its contents. They further unconscionably checked the side pocket of the bag and took an envelope that contained my only remaining money: $250 USD.

His face brightened as soon as he found out that it was a pack of fifty-dollar bills stacked up in the envelope. He timidly showed it to his colleague.

In a disparaging tone, one of them said, This man standing here is a mercenary. This is the part of the money they paid them to come to overthrow President Eddoekka. You’ll never get this money again.

Taking away the only money I had on that strange land burned deeply into my heart and consciousness. At this juncture, he flipped the traveling documents on the table and two of them hanged on to the money. I was desperate and restless now and had wanted to do everything to retrieve the money, but Dr. T. advised that he ‘would’ talk with them to get it for me.

With a frustrated and an impatient mood, I stood in the corridor, while Dr. T. and the soldiers went outside the house. I heard them speaking, but only the whispers reached me. To my dismay, when Dr. T. returned, he told me that they refused to give him the money. He closed the outside door and advised me to go to bed and forget about the money. In confidence, Dr. T. disclosed to me their diabolical and evil intention to haul me outside and deeply wound me and carry me to the Executive Mansion and then lie to President Eddoekka that I was one of Atotoagou’s awudifuos from Bonkoutta. And that could have fetched them much more money and higher military ranks than the money they took from me. He further told me that they were Eddoekka’s tribesmen and that was their usual cruel ways of intimidating the people to perpetuate President Eddoekka in power.

In a deep, depressed mood, with wounded shin, split lips, black eyes, massively swollen and battered face, and with the eventual loss of my only sustaining money, I retired to the room. The so-called savage soldiers had massively beaten me and taken my money without any reason whatsoever.

Ofori and Abraham crept out of the bed, and out of raw fear, they declined to engage in any form of conversation with me. Even though my heart was full of misery and dejection, my mind was alert.

Just about seven months ago, I was in one of the most civilized continents on earth (Europe)—a civilized place where dogs and cats have rights and a policeman would salute you with due courtesy before asking you for your identity; a continent where the world belongs to man and man to himself; a continent where rule of law works to the maximum; a continent where everyone has his or her individual independence to do anything he or she likes, provided he or she does not violate the laws, and even if that happens, he or she is fairly judged; a continent where man is not bound to any sentimental politics or religious dogma.

With more than five years stay in France and with my level of education heightened by my international social experience, why should I bring myself so low to come to such an awkward nation that has yet to learn the fundamentals of human rights and social justice? Yes, I sold myself very cheap indeed, and these were the results.

I was beside myself with fury, and I had wanted to open the doors and look for those excremental human beings calling themselves national soldiers and sacrifice myself in order to free the mind and the body from the mental torments and the bodily pains I was unbearably going through. For about two hours, I sat on the bed with my chin cupped in the palms and my brain actively working. I saw that my roommates were intermittently tossing in their beds and sighing; obviously, bothered by my disgusting ordeal. I was so keyed up that not even a wink of sleep came to my eyes for the rest of the night, and finally, the nightmarish night wore on to day.

Early that morning, I resolved to go to the Ojakromanaian embassy despite my bruised body to explain my case and see if the embassy could do something to assist me to get back to Ojakrom. However, a previous disappointing experience I had in Brussels, Belgium, from Ojakrom’s embassy dissuaded me from doing so.

In the early part of December 1984, I was in one Flemish city called Ghent (Gand) planning to return home, but my passport had by then expired and, worse still, misplaced. Consequently, I decided to visit Ojakrom’s embassy in Brussels for a laissez-passer to enable me to return home.

One very early wintry morning, I got on a train and was off to Brussels. I carefully followed all the directions given to me by some compatriots, and at last, I got to an ancient brick story building, which was quite unimpressive compared to generally many modern buildings in Brussels. I met the ambassador and his chargé d’affaires. Humbly, I presented my case, but instead of welcoming me and making me feel at home, they rather confronted me with some amount of unacceptable rebukes. Deeply upset by this odd behavior, I backed off and decided to return to Ghent. Midway through the stairs, a man of about thirty years ran after me; and in a highly feigned, concerned manner, he confided in me that he heard our conversation and he could process for me a genuine laissez-passer, but I’d have to find him about one hundred dollars for it. My earlier interaction with the ambassador had already plunged me into a foul disposition, so I tartly told him that I might come back later. However, he wouldn’t leave me alone; he followed me all the way downstairs, and he even walked me off for some minutes, all that time trying to convince me to give him the money for the said document. I determinedly refused even though I had enough money on me. I found my way back to Ghent quite sulky.

