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through. Other forces and events had also intervened. There were the vicious air and artillery attacks on the rebels by neighboring Guinea, the coagulating effect of 12,000 heavily armed UN peacekeepers fanning out across the countryside, and the ominous sight of 600 British soldiers with full on-force protection roaming the streets of Freetown. The implementation of rough UN sanctions against rebel supporter Charles Taylor in Liberia and the incarceration of megalomaniacal RUF leader Foday Sankoh had suddenly persuaded, inspired, and impoverished the rebel leaders into crying uncle. On top of that, the rainy season was coming, the money for diamonds Cobus and I were skimming through bliss: leaning back, relaxing on the rigid gray inflatable speedboat as we sped across the warm Atlantic chop. A short fiberglass fishing pole was jammed in a holder in the rear in hope of catching a giant silver tarpon. It was all quite intoxicating. The spray from the blood-warm water, the drone of the twin 90s, and the equatorial Mrican sun were lulling me into a drowsy stupor. Behind us were the sawtooth brown rhatched huts of the Turtle Islands. The afternoon thunderheads framed the splayed coconut palms and white beaches like a tropical postcard. As we soared over the shallow water, flying fish squirted frantically from the green glass water and skipped out of sight. Cobus and I were headed across the bay toward the dark emerald hills of Freetown for cold beer and maybe some barbecued pepper chicken on Lumley Beach. Sierra Leone didn't get better than this. Cobus Claassens, my South African-born host, had lived here since 1995. He'd invited me to stay with him and offered to show me around the jungles, islands, and beaches, as well as meet the people and players of Sierra Leone. He even offered to take me fishing at his secret spot. As we left the shelter of the low-lying Turtle Islands and started the long journey toward shore, Cobus snapped me out of my reverie and pointed ahead. He squinted into the distance and pointed at two small specks on the horizon. I was pretry sure he said "Pirates." I didn't come here to go fishing, I came here for the war: a ten-year period of terror that seemed to have little hope of resolution. Considering Sierra Leone was ranked by the UN as the poorest and the worst country in the world-number 162 out of 162 countries-the tiny West African nation would seem to have little to offer. But Sierra Leone had everything a country needed: minerals, forests, industrious people, and fish. The mountains, rainforest, beaches, and wildlife would even make this country an ideal spot for travelers. The people spoke softly, laughed easily, held few grudges; even in the rawest displays of anger they refrained from attacking each other physically. There was really no reason for Sierra Leone to be at war, but it had been for the last ten years, and intermittently before that since it had been chosen as a peaceful haven for slaves freed by the British during the American Revolution. I'd intended to fly directly into firefights on mercenary-flown gunships. I'd already made contacts to sneak off for meetings with Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in the jungle, and fully expected to push the limits of survival in th is brutal land of seemingly perpetual warfare. Before I left, my desk was littered with reports of piracy, massacres, kidnapping, shelling, and mayhem, all making it hard to choose where to start or what to avoid. But I was delayed by a head-on motorcycle accident in Peru and postponed my visit for a month. In the space of those four weeks the war had suddenly exhausted its fury like a passing thundercloud, and the sun was beginning to peek had stopped, and the rebels were faced with the very real prospect of not lasting through the wet season. All these events had brought about peace or, as some locals would describe it, the absence of war. The rebels suddenly viewed politics, peaceful business pursuits. and free handouts from aid groups as the most sensible path to survival, and perhaps riches. So when I stepped off the helicopter in Freetown, I was visiting a very different Sierra Leone than the one I had expected. Peace and the rainy season had brought a somnambulance and verdancy. The knife-edge tension that usually haunts a war zone was gone. The UN soldiers dozed at their sandbagged checkpoints. On Lumley Beach the fish belly-white skin and smudged tattoos of the off-dury British soldiers contrasted with the sleek black bodies of local girls. Even the constant thunder of UN transport helicopters behind the beach at the Mammy Yoko Hotel was just a minor disruption ro the volleyball games below. This wasn't hell on earth. Peacetime in Sierra Leone was looking damn close to paradise. But make no mistake, the reminders of war were still very much in evidence. More than half of the 4.9 million people here remained displaced, up to 100,000 people had been killed, and an alarming 10,000 locals had had their hands, ears, or other body parts hacked off. Despite peace on the lips of combatants, Sierra Leone was just nervously staggering out from under ten years of warfare. When Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) did a survey of residents of Freetown, tlley found that 99 percent had experienced starvation, 90 percent witnessed people being wounded or killed, and half had lost someone close to them. percent had experienced amputation, 54 percent had seen torture, 32 percent had seen amputations, and 16 48

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