Free Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma Page A

warlords: Johnson, Koroma, Robert Sikié, Samuel Doe, about the martyrdom of the Liberian people at the hands of ULIMO (the United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia), the LPC (the Liberian Peace Council) and NPFL-Koroma.
    The temple was also the place where people passing through went to the ecumenical mass. After the ecumenical mass, there was a sermon. It was the same sermon as the one after the papal mass.
    Lastly, the fourth most important thing, there were some huts made of straw and corrugated iron, about ten of them. Five of the huts were reserved for Colonel Papa le Bon. No one ever knew where Colonel Papa le Bon spent the night on account of how Colonel Papa le Bon was an important somebody in the tribal wars and nobody ever knows where an important somebody sleeps during tribal wars. That’s the rules of tribal wars.
    The other five were the barracks where the child-soldiers slept.
    Barracks for the child-soldiers,
faforo!
We slept on grassmats right on the floor. And we ate whatever we could, wherever we could.
    The village of the natives of Zorzor indigenes was about a kilometre from the entrenched camp. It was made up of huts and houses made of
torchis
, or daub. The people who lived there were Yacous and Gios. Yacou and Gio are the names of the Black Nigger African tribes in this part of the country. The Yacous and the Gios are the sworn enemies of the Guérés and the Krahns. Guéré and Krahn are the names of different Black Nigger African tribes from a different part of fucked-up Liberia. If a Krahn or a Guéré arrived in Zorzor, he had to be tortured and killed because that’s the rules of tribal warfare. In tribal warfare, you don’t want people around who are from a different tribe from your tribe.
    Colonel Papa le Bon had the power of life and death over everyone who lived in Zorzor. He was chief of the town and of the district and above all he was cock of the walk.
Faforo! Walahé!
    As soon as the funeral of the child-soldier Captain Kid was over, we became part of Colonel Papa le Bon’s racket.
    I was sent to the child-soldier barracks where I got a uniform from an old grown-up Para. It was far too big for me, I was swimming in it. After that, in a solemn ritual, Colonel Papa le Bon himself presented me with a kalash and made me a lieutenant.
    They gave child-soldiers ranks so we would be proud. You could be a captain, a commander, a colonel; the lowest rank was lieutenant. My gun was an old AK-47. The colonel taughtme how to use it himself. It was dead easy, you just pressed the trigger and it went
tat-tat-tat
and kept killing and killing and all the people would be dropping like flies.
    The mother of the dead baby was sent to the guesthouse where the women were exorcised. (To be exorcised, the women had to be locked up naked one on one with Colonel Papa le Bon. That was the rules of tribal wars.)
    Colonel Papa le Bon was really happy to have Yacouba, very happy to have a grigriman, a top-notch Muslim grigriman.
    ‘What sort of grigris do you make?’ Colonel Papa le Bon asked him.
    ‘All sorts,’ Yacouba told him.
    ‘Can you make grigris that protect against bullets?’
    ‘I’m really good at bullet-proofing. That’s why I came to Liberia where there’s tribal wars and bullets flying all over the place killing people without warning.’
    ‘Excellent! Excellent!’ roared Colonel Papa le Bon.
    He kissed Yacouba on the mouth and put him in one of the huts reserved for important somebodies. Yacouba was blessed. He had everything and most of all he ate enough for four people.
    Yacouba got to work straight away and made three grigris—one, two, three—for Colonel Papa le Bon. Top-notch grigris. The first one was for the morning, the second for the afternoon and the third for the night-time. Colonel Papa le Bon attached them to the belt of his soutane. And paid cash. Yacouba whispered in his ear—for his ears only—the interdictions attached to each grigri (an ‘interdiction’