By Kemo Cham
Green Scenery, a leading campaign group in Sierra Leone, has called on the Bio administration to resume dialogue it instituted earlier this year geared towards resolving land rights dispute in the southern Pujehun District.
The call by the group comes after a magistrate court in Freetown discharged 18 activists who were on trial in relation to a violent unrest that erupted in Malen Chiefdom where land rights campaigners have been at loggerheads with a multinational agribusiness company over alleged rights violations.
The activists, who include an elected Member of the Sierra Leone Parliament, made their last appearance in court on Wednesday, 9th December, according to a press statement issued by Green Scenery, which has been monitoring the development. It said in the statement that Magister Hannah Bonnie of Court No. 1 at the Pandemba Road Magistrate Court declared “the matter ceased to proceed” and that the accused “are all discharged”.
The activists belong to the Malen Affected Land Owners and Users Association (MALOA), which is a community based organization based in the Malen Chiefdom in the eastern Pujehun District.
MALOA, headed by Shiaka Musa Sama, an Independent Member of Parliament for Constituency 104, which partly covers Malen Chiefdom, is advocating for the land rights of their members in the face of the operations of the large-scale palm oil producer, SOCFIN, a Swiss based company.
The activists were detained following demonstrations and skirmishes that erupted in Malen in January, 2019 at Jao Junction, pitching local security forces against members of the Poro [secrete] Society. They were charged with incitement, riotous conduct, conspiracy to commit a felony, and malicious damage.
The court’s decision comes after nearly two years of a protracted trial, which was largely characterized by constant adjournments.
Only 17 of the activists were in court on Wednesday to hear the verdict of the magistrate. The eighteenth member is reported to have passed on during the course of the trial.
That incident led to the death of two people, Mohamed Ansumana and a man named Mustapha.
Green Scenery, in its statement, lamented the fact that the deaths of the two men have since not been investigated despite a pathologist’s report. It also noted that the arrest and detention of only MALOA members was perceived as arbitrary by the larger civil society organizations.
This was just the latest in a long list of actions by local authorities campaigners say were meant to criminalise human rights defenders who are challenging SOCFIN over the negative impact of its operations since 2011.
Nonetheless, Green Scenery described the court’s decision as a victory for activism, noting that it provides an opportunity for continuation of the dialogue on the issue.
“It represents a victory for the protection of land rights defenders in Sierra Leone and the world,” Joseph Rahall, Executive Director of Green Scenery, was quoted in the statement.
The statement went further to say that the court’s decision to absolve MALOA members, though unclear, was a welcome one. It added that the Magistrate’s declaration that “the matter ceased to proceed” may imply that MALOA was not involved in the violent incident of the 21st of January 2019, yet further reasons for their absolution could have been accentuated for the public to fathom.
However, the statement further notes, land owners and users of Malen Chiefdom are expressing confidence that the land disputes in Malen will be peacefully resolved.
“Green Scenery believes that the dialogue is an important step to deal with a major human rights issue, the right to property (land) enshrined in the Sierra Leone Constitution, embedded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and guaranteed by the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights,” it states.
The campaign group said it is also happy that the matter was reprieved a day before the International Day of Human Rights on December 10, noting that it may indicate that human rights issues seem to be taken seriously by the government.
It therefore used the opportunity to draw the attention of the government to the dialogue process it commissioned in 2018.
Vice President, Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, was tasked by President Julius Maada Bio to head that process.
Politico understands that a report was submitted to the Vice President in September 2019 by a committee for further action.
“We appeal to President Bio to put back on track the process he commissioned over two years ago given that the threatening Coronavirus is largely contained in Sierra Leone and government has resumed its effective work,” the statement said.
While assuring the government of its support and that of its partners working on this issue, Green Scenery said it is dedicated to the resolution of the Malen Land Conflict and it therefore called on all parties concerned to show true commitment to the process.
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