The vagabond king. There are two ways to drive inland from Freetown. The first is to go through the eastern, poorer quarters of the Sierra Leonean capital. There decrepit vehicles jam narrow streets lined with mouldering clapboard houses. With such heavy congestion, it can take many hours to make the journey. The alternative is to take the so- called mountain road. You drive up into the hills, past the camp of the British army- led training team left over from Tony Blair's little war in 2.
Soon the tarmac ends and a dirt road threads past straggling villages into the forest. A mile or so before it rejoins the main highway leading inland, a side road branches off to the left through a quiet village. At the far end of the settlement stands a faded sheet- metal advertisement for Goodyear tyres. And there, most afternoons, a tall man with close- cropped, greying hair sits on an open porch by the side of the road, often dressed in just a pair of shorts. If you arrive late in the day he may be drinking gin from a plastic sachet. His name is Valentine Strasser; he is 4. In 2. 00. 7 power changed hands at the ballot box .
His improbable rise to executive power and his precipitous fall to roadside penury is a parable of the human consequences of premature kingship. His father was a teacher, his mother a small- time businesswoman. After attending the Sierra Leone Grammar School (founded in 1. Liberia as part of a regional peacekeeping mission, the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). Like Sierra Leone, Liberia was established as a colony of freed slaves.
Provided to YouTube by Sony Music Entertainment Song of the Vagabonds (From 'The Vagabond King') (Remastered - 1995) THE VAGABOND KING Book and Lyrics by W.H. Post and Brian Hooker from Justin Huntly McCarthy's romance If I Were King. Music by Rudolf Friml Casino Theatre, Broadway - 21 September, 1925 (511 perfs) Produced at the Winter Garden Theatre, London. Listen to songs from the album The Vagabond King (Studio Cast Recording), including 'Overture,' 'Bon Jour,' 'Some Day,' and many more. Buy the album for $5.99. Free with Apple Music subscription.
Civil war had broken out there in 1. ECOMOG was attempting to secure order in the capital, Monrovia. In March 1. 99. 1, rebel fighters crossed over from Liberia into the remote eastern part of the country.
This incursion of as many as 2,0. Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, marked the beginning of Sierra Leone's decade- long conflict. Sankoh was a former army corporal and one- time jobbing photographer and, like others among the initial RUF leadership, he had received training at al- Mathabh al- Thauriya al- Alamiya, Muammar al- Gaddafi's World Revolutionary Headquarters in Benghazi, Libya. After independence from Britain in 1. Sir Milton Margai. He died in 1. 96. Albert, who disbursed vital positions in government to people of the Mende tribe regardless of qualifications.
In 1. 97. 1, Stevens declared himself president. Charming but spectacularly corrupt, he systematically degraded state institutions and operated a system of personal patronage.
He plundered Sierra Leone's diamond wealth and even entered into negotiations with an American company to have toxic waste dumped in the country in exchange for a fee of $2. Two years later, at a ceremony held in the grounds of parliament, a local preacher compared the former head of state's reign to a . Despite his initial promises of reform, corruption persisted under him. He acquired the nickname Dandogo, which means . By 1. 99. 1, Momoh had been in power for six years and the nation was ripe for revolt.
The conditions for the government troops were wretched. Logistical support was poor, supplies of weapons and ammunition were limited and there was scant medical provision. On 1 May 1. 99. 1, he received a shrapnel wound to the leg while defending a bridge. In terms of helicopters or ambulances to shift the casualties . My disgruntlement stemmed from the fact that after I got wounded in action, I could not be evacuated, either by an ambulance or a helicopter. On 2. 9 April 1. 99.
Operation Daybreak, raiding the office of the president in central Freetown as well as the lavish old presidential lodge off Spur Road in the West End of the city. They found President Momoh hiding in the bathroom of the lodge, wearing a dressing gown.
He was bundled into an army helicopter and taken over the border to Guinea. As a captain, he was also of a higher rank than his co- conspirators. Some argue, too, that Strasser got the top post because those around him felt that he could be manipulated easily. Avuncular and bearded, he runs a project to restore the former British slave fortress on Bunce Island, near Freetown. Shortly after the 1.
The Vagabond King Music Rudolf Friml Lyrics Brian Hooker William H. Post Book Brian Hooker William H. Post Basis If I Were King by Justin Huntly McCarthy Productions 1925 Broadway 1927 West End 1943 Broadway revival. The Tomatometer rating – based on the published opinions of hundreds of film and television critics – is a trusted measurement of movie and TV programming quality for millions of moviegoers. It represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or.