Later on, some compatriots who had had similar experience told me that, that was the hierarchy’s usual covert ways of making money over there. Thus, processing those documents openly for their clients, they would earn very little or nothing. Therefore, in some situations like this, they used the secretaries, office assistants, etc. as cat’s-paws to earn something extra for their thirsty pockets. If even in Europe some Ojakrom’s embassies are behaving in this way, then what about Africa?

Once bitten, twice shy. I, therefore, decided not to have a second disappointing encounter with Ojakrom’s embassy in Ramosia.

I was seriously ill and was confined to a little room for more than one week, and at the same time, I was using hot water in nursing my wounds.

Now with no money to buy food to eat, let alone to pay my way out of Bonkoumia, the only thing to do was to steel myself for whatever adventures to come.

Chapter Three

The Incursion

I started working as a principal of a private school in a commercial town called Tassoullo in the early 1986, but the most unfortunate thing was that for almost a year, the proprietor dishonestly failed to pay the teachers and me. In 1987, a very renowned catholic school based in Bannikoullo and ran by Dutch Catholic nuns and brothers, St. Naomi High, offered me an employment as French and English teacher.

From time to time, there were some political unrest and oppression being felt everywhere in the country, but the citizens accepted those distasteful situations as they came. In a way, they were used to those dysfunctional behaviors of the law enforcement agents. Somehow, I was having my own personal apprehensions of the behavior of President Eddoekka and his ruling cohorts. But I managed to convince myself that nothing worse would happen.

In early December 1987, I wrote to my wife requesting her and my first son to join me. As a young married couple who had been living apart for almost two and half years, both of us felt the strong need to see each other and live together conjugally. After a while, I received a reply to my request. In her response, the tone of her letter indicated her enthusiasm to join me. Nonetheless, she had to get permission from her working place first and from both patriarchs of the two families. Eventually, she informed me that all was set for her and our little son to embark upon the adventurous journey and join me.

In mid-February 1988, after encountering some difficulties on the road, they arrived safely in Tassoullo in Gazziboottan County. She got a job with SDA Mission School in Safoaba. I made a way for her to join me in St. Naomi’s Catholic School in Bannikollo barely a year after.

By the end of 1988, we had our second son. Both of us worked so hard to earn some money to enable us to take good care of the children and ourselves and to also plan for the future. Unfortunately, our plan and ambition became short-lived when a rebel incursion took hold of the country at the end of 1989.

In the afternoon of December 24, 1989, our first son and his babysitter frighteningly ran into our residence from a video club with the news that awudifuos had entered Goyi-Panin, a town about seventy-five miles away from Bannikollo. The street of Bannikollo was full of crowds. Everyone had left his or her house for the street to hear about the unusual news that had hit the county.

Bannikollo is the capital town of Gazzibootta County, and Gazziboottan County is one of the most populous counties in the then thirteen counties of Bonkoumia. About 85 percent of the inhabitants of this county proved to be the bitterest enemies of Eddoekka’s regime. The majority of the inhabitants of the county wished for Eddoekka’s regime to be overthrown and done away with.

This suppressed thought was held by the two tribes of Gazziboottan County—the Wuoguns and Zikkadifuors—as the late Mackifella Eddoekka, a Gazziboottan native, was the truthful winner of the 1985 national election. However, President Eddoekka brazenly rigged the election and imposed himself again on the angry citizens. This indeed incurred the displeasure and enmity of the Gazziboottans against not only Eddoekka’s government but also his tribesmen (the Jojeedans). And as the saying goes, Whatever is inflated too much will sooner or later burst into pieces.

Eddoekka was aware of this deep disgruntlement on the part of the Gazziboottans. He therefore fortified his regime by training almost every able-bodied young man from his Jojeedans’ tribe as a soldier, and he surrounded himself security-wise with his tribesmen and other henchmen.

