Sierra_Leone_Civil

The Sierra Leone Civil War began in 1991, initiated by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under Foday Sankoh. Tens of thousands died and more than 2 million people (well over one-third of the population) were displaced because of the 9-year conflict. Neighbouring countries became host to significant numbers of refugees attempting to escape the civil war. It was officially declared over on 18 January 2002.

Origins and causes

In 1985, Joseph Momoh, a military leader, was installed as president of Sierra Leone. One major opposition group consisted of students including Foday Sankoh, Abu Kanu, and Rashid Mansaray. Many students were expelled from the country and this group fled to Ghana and then Libya where they attended Moammar Qaddafi's secret service military training facility. The group recruited unemployed young men and students, but as the group grew, internal squabbles arose, and many left the group, some students to universities in Ghana, others back to Sierra Leone. However, others (including Kanu, Mansaray, and Sankoh) were still interested in revolution. The group then went to Kono District and toured the diamond mines, talking with workers about their situation, and spreading a revolutionary ideology.

Control of Sierra Leone's diamond industry was a primary cause of the war. Although endowed with abundant natural resources, Sierra Leone was ranked as the poorest country in the world by 1998. With the breakdown of all state structures, wide corridors of Sierra Leonean society were opened up to the trafficking of arms and ammunition. Recreational drugs also eroded national and regional security as well as facilitated crime within the country, precipitating illegal trade with both Liberia and Guinea.

Beginning of the civil war

The RUF launched its first campaign into eastern Kailahun (Sierra Leone) from Liberia on March 23, 1991. In the four months following, about 107,000 refugees fled the conflict into Guinea. Foday Sankoh was head of the military wing of the RUF. According to Sierra Leone and writer Abdul Koroma, the rebels were quick to demonstrate their brutality, decapitating community leaders and putting their heads on stakes.

Forced recruitment of children was also an early feature of the rebel strategy. The intellectuals in the RUF opposed the methods being used, but within the first year ofcourse the rebellion these individuals had been eliminated as Sankoh took over the movement. Among the victims were two of Sankoh's allies.

Post Civil War

In May 2002 President Kabbah and his party, the SLPP, won landslide victories in the presidential and legislative elections. Kabbah was re-elected for a five year term. The RUF political wing, the RUFP, failed to win a single seat in parliament. The elections were marked by irregularities and allegations of fraud, but not to a degree to significantly affect the outcome.

On 28 July 2002 the British withdrew a 200-man military contingent that had been in country since the summer of 2000, leaving behind a 140-strong military training team to work to professionalize the Sierra Leone army or Navy.

In November 2002, UNAMSIL began a gradual reduction from a peak level of 17,800 personnel (Bell 2005). Under pressure from the British, the withdrawal slowed, so that by October 2003 the UNAMSIL contingent still stood at 12,000 men. As peaceful conditions continued through 2004, however, UNAMSIL drew down its forces to slightly over 4,100 by December 2004 . The UN Security Council extended UNAMSIL’s mandate until June 2005 and again until December 2005. UNAMSIL completed the withdrawal of all troops 1 January 2006.

The Lome Accord called for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to provide a forum for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations during the conflict to tell their stories and facilitate genuine reconciliation. Subsequently, the Sierra Leonean government asked the UN to help set up a Special Court for Sierra Leone, which would try those who "bear the greatest responsibility for the commission of crimes against humanity, war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law, as well as crimes under relevant Sierra Leonean law within the territory of Sierra Leone since November 31, 1999." Both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court began operating in the summer of 2009.

Results

Nine years of civil war, atrocities, and ineffectual intervention by ECOMOG—which became just another faction in the war—crippled Sierra Leone. While RUF rebels controlled the diamond trade, the people remained among the poorest on Earth. The 1999 Lomé Agreement failed to bring peace as it effectively institutionalized rebel control of the diamond trade by putting rebel chief Foday Sankoh in charge of mineral resources. Civil war resumed as UN forces sought to wrest control of the diamond fields, but found themselves instead being held hostage by the rebels. With a rebel take-over of the capital imminent, British forces unilaterally intervened in May 2000 to evacuate British subjects and safeguard the Freetown airport for UN use. Within days "mission creep" found the British taking effective control of the government and organizing an offensive against the rebels. The rebel leader was captured, the peace process resumed, and the British left a training team to reconstruct the armed forces into an instrument of reliable state security. Within a year of British intervention, UN forces were in full control of the country, and gradually began handing over control to the reconstituted and retrained Sierra Leone armed forces. The British looked to the Americans to similarly solve the Liberian problem in order to provide stability on Sierra Leone's borders and restore normal market forces to the diamond trade. The Liberian war ended in 2003 with ECOWAS and US intervention, followed in 2006 by the trial of its former President Charles Taylor for crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the first such trial in Africa.

Whereabouuts

On 13 January 2003 a small group of armed men tried unsuccessfully to break into an armory in Freetown. Former AFRC-junta leader Koroma, after being linked to the raid, went into hiding. In March the Special Court for Sierra Leone issued its first indictments for war crimes during the civil war. Foday Sankoh, already in custody, was indicted, along with notorious RUF field commander Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie, Koroma, the Minister of Interior and former head of the Civil Defense Force, Samuel Hinga Norman, and several others. Norman was arrested when the indictments were announced, while Bockarie and Koroma remained at large (presumably in Liberia). On 5 May 2003 Bockarie was killed in Liberia, probably on orders from President Charles G. Taylor, who expected to be indicted by the Special Court and feared Bockarie’s testimony³. Several weeks later, word filtered out of Liberia that Koroma had been killed as well, although his death remains unconfirmed. In June the Special Court announced Taylor’s indictment. Sankoh died in prison in Freetown 29 July 2003 from a heart attack. He had been ailing for some time.

In August 2003 President Kabbah testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on his role during the civil war.

On 1 December 2003 Major General Brigadier Tom Carew, who had been the Chief of Defence Staff for the Government of Sierra Leone and an important figure in the Sierra Leonean army, was reassigned to civilian duties.

Diamond revenues in Sierra Leone have increased more than tenfold since the end of the conflict, from $10 million in 2000 to about $130 million in 2004, although according to the UNAMSIL surveys of mining sites, "more than 50 per cent of diamond mining still remains unlicensed and reportedly considerable illegal smuggling of diamonds continues".⁵

Depictions

The use of children in both the rebel (RUF) military and the government militia is depicted in Ishmael Beah's 2007 book A Long Way Gone.

Notes

^ Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls
^ "Sierra Leone". 2001 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor. Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor (2002).
^ Lykke, A.M. and Due, M.K. and Kristensen, M. and Nielsen, I. "The Sahel". Proceedings of the 16th Danish Sahel Workshop. (2004) volume 5 page 6
^ "Guilty Verdicts in the Trial of the AFRC Accused"PDF (104 KiB), press release from the Special Court for Sierra Leone, 20 June 2007; "Sierra Leone Convicts 3 of War Crimes", Associated Press, 20 June 2007 (hosted by The Washington Post); "First S Leone war crimes verdicts", BBC News, 20 June 2007
^ Bell 2005

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