Social Science Research Council

The Brookfield's Hotel Freetown, Sierra Leone: A Collage
By Danny Hoffman

I'm in Freetown. Bob and I came here for a vacation and our yearly medical exams. Bob and I are staying at the Brookfield's Hotel. We see it differently than the new agriculture trainees who just arrived in the country and have been plopped at the Brookfield's for a week. We see luxury in the running water and flushable toilet just ten steps from the bed whereas the trainees notice that the toilet doesn't always flush, the water pressure is quite low, and their dribbling showers are often cold. We appreciate the sunlight that the many windows in the room let in and the smooth tile floor that allows us to walk about in our bare feet. They see rooms that are bare and shabby.

- Lisa Walker 21 September, 1986 "Peace Corps Days in Sierra Leone" www.whyy.org/edison/office/lisa/freetown.html

The parking area is the Brookfield's Hotel public square. Bordering the pock-marked asphalt on two sides are Block A and Block B, on the third lies Jomo Kenyatta Avenue, and on the fourth the low wall where a group of boys sits day after day, waiting. Once, the lot hosted the Mercedes and BMW's of Freetown's elite. Once, the Brookfield's bar and restaurant were among the finest in town. Once, moneyed foreigners and the local trysting class occupied its rooms. Now this quintessential modernist non-space has become a post-modern town hall: part kangaroo-courthouse, part theater of the absurd.

On the night that Colonel Brima's 19 year-old son was accused of raping a 13 year-old resident of Block K, we gathered in the parking lot to debate the merits of the case. When Joseph Koroma died unexpectedly in his room in Block A, mourners gathered before the ruins of the reception area where guests used to unload their bags. Someone is usually fighting someone somewhere in the lot. From their balconies or the waiting wall, someone else is watching.

Technically, the Brookfield's Hotel is now a barracks. The paying guests have long since gone. The kamajor militia, hundreds of young men who live there with their wives, their girlfriends, their children, their parents, and their friends, occupies their rooms. The kamajors fought to reinstate the government when its own military turned against it five years ago, and they were barracked in the ruins of the hotel. Officially, the war is now over. No one is quite sure whether it is the government's continued wariness of its own armed forces or the fear of what the boys might do if evicted that keeps the kamajors there still, perhaps a little of both. In any case, the kamajors are there now, and the place offers all the rowdy hospitality of a heavily armed fraternity house.

A body magically rising from the car park would see the city falling away below in concentric circles. First the Brookfield's neighborhood and downtown; the only visible evidence here of Sierra Leone's ten year civil war is the crush of displaced persons who have fled the countryside for this once sleepy capital. Beyond to the west lie the wealthy suburbs of Aberdeen and Spur Road, jammed with the air-conditioned cocoons of white Toyota Landcruisers ferrying the international nomads of the UN and the NGO's from one restaurant meeting to the next, endlessly pontificating on what it will take to bring stability to this West African nation (frequently, this involves removing the kamajors from the Brookfield's Hotel). To the east lies Kissy, where the history of coups, invasions and insurrections is most evident in the burnt hulls of buildings and the Kalashnikov scars on over-crowded homes. The backdrop to this cityscape is the monochrome expanses of the Atlantic to one side and forested hills to the other. From most of the balconies of the half dozen buildings of the hotel complex, one gets enough of these splashes of color to see what it is that the tourists used to pay for: the city, the beaches, the mountains, the high perch just above but not wholly removed from the fray. The same qualities make the hotel an ideal base of military operation.

For those remaining on the ground in the hotel parking lot, every weekday afternoon offers a surreal parade. A troupe of prettily uniformed young women marches across the pavement past the lounging kamajors and out the front gate to the taxis on Jomo Kenyatta Avenue. Despite the destruction of the hotel, despite the presence of an irregular army and a horde of hangers-on, despite a decade of civil war and the ravaging of the nation's economy and infrastructure and international reputation, the government of Sierra Leone continues to operate the Hotel and Tourism Training Center on the grounds of the Brookfield's Hotel. Preparing, maybe, for the day when paying guests will again request a room with a view of the sea.

