Building paths to peace: Bo Peace and Reconciliation Movement
Homemade road sign showing the direction to neighbouring villages.
BPRM's coordinator discussing the case with community elders and voluntary peace monitor Abu Bakarr Swaray in Helebu.
© Rosalind Hanson-Alp / Conciliation Resources
Case study: Sleeping under the elephant: Helebu and Massa villages
Today traders ply the road between neighbouring Helebu and Massa villages and farmers work the land helping their neighbours to plant their crops. Sixteen years ago, the situation was very different. The road was not visible, overgrown bushes closed the entrance and all contact between the villages. People from Helebu and Massa used another longer route that meant many miles of walking around the villages, just to avoid having any contact with their neighbours.
In 1991, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels reached Pejeh chiefdom and invaded Helebu and Massa villages where they abducted young men and destroyed homes. It was alleged that Helebu was collaborating with the rebels and Massa with the Sierra Leone army. Such rumours gave rise to hatred and malice and there were cases of subsequent revenge, but as Salihu Issah admits, “we didn’t even think of calling our neighbours and asking them if they were working against us or to explain what had happened.”
When the rebels and army finally left, the villagers’ contempt for each other transferred into Helebu and Massa each blaming the other for their suffering. Inter-village marriages were broken as sons and daughters who married on the other side were called back to their family village. Over the next decade, several attempts to broker peace between them failed.
BPRM were asked by the concerned members of the district to arbitrate a peaceful solution. As part of their method, BPRM identified some of the key people who had perpetuated the conflict and trained them as voluntary peace monitors, channelling their deep-rooted resentments through conflict prevention skills. The Chiefdom Peace and Reconciliation Committee chairman, Abu Bakarr Swaray, describes how BPRM “helped teach us how to resolve conflicts, not to blame one person but to bring understanding between them and find peace.”
BPRM held a meeting in a neutral village where people from all sections of the chiefdom agreed to cooperate in the mediation process. After much groundwork two days of intense discussions and emotional expression, the citizens of Helebu and Massa realized the need to make a pact of peace. BPRM presented gifts, a lantern and Koran, to both villages as a symbol of unity. To this day the lantern is lit and parts of the Quran read to signify the peace between them.
Helebu village’s name comes from its founder, a hunter who was in the forest late at night and tied his hammock to what he thought were tree trunks, only to wake in the morning to find the trees were actually legs and he was sleeping under the belly of an elephant.