The Jojeedans and Kassappatous from Bavaria County and the Zikkadifuors and Wuoguns from Gazziboottan County had, one way or the other, became secret and potential enemies politically.

Around 5:00 p.m., the street of Bannikollo was still overcrowded with both civilians and soldiers. The few soldiers amid the civilians brought some news that a bunch of awudifuos had entered the border town of Goyi-Panin and massacred about nineteen Solinkans. Solinkan is one of the sixteen ethnic tribes of Bonkoumia. The Solinkans are predominantly Muslims and greatly earn their living from petty trading and commercial transportation.

Even though they have been in Bonkoumia since the founding of the country, most Bonkoumians do not consider them to be Bonkoumians and they are often harassed by immigration agents as aliens. Bonkoumians often say unkind and derogatory words about the Solinkans, and this further deepened the hatred and rancor, most especially between the Solikans and the other pertinent tribes like the Wuoguns, Zikkadifuors, Cristofans, and Saamunguus. Worst still for them, the Solinkans aligned themselves with Eddoekka’s government.

Despite this horrible story about the awudifuos at the border, many Gazziboottans did not believe it since it was like the story of the shepherd boy and the wolf. President Eddoekka had been crying wolf, wolf when quite often none was in sight—that is, Eddoekka’s regime was fond of using such news as a pretext to eliminate his opposers, so it was thought that it was another machination by Eddoekka’s regime to eliminate, most especially, the alleged targeted opposers to his government.

From that day forward, the town of Bannikollo and its neighboring villages became highly tensed up. The national soldiers (Atototuo Force)—that is, the Armed Forces of Bonkoumia—were found everywhere in Gazziboottan County. The 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew was immediately imposed on the county, and unusual fear started to grip the Gazziboottans.

Tassoullo

From the latter part of December 1989 to the early part of February 1990, most of the fringe areas of Gazziboottan County were full of Atototuo soldiers doing everything to stop the awudifuos from entering deep into the country. Around January 4, 1990, it became clear through BBC’s Focus on Africa that truly, this time, a wolf was in sight. The strongman serving as the driving force behind this rebel incursion was one Fiendi Fidel Forson. And it was somehow becoming clear again that the inhabitants of Gazziboottan County were giving him the maximum assistance to come and overthrow the dictatorial regime of Eddoekka; hence, Eddoekka and his cohorts’ deadly wrath against the tribesmen of Gazziboottan County.

The grossly inefficient and bad governance of Eddoekka had seriously undermined societal or national cohesion. And Fidel Forson was determined to take undue advantage of that to wage a desperate guerrilla war.

During the middle part of February 1990, I decided to go to Tassoullo, the leading commercial town in Gazziboottan County, to meet some compatriots and discuss some vital issues regarding the fast-approaching war. While in Tassoullo, I put up with some Ojakromian friends at McCauley Yard, an area adjacent to Mfanni Road. Just that same afternoon after I arrived in Tassoullo, around 5:45 p.m., a handful of soldiers and a man in civilian clothes, in fact, of Solinkan ethnic tribe stormed the yard. The neighbors later described the soldiers as people of Jojeedan ethnic background, as they were openly speaking the Jojeedan language. They arrogantly entered the house where I was and aggressively pounced on one young man called Vai Molubah. The soldiers put on such a hostile mood that none of us was able to intervene to help liberate the man. They accused him of being a reconnaissant.⁵

It was almost 6:00 p.m., and curfew was about to start. At the distress of everybody, they took the poor young man away.

The whole night, none of us was able to sleep well. The next day, the fiancée of Vai Molubah, Cecelia Gbatu, and some close relatives did a follow-up to get Vai out of the hands of the soldiers. Painfully and pitifully enough, that night, the soldiers tortured Molubah by tying him up, taking knife and cutting off his genitals, and leaving him to bleed slowly to death. The mutilated body was briefly displayed near Tassoullo’s immigration checkpoint to serve as a deterrent to Gazziboottan people. I did not have the courage to go see it, but the few close family members, the cotenants, and the fiancée saw it and returned home distraught, grief-stricken, and petrified.