Kamajor with weapon. Block A.

A general atmosphere of lawlessness has prevailed over Freetown during the last four days as uncontrolled gunmen have continued to harass, rob, and murder civilians with impunity. The situation is exacerbated because the RUF components of the People's Army, the new regime's military force, are not paid a regular salary and flagrantly abuse their power. The RUF have moved artillery and ammunition to Fourah Bay College, which is located in a very strategic position on a hill overlooking Freetown and are using the Brookfield's hotel as their base.

- Sierra Leone Humanitarian Situation Report 06-09 Jun 1997 UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA) 9 June, 1997 Relief Web

The pro-government Kamajor militia, a rag-tag army carrying American M16 assault rifles and adorned with traditional charms, are once again out in force. Several hundred Kamajors, who made a name for themselves for being supposedly immune to bullets in the fighting before the peace accord, have gathered at the Brookfield's hotel in central Freetown. "We are looking for those devils, we are the Kamajors. We fear nothing … mystical powers, yeah," said one unidentified fighter before chasing off curious journalists.

- Agence France Presse
"Fear, hope in Sierra Leone as foreigners flee"
10 May, 2000

There were also reports of freshly severed heads being displayed near a CDF-Kamajor base in the Brookfield's neighborhood.

Local social workers also expressed concern about the periodic detention of children and adults by the Kamajor Civil Defense Forces. The Kamajors don't have an official barracks or military headquarters, and have adopted a local hotel as their base, the Brookfield's Hotel in central Freetown. It is within this hotel that several witnesses reported to Human Rights Watch seeing detainees held by the Kamajors. As the detentions are not officially acknowledged, they are not subject to governmental regulations and monitoring. They are also illegal.

- Human Rights Watch Report "Sierra Leone: Getting Away with Murder, Mutilation, Rape"
July, 1999 Vol. 11 No. 3(A)
Human Rights Watch

hotel. noun. a building where people stay, usually for a short time, paying for their rooms and meals.

In a city of rolling blackouts, the current at Brookfield's is remarkably reliable. The occupants of the handful of rooms with a working television or stereo can generally run them when they wish. The wall mounted air conditioners in the elite block hum and drip more or less on command. And in those rooms occupied by a loose collection of relations whose comings and goings allow for no easy division of the day into periods of rest and activity (and most rooms are of exactly this sort), the lights tend to stay on throughout the night.

From the third floor balcony of room 312, Block A, one cannot escape the reggae pumping from Abdullah's stereo on the first floor. If Abdullah is awake at 4 am, so are his speakers. Abdullah and his stereo are often awake at 4am. The music is loud enough to be heard in Block C two buildings away - and no one tells him to turn it down. Abdullah plays his stereo loud because he can. It marks him as a Big Man. It is, in part, what makes him a Big Man. Diagonally across the car park one can see, virtually every evening, the shifting tableau of Senasay's big screen TV, tuned to whatever American sit-com or film is being broadcast by the British Forces Broadcasting Service. And in about half the rooms visible on this side of Block B, the balconies are lit by an overhead bulb, whether anyone is sitting out that evening or not.

These uses of the government's largesse (no one pays an electric bill at Brookfield's, just as no one pays rent) serve as landmarks on the social landscape of the hotel. After a few minutes of watching the silent picture through Senasay's open door, Ernest declares that Senasay is a criminal. His television is stolen, which would be less a crime were he more willing to let others watch it. On another occasion, Mohammed Koroma divides the population of the hotel into combatants and civilians by their porch lights. Those who fought to take the hotel and those who fought to keep it have removed the bulbs from their verandahs - the lights made them easy targets for rebels positioned in the hills across the street. Only opportunistic civilians, those who found a way to profit from the movement without putting themselves at risk, who moved into the hotel when the hard work was done, burn lights outside their doors.

