"You are a child of the universe. No less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here . . ."
THE most chilling question I have heard asked this year was reported by Ian Stewart, of Associated Press, from Sierra Leone: "Do you want a long-sleeved or a short-sleeved shirt?"
With torn clothes hanging from his thin frame and wielding a rusted machete, nine-year-old Masseh Moganki used to wander the streets of this small West African town in search of victims.
The response determined whether Moganki would hack off his victim's arm at the wrist or at the elbow.
Nine years old: at an age when he should be revelling in the joys of childhood, Masseh has become a soldier a terror trooper in the service of the revolutionary forces that backed the military junta ousted last week.
Instead of toys and books, Masseh -- enslaved by guerrillas at four years old -- has been taught to slit throats, hack off limbs and gouge out eyeballs.
It is just another page of another chapter in the tortured history of the land that gave birth to Amistad.
Masseh's backers, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), have fled before the combined forces of the West African coalition army that reinstated President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
It is a first for Africa -- a democratically elected government is returned to power through military assistance from neighbouring countries.
But the liberation of Freetown is a Faustian victory. Leading the forces of democracy is the one man who perhaps more than any other leader on this continent is the antithesis of human rights, Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha.
And perhaps the most telling sign that the return to democracy does not translate into freedom is the detention of seven journalists by the Abacha-led forces.
Some five other journalists are believed to be in hiding and three newspapers have shut down.
Sierra Leone was born in 1787 when native chiefs "sold" a piece of land to British settlers. This land was later used by the British to settle freed African slaves and called Freetown.
The country became independent on April 27, 1961 with Freetown as the capital. It covers 72000km2, bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea to the north and east and Liberia to the south-east. English is the official language, but the population of 4,3million is largely illiterate.
Their life expectancy, at 37, is probably the lowest in the world.
President Kabbah took office in 1996 after UN-monitored elections that were about as free and fair as can be expected under such conditions.
The subsequent army coup, led by Colonel Johnny Paul Koroma who seized Freetown in May last year, came as no surprise to the Western world, which expects nothing less from Africa.
Unsurprisingly, there was no clamour from the UN Security Council to oust the dictator. That principle is reserved for Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro.
The RUF soldiers -- leaderless, thanks to Abacha, who is holding Foday Sankoh prisoner in Nigeria -- threw in their lot with the military junta. Under the influence of a local drug called Blue Boy, they raped, looted, pillaged and torched the capital.
Today, life returns to "normal" in another part of Africa. A neighbouring dictator is welcomed as a hero.
Western food aid has begun to trickle into the country. The missionaries once again rush in to chant, "Blessed are the meek, turn the other cheek".
The government faces an external debt of $1,2billion, with no ready source of income. So mining concessions for the country's gold, diamonds, iron and aluminium will be pledged and snapped up by the giants.
And yet another lost generation will walk the land of perennial poverty and promises betrayed.
Revolution? Freedom? Paid for with the souls of our children?
Dear God!