The news of Molubah’s cold-blooded death was as heartbreaking as the horrible scene. The same fate befell a few other young Wuogun men in Tassoullo. Those premeditated, gruesome acts carried by the Jojeedans and other soldiers serving in the Armed Forces of Bonkoumia created serious fright and mistrust in the two predominant tribes (Wuoguns and Zikkadifuors) of Gazziboottan. Because of the inexplicably cruel incident that occurred in McCauley Yard, all the neighbors hastily abandoned that neighborhood.

The following night, an area a bit far from Mfanni’s road experienced another dark-hearted incident. That night, I was a guest in Mr. Azika’s residence. My host was a colleague and compatriot. I had gone to him to discuss some pertinent issues concerning our leaving Gazziboottan County. Mr. Azika’s residence was in the same neighborhood as the Mauritanian provisional retailer shop.

A Mauritanian retailer shopkeeper had his son shot to death in front of the father’s and other siblings’ eyes. It happened when the three youngsters left the father’s shop to get to their sleeping place, which was a few meters away from the shop. As soon as they got to the residence, it occurred to the elder brother that he had forgotten something very important in the store. It was just about five minutes to 6:00 p.m., and therefore, he thought that he could easily stretch the legs back to the store and fetch what he had forgotten and return to the sleeping place without any problem.

He reached the father’s store all right and fetched the item in question. While hurriedly returning to the sleeping place, two Atototuo soldiers halted him. Out of fear and respect, he obeyed them, but the soldiers only rained xenophobic vulgar insults on him and then pulled the trigger. The teenager, full of life, yelled about three times, Ei Allah! Ei Allah! Ei Allah! Then he fell.

The agonizing yells drew the father and the two brothers’ attention. Peeping through the windows, they saw what had exactly happened. The two trigger-happy soldiers gave a few shots into the air and hastily disappeared into the thin air.

The father and the other inmates, out of trepidation, could not go out to remove the son’s body. It was barely 6:10 p.m. The body thus lay down there the whole night. And you could imagine the unfathomable grief and nightmare the relatives of this youngster went through that fateful night. The next morning, a few Muslims in Tassoullo helped the Mauritanian father to find a burial place for the son. Everyone began sensing that all was not well with that county especially.

The nights became weirdly silent and most often punctuated by individual yelling and agonizing screams from neighboring houses, imploring for God’s and human intervention. Those types of unusual yelling persisted almost every night and day.

Dead bodies, with usually one of the hands hacked off, became a common scene in Bannikollo and the surrounding villages. The rationale behind these mutilations was that the soldiers superstitiously believed that in case the victim happened to come back to life, they would be able to see that he ostensibly used to be a rebel. In fact, there were a lot of human rights abuses and incredible cruelties everywhere in that county. While eliminations were going on in Gazziboottan County, the same trend of eliminations of the Wuogun and Zikkadifuor tribesmen were simultaneously going on in Ramosia, most especially during the night.

The people of Gazzibootta became increasingly worried and apprehensive for their security; therefore, they started secretly abandoning the county and fleeing to Mfanni (a county found at the northern part of Bonkoumia) with the intention of seeking a refuge there.

St. Naomi High was the last school to close in Gazziboottan County. The school finally shut its doors on March 28, 1990, and by that time, the awudifuos were almost in Bannikollo.

I left Bannikollo on April 4, 1990, for Ramosia, but before that date, I planned for my wife and our two kids to go to Ramosia in the latter part of February 1990. Before reaching Ramosia that fateful day, I went through a lot of difficulties. The makeshift checkpoints were uncountable, and the soldiers were threatening, screening, torturing, and killing people whom they merely suspected to be awudifuos along the road down to Ramosia.

I found the whole exercise unreasonable and nauseating because the national soldiers, who were to guard and defend the citizens no matter how desperate the national crisis might be, were ruthlessly murdering the citizens.

Happily, I safely reached Ramosia and joined my family and a cousin and her kindhearted husband at Senya Town, Bushrod Island.

Chapter Four

Baaji Town

With some determined efforts, my wife secured a teaching job with Baajian Industrial Academy in Amadechay County. By the end of March 1990, my wife had already begun work. She wasted no time in introducing me to the principal of the school, and interestingly, the principal employed me too.