If the current at Brookfield's is remarkably reliable, it is nevertheless not guaranteed. There are evenings when here, too, the lights begin to dim, the television flickers and the stereo warbles before the compound plunges into dark silence. From the various buildings there is a collective groan as everyone searches for matches and candles and the evening continues on a softer, candlelit note. If it stays off a few hours and returns only late at night, then a few souls will sit up and smoke cigarettes and marijuana and chat and wait for the air conditioner to kick back on while others catch what rest they can. Until 4am, when Abdullah decides it's time for a little reggae.

Don't be surprised if you hear this name as you move around the city. When you use Jomo Kenyatta Road up to Brookfield's Hotel, just greet them, KAMABOYZ; you are sure to receive a friendly welcome.

The heavy rains had just subsided during that night when residents of Jomo Kenyatta Road, Brookfield's and New England and passers-bye were rudely awoken by heavy gunfire. It was heavier than those of the intervention and the January 6.

You know I am a Sierra Leonean and I speak most of our local languages. I went around Brookfield's Hotel, the headquarters of the Kamaboyz, to try to know why there were firing from that end, if they were the ones that were engaged in that act. I got two stories. One Kamaboyz told me that a rebel opened fire at their colleague and so they responded adequately.

I started wondering if it were one rebel, according to this Kamaboyz, who opened fire, then the response to that one rebel fire was too much. I told him that, if that were so then one or two shots were enough for him to be silent but all those shots and time taken to quiet down that one rebel caused a lot of damage not only that one rebel but also to people.

You know what he said? He said that was appropriate.

The other story (which I bought) was that during the day, some of the Kamaboyz went to a neighboring house and asked that they be allowed to get in to watch the football match between Sierra Leone and Nigeria that was shown on satellite in that house. The tenant refused to let them in. They went out of that compound disappointed but with grudge in their minds for this defenseless guy.

I was even told that sometimes they jump the walls of that compound to attend to nature just to hear what he will say. But because they are in arms, he does not say a word when they do such acts.

During this night, it was a different thing. They wanted the guy. This guy stays out too late and usually gets home late. He has a Jeep, one Mercedes Benz car and two vans, all of them packed in his compound. They had planned to go for those vehicles and the only way they could have succeeded in getting one, was to open fire at that house.

Some of them lay along Jomo Kenyatta Road in ambush while the others went into the house, firing rapidly and shouting that whoever came out would have his or her mother wearing black and green.

One small boy (about 13 years) who lives in that house narrowly escaped death when he was jumping over the wall to save his life. He said he heard one shouting LOOK ONE DAE JOMP and the other fired. Whilst they had escaped into the neighboring house, they heard gunshots and banging at the gate. They had shot dead a driver and the vehicle lost control and crashed into their gate.

My source said he said they heard them saying NOR TO IM, NAR ORDER PORSIN. According to this boy (whose name I cannot disclose) they knew they were scouting for his uncle who also drives the same kind of Jeep. He said another luck was on their side. By the time they got to the house, UNAMSIL was there promptly and the Kamaboyz ran away.

When the UNAMSIL soldier shouted, "who goes there", the reply was KAMABOYZ.

They would conclude their investigations very soon. I have concluded my investigations satisfactorily and I have given my piece of advice. That guy has abandoned the house and has gone elsewhere. Do you know what would happen after the police investigations?

NOTHING. If you die, e don. My advice is that we need to be very careful. There are plenty guns around town. Those guns are not meant for Sankoh's rebels alone; you and I can fall by them. But may I ask, why is it that the government is still keeping those Kamajors (who have self-styled themselves as KAMABOYZ) in that hotel?

- excerpted from "Featuring: The Kama Boyz"
Monday, July 10, 2000

The Pool Newspaper

I find it strangely thrilling to crawl over the legs of the other passengers in the station wagon taxis that ply the winding route over Signal Hill and announce loudly to the driver that I want to get off at the Brookfield's Hotel. Very few of the very few whites living in Freetown speak more than rudimentary Krio, so the other passengers rarely feel the need to lower their voices when they question one another about what a white would want at the Brookfield's Hotel. If he doesn't know it's dangerous there, he is a fool. If he does, then he is a bigger fool still. United Nations peacekeepers sometimes go to the hotel, but they are mostly Nigerians looking for their girlfriends or drugs or stolen goods. British military advisors sometimes go to the hotel, but they always go in armed packs and never stay long, just a quick visit to consult with CDF commanders on some detail of the disarmament. Otherwise, there is no one there but kamajors. When the taxi pulls over on Jomo Kenyatta Avenue, I climb back over the legs of my fellow travelers and disappear through the gate of the hotel.

