Global Policy Forum

By Alphonso Toweh

Sam Bockarie, a notorious West African warlord indicted for atrocities in Sierra Leone by a U.N.-backed court, was killed on Tuesday in a shootout with Liberian soldiers, the government said. The former hairdresser, diamond-miner and disco dance champion had recently been leading fighters helping rebels in Ivory Coast -- the latest war in a regional cycle of bloodletting that found Bockarie in his element.

Bockarie, 40, had been indicted by a special court for alleged crimes against humanity in his homeland of Sierra Leone, including mass murder, widespread rape and hacking off the limbs of civilians including even small children. The court said last week that Bockarie, nicknamed "Maskita" for the way he could strike without being seen, was in Liberia and warned President Charles Taylor he could face trial himself if he did not hand over Bockarie and a former junta leader.

Liberian authorities said Bockarie was killed in a shootout after he crossed the border from Ivory Coast. "He was trying to resist arrest," Information Minister Reginald Goodridge told Reuters. A body, said to be Bockarie's, was put on display in Monrovia. It was shot through the neck and had four other bullet wounds. But in an apparent sign of doubt over the body's identity, the special court asked Liberia to turn it over for tests and identification. Sierra Leone's ambassador said his country would have preferred Bockarie to have been captured alive. "He has questions to answer to the special court," said Patrick Foyah, adding that Bockarie's death would still "be a big relief to a lot of people in this area".

SORRY TALE

Bockarie had long links with Liberia, which is under U.N. sanctions for fuelling regional instability. The U.N. Security Council decided to renew sanctions on Tuesday and add a timber export ban to existing arms and diamond embargoes. Bockarie's tale epitomises those of the young men sucked into the cycle of conflict that has tossed one of the poorest corners of the planet into new depths of savage violence.

He was born in eastern Sierra Leone in 1963 and dropped out of school to become a diamond miner. He then took up a career as a professional disco dancer and one day ended up in Liberia's capital, where he started work as a hairdresser.

Excited by Liberia's civil war in 1989, Bockarie got his chance to fight when war broke out in his homeland in 1991. He quickly won a reputation as a fearless fighter and rose to be a general in the Revolutionary United Front. Bockarie disappeared from view as Sierra Leone's war was ended, after more than a decade of bloodshed, with the help of a U.N. peacekeeping mission.

Late last year, he was reported to be among West African fighters helping rebels in Ivory Coast. The Ivorian rebels accused Bockarie of killing their faction leader Felix Doh in April as fighting broke out between the former allies. "I cannot tell how many people I have killed. When I am firing during an attack, nobody can survive my bullets," Bockarie told Reuters in a 1999 interview, talking from his jungle command post by satellite phone. "I never wanted myself to be overlooked by my fellow men," he said.

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