Sierra Leone Civil War 1991-2001
The Sierra Leone Civil War, which lasted from 1991 to 2001, was a devastating conflict marked by extreme violence and significant human suffering. Triggered by long-standing grievances against corrupt governance following Sierra Leone's independence in 1961, the war was exacerbated by the country's vast diamond resources, which became a focal point for both rebel factions and government forces. The conflict saw the rise of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, whose motivations were primarily commercial rather than ideological, and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a group of dissident soldiers. Throughout the war, both sides committed heinous acts, including the recruitment of child soldiers and widespread atrocities against civilians, leading to at least 50,000 deaths and displacement of nearly half the population.
International involvement, particularly from neighboring Liberia under Charles Taylor, further complicated the situation, as arms were exchanged for diamonds. Despite several peace agreements, including the Lome Peace Agreement in 1999, conflict persisted until a definitive ceasefire was declared in 2002. The aftermath of the war prompted the establishment of a special tribunal to address war crimes, leading to trials of key figures, including Taylor, for their roles in the violence. The war left Sierra Leone's economy and infrastructure severely damaged, highlighting the profound impact of civil conflicts driven by both political and economic factors.
Sierra Leone Civil War 1991-2001
Summary: For a decade, 1991-2001, the West African nation of Sierra Leone was wracked by a civil war that resulted in widespread dislocation of civilians, allegations of grotesque war crimes, and at least 50,000 deaths in a nation of 4.5 million. The root of the conflict apparently lay in decades of discontent with corrupt government after independence from Britain in 1961. The country's substantial diamond wealth also played a key role, in both the quest for power by rebels and in financing the conflict. President Charles Taylor of neighboring Liberia also played an important role, especially in supplying arms in exchange for diamonds; he was eventually put on trial for war crimes in connection with the fighting in Sierra Leone, as were several lesser figures.
For more than a decade, starting in 1991, the West African nation of Sierra Leone was embroiled in a particularly brutal civil war that cost at least 50,000 lives. The war resulted in war crimes charges against Charles Taylor, the president of neighboring Liberia, and widespread allegations of use by both sides of tactics such as enlisting children as soldiers, rape and sexual slavery of women, deliberate mutilation of civilians, and even cannibalism.
Root causes
Some analysts point to widespread discontent over 30 years of corrupt rule by a small elite that took over when British colonial rule ended in 1961. In part the war reflected resentment by poor residents of interior Sierra Leone of the small, relatively wealthy, elite living on the coast, especially in the capital, Freetown. After the war, a government Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued a report blaming government corruption as a root cause.
A desire for control Sierra Leone's lucrative diamond trade is generally acknowledged as being a major factor at the core of the conflict, which in any case was not centered around tribal loyalties or ideological issues.
Some analysts have detected the hand of Islamist fundamentalism, and in particular Lebanon's Hezbollah. Sierra Leone has long had a community of Lebanese active in the diamond trade, and there may be some evidence that a desire to help fund Hezbollah's activities in Lebanon could have played a role. Other analysts point to reports that the leader of the main rebel group, Foday Sankoh, evidently received training in Libya at the invitation of Muammar Qaddafi, who at one time was an active promoter of jihad (religious warfare). (Sankoh had also received military training from Britain as a member of Sierra Leone's army.)
The Sierra Leone war was also inextricably linked with a conflict in neighboring Liberia, where Charles Taylor had mounted a guerrilla campaign against the government in late 1989, and later, as president, supplied the Sierra Leone rebels with arms in exchange for diamonds.
Diamonds
The consensus among most analysts is that diamonds played a central role in the conflict, both as a motivation of the rebels to seize Sierra Leone's diamond mines, and as the means by which the rebels paid for supplies. The war saw mercenaries from South Africa recruited to fight for the government and reports of mercenaries from Ukraine fighting for the rebels. Both sets of mercenaries evidently had the same motivation: wealth from diamonds. Recognizing the importance of this trade, the U.N. Security Council in July 2000 imposed an 18-month ban on diamond exports from Sierra Leone. The success of this resolution is debated.
Impact
The prolonged war had a catastrophic impact on Sierra Leone. Nearly half of its 4.5 million population was displaced by fighting. Up to half a million were thought to have taken refuge in neighboring states. Fatalities amounted to at least 50,000. Another 100,000 people are thought to have been mutilated, mostly by rebel forces who notoriously amputated the limbs of people, including women and children, suspected of sympathizing with the government. Tens of thousands of children were recruited as fighters, both by the rebels and by the government. Girls were raped and often held as sex slaves. Eventually Western nations tried to cut off the source of funds by banning the import of diamonds from Sierra Leone. Nevertheless, the civil war left the country's economy and infrastructure in shambles.