PROPERTY DETAILS

Hotel name: BROOKFIELDS HOTEL
Address: Jomo Kenyatta, Freetown, Sierra Leone
IDD: 232

ROOM FACILITIES

Fastnet does not currently hold a list of room facilities for this property.

PROPERTY FACILITIES

Fastnet does not currently hold a list of facilities for this property.

CARD FACILITIES

Fastnet does not currently hold a list of credit card facilities for this property.

- Fastnet
Hotels & Travel
19 August, 2002


Football in empty swimming pool.

Rambo lay on the floor and whined. I let him for a while as his girlfriend, sprawled next to him on the woven straw mat, bummed one cigarette after another.

"Daniel, nya go a cigaretti", she purred, making a "V" with her fingers at her lips in a mock smoke that she made seem vaguely obscene. As though she thought my sign language might be as shaky as my Mende, she repeated herself in Krio.

"Daniel, gimme 55." I was smoking 555's, but for reasons never clear to me they are always referred to simply as "55".

"Daniel, I want to meditate" Rambo said again, rolling around on the mat like a toddler. It was an odd sight. I stand 6 feet, and Rambo is a full head taller and built like a power forward. The homemade tattoo on his right bicep (it might be a fish) makes him an unconvincing whiner. He is 25 years old.

"I want to meditate on God. I want to talk to Jah."

I fished two one hundred Leone coins from my pocket.

"When you talk to Him," I said as I handed over the coins, "tell Him to send blessings for me."

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, though it could easily have been 10 am or midnight. Adama stood cooking on the verandah, and every ten minutes or so there were a few sharp cracks as she broke more of the long pieces of baseboard she had somehow acquired to feed the cooking fire. It is hard to imagine they came from inside the hotel. After three years of kamajor occupation, the baseboards that remain can only be those unfit for fire. Struggle slept inside his makeshift fly cover, a lacy curtain scrap and some bent clothes hangers, laying on his back on the straw mattress. At six weeks old, Adama's child does little else.

I spoke with Adama while Rambo scampered to the first floor to buy a joint's worth of marijuana from Barrie, the Fula man who lives in the storeroom beneath the stairs.

The one chair in the place stands on the verandah, but it has no seat, so I leaned over the railings and rested my arms on the drying clothes. I wondered for the hundredth time if I was ever going to leave Gleh and Adama's room with dry elbows.

This is, without question, Gleh and Adama's room. They ended up here on the second floor of Block C when someone slapped Adama during a fight at Jah Kingdom, the bar/dormitory in the toilets and changing rooms beneath the empty swimming pool. Adama was eight months pregnant at the time. Fortunately, this happened after the exodus from the hotel had begun and there was a room empty, so Gleh packed up their things and they left the shower stalls of Jah Kingdom. I say the room was empty - Gleh had to break off a padlock on the door to get in, but I assume that since the previous occupants left only a few scraps of cloth and some ragged shoes behind, they had no expectations of finding the room vacant if they ever returned.

If Gleh and Adama were alone that first night, by the second they had roommates, refugees from the Jah Kingdom squabble or friends needing a change of scene. Someone is always asleep when I enter the room, regardless of the time, and toward evening there are a half dozen regulars who may or may not stay the night. Duffle bags and plastic shopping bags line the walls, and somewhere there is a small white puppy, which sleeps even more than Struggle. I know it is not dead only because every day it lies in a different place in the room.

My conversation with Adama was brief as always. "Adama, how did you meet Gleh?" I asked. This was my second personal question for her in the four months we have known one another. It is two more questions than she has ever asked me.

She was clearly embarrassed, but smiling. I tacked toward a question she could answer with "yes" or "no" if she chose.

"Was it in the hotel?"