Opala was rounded up by soldiers and taken to State House, the white- walled seat of power in the city centre that bears an odd resemblance to a lighthouse. Momoh's staff stood erect, in abject terror. Sitting around wearing camouflage fatigues and Ray- Ban sunglasses were the young officers who had mounted the insurrection. They were cleaning their Kalashnikovs and were stoned.
Strasser turned to Opala. Krio is built on an English chassis but has a distinct grammatical structure and uses borrowed words from a plethora of other sources. In response to. Strasser's question (. The new leader replied that he had, but that he had not understood what the diplomat had told him. At Strasser's direction, Opala left State House and walked through deserted streets to the US embassy, which at the time lay one block away. There he told a jumpy marine guard that he had a personal message for the ambassador from the coup leaders.
He was allowed in and explained to the head of mission that the heads of the new government wanted to know if Washington would recognise it. The ambassador, a black American named Johnny Young, said that he had spoken at length to Strasser and had outlined the position of the US administration . There were promises of a fresh start for the country. Young people mobilised to keep Freetown clean.
Celebratory murals and other street art flourished. The new rulers of Sierra Leone called themselves the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). Strasser was the council's chairman. Out in the bush, the army continued fighting the rebels. The junior officers who formed the NPRC had experienced the wretched conditions of the government troops. They wanted to improve matters, so besides tripling the size of the army, they went shopping.
The Soviet Union had disintegrated, leaving huge arsenals in the hands of often unpaid and unsupervised officers. Dollars went a long way and official documentation was circumnavigable. Crucially, too, Sierra Leone's new leaders had a Ukrainian connection. During the cold war, the Soviet Union had funded scholarships for students from the developing world. Sierra Leoneans were among those who took up the chance to study in the USSR. One such was Steven Bio, who had studied in Kiev.
A cousin of Julius Maada Bio, a member of the new junta, he had useful connections with gunrunners in Ukraine. He would be the go- between.
In October 1. 99. RUF took Koidu Town, capital of Kono District in the diamond- mining east. The capture of the town marked a step up in the conflict. Executions followed on a beach on the outskirts of the city, but the 2. Strasser declared a nationwide period of mourning. In Texas they kill people every day.
A photograph of Strasser at the 1. Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Limassol, Cyprus, shows a young man in sunglasses and a T- shirt, emblazoned with the words . Strasser made Valentine's Day a great national celebration, along with Bob Marley's birthday. The junta favoured pale- skinned women, creating a craze for bleaching among girls in Freetown. Women who tried to lighten their skin tone with chemicals were called .
Older Sierra Leoneans still mention that phrase readily when asked about their impressions of the NPRC. But perhaps the most telling indication of the onset of decadence in Strasser himself was his choice of accommodation. Built by the kleptocratic Siaka Stevens, it is a monumental structure the size of a missile silo or respectable late- medieval castle, and squats on a hilltop in Juba, in the West End of Freetown, with expansive views both out over the Atlantic and to the forested hills of the peninsula south of the city. It was here that Strasser chose to live. In the countryside, both rebels and the poorly trained soldiers were often more interested in looting property from civilians than in fighting each other. The line between the resistance and the rebellion became blurred, reflected in the neologism . In December Strasser called a ceasefire, but that turned out to be a mistake: the RUF regrouped and began setting up jungle bases around the country in 1.
The rebels were a threat once more and the government was losing control. The rebels set up a base in the town of Moyamba which put them within a day's striking distance of Freetown. Vehicle ambushes left few people willing to travel upcountry. It was then that Strasser turned to foreign fighters. White mercenaries are a charged subject in Africa, conjuring up a host of associations, from . However, in Sierra Leone, shortly after South Africa's first multiracial elections in 1. They nearly saved the country, too.
Mac. Kenzie had fought in Vietnam and, in spite of an arm injury sustained there, he later passed selection for the Rhodesian SAS. He also worked as a correspondent for Soldier of Fortune magazine. His masterminding of GSG's involvement in Sierra Leone was a debacle: he was quickly ambushed along with Strasser's aide- de- camp, Abu Tarawalli. It is still not known for sure if those responsible were the rebels, or whether he was betrayed by Sierra Leonean army soldiers he was meant to be assisting. Venter discovered that a group of nuns had also been captured and taken to the camp where Mac.
Kenzie was held. The nuns were eventually released, but before then they saw the American strung up, and his heart cut out. Composed predominantly of former South African special forces troops, Executive Outcomes was active in Angola during the civil war there, fighting both for and against Jonas Savimbi's South African- funded rebel army, Unita. The role of Executive Outcomes was to combat the rebels. The mercenaries would be paid in diamond concessions and cash. Most of the operatives were black but theleadership was white.
They used helicopters, they had their own logistical train and they were fearsomely competent.