By April 1990, both of us were assiduously working in the school. My wife was teaching French and English literature, and I was handling different aspects of geography and economics in the senior-high division.

The war that began in a questioning way initially had, by this time, turned out not only to be a full-scale civil war but also a very bloody one indeed. Again, by this time, every sensible and reasonable Bonkoumian had begun sensing that Fidel Forson had prompted one of the bloodiest and most senseless wars ever to be fought in modern days in the subregion of Occidental Africa.

Eddoekka and his minister of defense, along with others, had earlier on tried to convince most of the citizens to crush the awudifuos; however, the contrary was happening. The awudifuos were rather gaining the upper hand over the national soldiers. The Atototuo Forces of Bonkoumia (Armed Forces of Bonkoumia) were sustaining huge casualties and humiliation. The awudifuos were less than seventy-five kilometers from the national capital, Ramosia, and most of the national soldiers were deserting their positions, shedding away their military camouflage and throwing their guns away.

A state of emergency had already been declared, and the whole nation was under curfew. Again, Bonkoumia was in a total state of anarchy, and both the Atototuo soldiers and Fidel Forson’s awudifuos could victimize or even kill a citizen with impunity. Food was extremely hard to come by, and scores of citizens had already started dying from acute malnutrition, starvation, and related waterborne diseases like diarrhea and cholera.

My wife and I, including our two children, were in Amadechay County. Amadechay County’s capital was Belmonto, and we were in Baaji Town in Quartif District, one of the popular districts of that county. Like other counties, except the main capital city of Capitallo County (Ramosia), Amadechay County had also fallen to the awudifuos.

Ungainliness, wickedness, cruelty, and beastliness that usually characterize wars were doing their work to the hilt. Meanwhile, the awudifuos initially comprising mostly of the Wuogun and Zikkadifuors’ tribesmen, the princesses and princes of life and death were bloodthirstily mopping up the county (Amadechay)—that is, they were hunting for government soldiers, the Jojeedans, and Solinkans.

Amadechay County has an appreciable number of Solinkan villages like Bojey, Mecca, Medina, etc. All these villages had been ransacked, first, to kill the Solinkans and, second, to loot every valuable thing that could be found.

Bojey, about four miles (six kilometers) away from Kokoumbo Town, was one of the most badly affected areas. Under the order of one Commander Suah, that town was wickedly invaded. A very wealthy man popularly known as Bojey Millionaire, in accompaniment with his two wives, was arrested and was brutally murdered by Commander Suah and his men. All his money, cars, and any other valuable properties were gleefully taken by the awudifuos.

The most heartbreaking part of it was that the murdered Solinkans’ children were adopted by the awudifuos’ girlfriends to be used as slaves. Moreover, the awudifuos had already taken about four comfortable teachers’ apartments, and they would usually leave in the midmorning to do some patrolling, and they would return in the evening, most often with an uncountable number of looted goods and some prisoners of war.

There was an old big almond tree in the central part of Baajian Mission, and this was the place where the prisoners of war, especially Solinkan and Jojeedan civilians, were tied and shot. Sometimes I wished that I had the courage to plead their case or intervene, but the awudifuos were undiplomatically ruthless, and no life-loving individual would dare go closer to them with such a case.

The school classrooms were jam-packed with displaced people from Ramosia and elsewhere. Our residence was a few yards away from this almond tree, and in the evenings, my wife and I would steel up ourselves to the agonizing screams, wailings, and the deafening gunshots tearing the flesh of these unfortunate souls.

The starving, displaced people kept on intruding into our residence, inundating us with myriad requests. Unfortunately, all our little reserved food had almost finished.

The school was closed on May 20, 1990, and after a few weeks of precarious living, I could still glimpse a harder and more adventurous life ahead. There was no sign of the war abating, and everything in terms of food and condiments—more especially salt—and onions were quite scarce.

In the middle part of July, one evening about 5:30 p.m., two awudifuos asked me to leave my residence to assist them to do some work. My wife was afraid and worried beyond words, wanting to know what they were up to, but they assured her that nothing would be done to me—that as a teacher, they wanted me to write something for them. Uneasy though I was, I obediently followed them. They led me to the morbid almond tree. There were already three displaced men apparently in their late and early forties under the surveillance of two soldiers. Beside them were fresh corpses of two young men, blood oozing from their naked bodies. The young men seemed to have been killed not long ago as the limbs were flexible and pliable.