"I've been here two years," she mumbled, and with a barefoot cracked another length of board. "Yes, it was in the hotel."

"Did you come here alone?"

"No, I came with my auntie," she replied, and though she continued to smile I left the conversation, feeling lucky to have gotten as much as I did.

Rambo skipped back into the room, and threw the small brown roll of marijuana at Patricia, his girlfriend.

"Roll em," he beamed at her, and as she scavenged through the bags against the wall for the dropped weed she grinned back at him. While she rolled the joint, Rambo asked if I had read The Merchant of Venice. He picked up Struggle, and while I wondered if the infant's head would roll off from all the swinging he was receiving, Rambo quizzed me on Shakespeare titles. "Julius Caesar?" he asked.

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears," I said.

"I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." replied Rambo. Mercifully, he laid the baby on his chest, where it promptly fell asleep. Rambo and his woman passed the joint a few times as they pinched each other and giggled, and eventually drifted off themselves.


Meal time beneath the water tank. Block A.

June 10
Gibril Foday Musa, New Tablet ATTACKED

Musa, editor of the Freetown-based independent New Tablet, was detained for several hours and assaulted by members of the Kamajor civil militia. Two Kamajor militiamen came to the offices of the New Sierra Leonean newspaper, which shares premises with the New Tablet in central Freetown, searching for editor George Khoryama.

The Kamajors were concerned about an article in the June 10 edition of the New Sierra Leonean entitled "Kamajors Vow to Overthrow Kabbah." The article alleged that the Kamajor militia intended to topple President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah if his government agreed to share power with the rebel Revolutionary United Front. Khoryama was not in the office, so the Kamajors began questioning Musa and an unidentified caretaker.

After several more Kamajors arrived, the militiamen drove Musa and the caretaker to the Brookfield's Hotel, their Freetown headquarters. Musa later reported that he and the caretaker were stripped down to their underwear, beaten, and locked in a small generator room, which the attackers filled with water so that the men were unable to sit down. The Kamajors released them that evening.

- Committee to Protect Journalists

Africa: Country Report, Sierra Leone 1999

Someone has branded the ceiling of one stairwell in Block A with letters a foot and a half tall: CDF. Someone took the time to hold an open flame, a lighter or a candle, close enough to scar the plaster black, moved down an inch, and did it again, until the succession of dots materialized as letters. Time consuming work, this "CDF," with neither the artistry of the street graffiti elsewhere in the city nor the urgency of a militant faction marking its territory. But time is abundant for residents of the Brookfield's Hotel, and the handiwork of this anonymous artist suggests nothing so much as a relentless boredom.

Spokesman: UNAMSIL's intensive patrols and other activities for the last 24 hours have yielded good results.

As a result of discussions which were part of our effort to make Freetown a weapons-free zone, about 100 Civil Defense Force (CDF) combatants occupying Brookfield's Hotel will be returning to their home regions - Bo, Kenema and Pujehun - after handing over their weapons into the custody of UNAMSIL. Another approximately 50 CDF combatants will remain in Freetown, but their arms will be held under UNAMSIL's control.

Q: Are you reacting to the excessive number of armed robberies in Freetown by sending the Kamajors back to their former regions?

A: Lt. Commander Patrick Coker: This is not a reaction to any excesses. This is part of the ongoing move to make Freetown a weapons-free zone. We are neither for nor against the Kamajors. However, their return home is a result of consultations between the CDF and UNAMSIL.

Q: You said that 100 CDF are going back to their regions and about 50 remaining. Does that mean that there are only 150 CDF in Freetown?

A: We are not in a position to provide accurate numbers of Kamajors currently in Freetown. However, as I explained, after a meeting between UNAMSIL and CDF authorities, some 100 will be leaving Freetown and returning to their homes, and we have been told that about 50 will remain in Freetown. - UNAMSIL Press Briefing
Thursday, 27 July, 2000

Brookfield's…well, the boys are out. last Saturday the GOSL sent down many buses to take people back home. there was a bit of trouble but not too much.

- email from human rights monitor Freetown, 12 August, 2002