Sometime in November 2006, I spent a weekend with a group of four army officers in Jos and quickly spurred them to narrate their ECOMOG experiences during their tours of duty as part of the pan-West African ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group which was charged with restoring peace to conflict-ridden Liberia and Sierra Leone during the decade of the 1990s. In broad outlines, permit my use of the account of the most senior of the lot who I would describe as being completely battle-hardened.

My star narrator took off from Nigeria to Liberia in July 1996 and did not come back till 2000. He was frank enough to admit that the roughest days of action in Liberia(ie the Dogonyaro era and the famous April 6 battle) had come and gone by the time he was in Monrovia under the command of the current Liberian Army Chief of Staff Major General Y.L Nyeh. At the time,the then Colonel Nyeh was ECOMOG Ground Task Force Commander ie charged with the protection and defence of Greater Monrovia.

When the Sierra Leone war escalated in the last quarter of 1998,he and his company were offloaded to SLR to form the advance party of the battalion planned for the defence of Kenema. They made it into SLR overland at about the same time as ECOMOG forces around Makeni were pushed back and out of the town by a large and well equipped RUF brigade,supported by a fresh consignment of artillery,RRs and ATGWs from Burkina Faso and in operations led by a mix of South African and French mercenaries.

In retaliation,ECOMOG Forces in the East (still outnumbered and awaiting reinforcements from Nigeria) attacked Sam Moskita Bockari's Field HQ and Bush Camp at Kailahun,levelling it with 122mm & 155mm field guns. This narrator was actually a company 2 I/C at some point and their unit was charged with securing the Kenema airstrip

Anyway,to teach the ECOMOG Forces an enduring lesson, the RUF decided to attack Kenema head on and link up with RUF forces advancing on Freetown from elsewhere at the time.

Describing the topography of Kenema which the RUF took full advantage of to launch this attack,he said that the town is situated along the path of a high hill range which rises from many miles inland but terminates in the heart of the town. All but the ECOMOG forces were aware of the impending attack and on D-Day,the town quietly emptied itself around midnight. The natives left our countrymen to stew in their own juice apparently.

Ascending the hill range from way out of town, the RUF forces literarily descended on the town at 2.30am. In the ensuing 16 hour battle, anti-tank guns, artillery heavy mortars, RPGs and all manner of dangerous weapons were freely used. In this battle,the RUF deployed the feared French HOT anti-tank missile.

At this juncture,the narrator lifted his shirt to show me where he received a severe burn after he mistakenly slung an AK 47 from which he had expended 10 magazines during the 16-hour battle period. He fought the battle with an AK47 in one hand and an RPG launcher in the other. At the cessation of the day's hostilities(the RUF beat a retreat for emphasis),11 Nigerian soldiers lay dead while 42 RUF troops were liquidated.

FURTHER READING:

http://beegeagle./2010/04/12/hanging-out-with-nigerian-ecomog-veterans/