Quiet U.S. support for democracy bears fruit in Sierra Leone

One of the main goals of U.S. foreign policy is to spread democracy worldwide. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. has used military force as a way to achieve this goal. These high-profile efforts absorb the attention of top policy-makers and the dollars of American taxpayers. Less well known is the influence of U.S. foreign aid programs in promoting democracy and free elections in states such as Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone is best known as the source of "blood diamonds" that fueled a bloody civil war. This small West African country was once a tropical paradise before conflict killed 75,000 and forced millions to flee their homes. After more than a decade of fighting, a U.N. peacekeeping mission finally stabilized the country and people began to rebuild.

I first went to Sierra Leone in October 2005 as a Fulbright Scholar, sponsored by the U.S. State Department, to study returning refugees. As a representative of the U.S., I was able to travel throughout the country visiting both remote villages and crowded urban areas. Everywhere I went, I saw evidence of the physical destruction of the war, including burnt homes and demolished schools. In talking with people, young and old, I quickly learned that they were frustrated with the slow pace of reconstruction.

One of the people I met was Abu Marah, a former child miner. Orphaned at age 12, he dug for diamonds, earning just one cup of rice a day. After three years of hardship, Marah moved to the capital city of

Sierra Leone, where he worked selling water on the streets. When the capital city, Freetown, was sacked by rebel forces in January 1999, Marah walked to neighboring Guinea as a refugee. After the war officially ended in 2001, Marah returned to Freetown and restarted his education.

Now Marah is a student and a part-time security guard. As an educated man with a job, he's a lot better off than most Sierra Leoneans, 70 percent of whom still live in absolute poverty. Even so, every day he walks to work over bumpy dirt roads; every night he sits in darkness because Sierra Leone lacks modern electric power.

On Sept. 8, 2007, Marah cast his vote in a polling station, hoping his country's long delayed development would become a reality. Marah's vote was just one of almost 2 million in the historic election that just took place in Sierra Leone, a country of 5 million people.

International observers called this election "free and fair." This great accomplishment happened in part because of efforts by the U.S. and other democratic countries. U.S. foreign aid, for instance, supports the National Democratic Institute, which fielded international election observers and supported domestic ones. These election observers helped stop fraud and rigging by providing a watchful eye.

On election day, I had the opportunity to accompany Dentuma Maligi of the 50/50 Group, a key women's political organization in Sierra Leone. We visited polling stations in Jung Chiefdom, where villagers sometimes needed to walk more than five miles just to vote. Voters marked their ballots with a thumbprint in closed voting boxes #150; a great innovation in a place where in past times the village chief dictated how people should vote. When voting closed, we sat through the public counting of all ballots in a process where members of each political party could object.

The U.S. also helps finance Talking Drum, an nongovernmental organization that runs an independent radio network; on election night, they were the first to release polling results directly to the public. This quick release prevents local officials from "changing" the vote counts before they are officially announced. Ambrose James, the dynamic young man who runs Talking Drum, says that independent radio provides a "space of calm" that helps prevent violence and unrest.

When all the votes were tallied, the people of Sierra Leone had elected the opposition candidate, Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People's Congress. This charismatic leader is a former insurance salesman who hopes to provide jobs for youth by making Sierra Leone more open for business. In a move unusual in African policies, defeated candidate Solomon Berewa of the then-ruling Sierra Leone People's party graciously stepped down and offered support to his rival.

The election in Sierra Leone marks one of the first examples of peaceful electoral change in all of post-independence Africa. It validates the idea that the United States can help to create democracies even in very poor, war torn states. For Abu Marah and other Sierra Leoneans, it simply offers them the hope that their future will be brighter.

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