FILE: EXILED FORMER PRESIDENT OF SIERRA LEONE JOSPEH MOMOH DIES AFTER LONG ILLNESS.

Record ID: 443050

  • Title: FILE: EXILED FORMER PRESIDENT OF SIERRA LEONE JOSPEH MOMOH DIES AFTER LONG ILLNESS.
  • Date: 4th August 2003
  • Summary: (W1)FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE, (FILE) (VISNEWS -ACCESS ALL) 1. GV: PEOPLE IN SIAKA STEVENS STADIUM WAITING FOR CEREMONY TO BEGIN 0.03 2. GV: MAJOR GENERAL JOSEPH SAIDU MOMOH ARRIVING AT STADIUM AS AUDIENCE LOOKS ON; MOMOH INSPECTING TROOPS (6 SHOTS) 0.37 3. GV/MV/PAN: MOMOH AND MRS MOMOH ON STAGE WATCHED BY OFFICIALS (2 SHOTS) 0.46 4. CU: CHIEF JUSTICE SMF KUTUBU READS SWEARING IN CEREMONY 0.51 5. MV: MOMOH ADDRESS TO AUDIENCE 0.59 6. GV/PAN: GVS AUDIENCE 1.04 7. GV/MV: MOMOH WATCHES AS DIFFERENT POLITICAL GROUPS MARCH PAST (5 SHOTS) 1.36 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 19th August 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
  • Country: Sierra Leone
  • Reuters ID: LVABLMM7ZMPQ10H9JXRV3KY7O1LU
  • Story Text: Sierra Leone's former president Joseph Momoh,
    overthrown during the country's civil war, has died in
    neighbouring Guinea after a long illness


    The announcement was made in the capital
    Freetown by a senior official from Momoh's All People's
    Congress Party, who said Momoh, born on January 26, 1937,
    died on Saturday (August 2) night.

    A career soldier who rose to the rank of major-general,
    Momoh was the anointed successor of president Siaka
    Stevens, who quit aged 80 in 1985.

    Momoh came to power after a single-candidate poll
    carefully stage-managed by Stevens, and was welcomed
    throughout the West African state and backed by all major
    political figures.

    Initially, Momoh's integrity endeared him to Sierra
    Leone's people, who had seen the country's riches
    squandered since independence from Britain in 1961.

    But his popularity soon faded when his government
    failed to eliminate corruption or improve the economy. He
    also appeared unwilling to remove associates of Stevens
    from key positions.

    Charismatic rebel chief Foday Sankoh, who died last
    Tuesday (July 29), began a rebellion against Momoh in 1991,
    starting a decade of war which claimed around 50,000 lives
    and left many more maimed after their limbs were hacked off
    by Sankoh's fighters.

    In 1992, Captain Valentine Strasser, then only 27,
    ousted Momoh in a military coup, sparked by frustration
    with how the war in the former British colony was being
    fought against Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
    rebels.

    After Momoh was overthrown by Strasser, he fled with
    aides to neighbouring Guinea. He later returned to Sierra
    Leone.

    In 1998, Momoh was convicted of conspiracy and helping
    a military junta that ousted elected President Ahmad Tejan
    Kabbah the previous year. A Nigerian-led West African force
    restored Kabbah to power in March 1998.

    Junta loyalists freed Momoh from jail in January 1999
    when they infiltrated Freetown and came close to capturing
    the city.

    Momoh served briefly as a clerk in the Sierra Leone
    civil service, and then signed on as a private in the
    British-run West African Frontier Force in 1958.

    He was trained at military academies in Britain, Ghana
    and Nigeria and in 1963 was commissioned as a second
    lieutenant in the Royal Sierra Military Forces.

    He rose through the ranks and in 1974 he was appointed
    a member of parliament.
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