We were ordered at gunpoint to carry the dead bodies into a nearby rubber plantation for discarding. Between Baaji and Kokumbo Towns, there was a big rubber plantation and from where we were to the said rubber plantation was about two-thirds of a kilometer. Two persons towed a body—one holding the head on his shoulder and the other placing each leg on either shoulder. The bodies were heavy. They were sagging between each couple, and all our clothes were soaked with fresh-smelling blood.

We walked on a path deep into the rubber plantation. It was already dark there, and the chirping and the hooting of the owls gave the place a very eerie atmosphere. At last, we had the chance to dump the bodies at the heart of the plantation. The awudifuos were first to turn their faces homeward, and we followed them in an indescribable silence.

The smell of fresh blood and human sweat (either from the dead bodies or me) was both in my nose and in the air. Darkness was engulfing the bush, but I could still feel that I was beclouded by a special incomprehensible darkness—darkness of hopelessness, fears, and total emptiness. Were the murdered people we just threw into the bush human beings? I was arguing in my mind, What kind of fate awaited those of us caught up in the web of rebel territories? So is this what they call war? The more I argued, the more painful and sorrowful my heart became.

Lost in this reverie, hardly did I notice that we had gotten onto the dusty main road. The soldiers in front of us were as usual toting their AK-47 guns. Reaching the school, the two awudifuos continued on the dusty road to go and fortify the makeshift rebel checkpoint nearby and left us to go to our respective residences. I led the two displaced men to a creek between the boys’ and girls’ dormitories. We bent down to wash the bloodstains from our bodies. One of the men, who later on introduced himself as Dennis, broke the morbid silence.

This is my second time burying a dead body. I buried about three bodies in Gotolo Town, near Dennis Town. Seemingly, we have been deceived. When Fidel Forson came, most of us thought that he was going to bring back the US dollars that President Eddoekka took from this damn country, not knowing that his sole objective was to kill his fellow citizens and make us dump their bodies to all kinds of places, he bitterly complained.

One of the men, most elderly among us, advised him to stop those comments for when you have your hand in the leopard’s mouth, you don’t slap the head.

Afterward, in dead silence, we cleaned ourselves and disappeared from that place. It was already dark when I reached the apartment. My wife and our children were happy to see me, and she was curious, desiring to know what actually transpired between the awudifuos and me. I briefly narrated the story to her.

Eh! Choubby, we really underestimated things. Oh god, what can we do now in this situation? In fact, if I knew, I was not going to allow you to touch any of the children. You were supposed to bathe first before touching them. I have your hot water waiting for you. Come and wash down, she urged me.

In a depressed mood, she led me into the bathroom and stood near me while I was bathing. She kept on talking worriedly about what just happened and the previous misdeeds of the awudifuos. My agitated mind kept on telling me that what we had now hurtled into the grim reality of war and getting out of it unscathed was not going to be easy at all. Another set of bothering questions that kept on beating into my mind, didn’t President Eddoekka or Fidel Forson do history when they were in school? Bonkoumia is quite significant and greater than Eddoekka and Forson and company. Certainly, one day and very soon, these two enemies are going to fade away, but Bonkoumia will be there till the end of this world. Why do they, therefore, want history to everlastingly judge them on wicked and cruel deeds they committed against their own people and aliens? These two power-greedy men had set thugs, hoodlums, and irrational, bloodthirsty brutes on innocent people to kill, steal, loot, and maim people unjustifiably for no apparent reason whatsoever. It was safe to prove to the world how brave, powerful, and humanitarianly insensitive they were.

Another thing, what good was it to be fabulously rich and acquired power illicitly if most of your citizens were dying from gunshots, starvation, and epidemic? And what good would it be to plunder the nation’s precious resources and illicitly sell them and use the money to buy all sorts of deadly weapons to kill your starving citizens and wantonly destroy the country’s infrastructures? Even the most silly person on earth sees no sense in this. I deemed the whole bitter