War crimes tribunal
After the war ended, a special war crimes tribunal, called the Special Court for Sierra Leone, was established to try those judged responsible for the widespread and especially gruesome atrocities committed during the civil war. Unlike other war crimes tribunals established in the wake of civil wars in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the Sierra Leone tribunal operates under Sierra Leone law and international humanitarian laws. The leader of the main rebel group, Foday Sankoh of the Revolutionary United Front, died of a stroke while in prison awaiting trial. Sam Hinga Norman of the Civil Defense Forces, or Kamajors, died in prison awaiting a verdict. Another leading rebel figure, Johnny Paul Koroma of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, has never been captured. The court was originally based in Freetown, Sierra Leone, but the case of the most senior figure to be tried, former Liberian President Charles Taylor, was moved to the site of the International Criminal Court in The Hague for fear a trial in Freetown might stir fresh fighting in the region. (The special tribunal is not part of the ICC). Taylor's trial began in June 2007; its defense phase began in July 2009 with Taylor pleading innocent. As of July 2009 eight lesser figures, from the two main rebel groups and from the Kamajors, had been found guilty.
Main Players
Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by a former Sierra Leone army sergeant, Foday Sankoh, launched an attack on the government in 1991 that began a decade-long civil war. Unlike other civil conflicts in Africa that have centered around tribalism or ideology, Sankoh's motivations apparently were commercial: to gain control of the diamond-mining areas of the country. Sankoh was taken prisoner in 2000 and died in 2003 before facing trial for war crimes. After a cease-fire in 1999 RUF was recognized as a legal party and allowed to run candidates for office. The cease-fire, and RUF's role in politics, ended in May 2000.
Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). A group of dissident Sierra Leone soldiers led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma that staged a junta in 1997, overthrowing the government headed by Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People's party. Members of AFRC evidently had several motivations, including frustration that a 1996 peace agreement with RUF was never implemented, a sense that the war was in a stalemate, and discontent over low pay. Some reports linked the coup to the Temne ethnic group and resentment that Kabbah favored another group, the Kamajors, who fought to defend the government (below). Koroma invited RUF to participate in a new government in May 1997, but the combined forces of the two groups were defeated by March 1998 by an African peace-keeping force organized by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), with substantial help from the Kamajors. By 1999 ARFC had largely disbanded.
Kamajors (aka Civil Defense Forces, or CDF). Besides the Sierra Leone military, a group of tribal hunters called Kamajors also fought to defend the government. Sometimes known as the CDF, the Kamajors were technically a civilian defense force associated with people of the Mende tribal group, one of 12 in Sierra Leone, who believed that magical water and rituals gave them bulletproof skins. Like rebels, some members of the CDF were accused of war crimes and tried by the Sierra Leone Special Court, including their leader, Sam Hinga Norman, the deputy defense minister.
Liberia and its president, Charles Taylor, who launched his own assault on the government in Monrovia about two years before Sankoh of the RUF, began his campaign in Sierra Leone. Taylor became president of Liberia in 1997 and was alleged to have contributed significantly to RUF in Sierra Leone, trading arms and supplies for diamonds. A subsequent civil war in Liberia forced Taylor to resign in 2003; he was arrested for war crimes in 2006 and since 2007 has been on trial in The Hague on 11 counts of alleged war crimes connected with the conflict in Sierra Leone. These include use of child soldiers, violence towards civilians, and sex crimes. Taylor is accused of taking a direct command role in the conduct of the civil war in Sierra Leone. (See Background Information Summary on Taylor in this database.)
ECOMOG, or the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Monitoring Group, an organization of West African countries that eventually sent peace-keeping troops into Sierra Leone (mostly staffed by Nigerians) to help restore the elected president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, in 1998. ECOMOG succeeded in driving the two rebel groups, RUF and AFRC, out of the capital, but the rebels then retreated into the countryside and continued their guerrilla war with the aid of neighboring Liberia. Nevertheless, ECOMOG was widely cited as an example of Africans solving African problems which had gone largely unnoticed in the West.
Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, a veteran civil servant and employee of the United Nations Development Program, was elected president of Sierra Leone in 1996. Not long afterwards he was evicted in a coup led by an army major, Johnny Koroma, who was already in prison for treason. The Economic Community of West African States resolved that it would not permit the coup to stand and authorized an armed force, ECOMOG (see above) to restore Kabbah to power. In May 2002 Kabbah was elected again by a landslide. He served the maximum term allowed by the constitution and left office in 2007.
UNAMSIL (United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone). In October 1999 the Security Council voted to send 6,000 UN peace-keepers to Sierra Leone to monitor the Lome peace agreement; in February 2000 this figure was increased to 11,000. After the agreement collapsed UNAMSIL members came under attack and several hundred were held hostage by the RUF. Critics of the United Nations say the body waited much longer to act in Sierra Leone than, for example, in the former Yugoslavia, which was disintegrating at about the same time.
Condensed Chronology
March 1991: Fighters led by former Sierra Leone army corporal Foday Sankoh under the banner of the Revolutionary United Front attack government troops near the Liberian border, capturing several towns. Sierra Leone rebels cooperate with a rebel movement in adjoining Liberia led by Charles Taylor.
April 1992: A coup led by Army Captain Valentine Strasser, evidently frustrated by the government's failure to defeat the rebels, deposes President Joseph Saidu Momoh, replacing the government with the National Provisional Ruling Council.
1995: Sierra Leone turns to mercenaries to help fight rebels; these include many South Africans.
January 1996: Defense Minister Brigadier General Julius Maada Bio deposes Strasser in a bloodless coup.
March 1996: Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, former United Nations Development Program official, elected president.
April 24, 1996: The new civilian government agrees to a truce with the RUF after talks in Ivory Coast. Talks on a permanent settlement open two weeks later in Ivory Coast. At that stage, fatalities since 1991 are estimated at 10,000.
November 30, 1996: Government of Ahmad Kabbah signs a peace agreement with the RUF. At this stage there are nearly one million displaced persons living in camps around Freetown.
May 1997: Major General Johnny Paul Koroma, already in prison on treason charges, and his Armed Forces Revolutionary Council depose Kabbah in a coup. Koroma abolishes political parties and invites the RUF to share power in Freetown. In July 1997 Koroma announces elections for a civilian government will be held in 4-1/2 years, in November 2001.
June 1997: The 16-member Economic Community of West African States, led by Nigeria, approves use of force to restore the Kabbah government. ECOMOG, already in neighboring Liberia, begins operations against the Koroma government.
October 1997: United Nations imposes economic sanctions on Sierra Leone to apply pressure to restore the elected President Kabbah.
February 1998: Peacekeeping troops organized by ECOMOG (see above) seize Freetown after an eight-day battle and restore Kabbah to power. Rebel troops retreat into the countryside, where they continue guerrilla warfare against the government. Subsequently the government prosecutes military leaders and some civilians for collaborating with the Koroma coup; two dozen soldiers are executed in October 1998.
May-July 1998: Reports surface that rebel troops driven from Freetown are conducting a campaign of terror in the countryside. Also in May, press reports say that the mercenary company Sandline International, a self-described "private military company," was paid $10 million to assist in restoring Kabbah to power, including shipping planeloads of weapons into Sierra Leone in violation of a UN arms embargo. In June, reports say 243,000 refugees have fled to camps in neighboring Liberia and Guinea. In July 1998 a report is published in Freetown alleging that RUF and AFRC rebels, in a campaign code-named "No Living Thing," are mutilating civilians to be sent as "messengers" to the government.
January 1999: RUF occupies parts of Freetown until ECOMOG troops drive them out, but not before the city is devastated and thousands are killed or wounded.
July 1999: President Kabbah and the RUF's Sankoh signed the Lome Peace agreement (named after Togo's capital, Lome, where talks were held). Sankoh becomes vice president and other RUF leaders are given government posts.
October 1999: Sankoh, with Koroma, return to Sierra Leone and meet President Kabbah. Sankoh goes on the radio to plead forgiveness. On October 18, U.S. Secretary of State visits Freetown and promises $55 million in aid and $65 million in debt forgiveness. On October 22, the Security Council votes to send 6,000 UN peace keepers to safeguard the July peace agreement.
May 2000: RUJ fighters take about 500 U.N. peace-keepers hostage when they try to take control of diamond mines controlled by the RUJ. Dozens of protesters outside Sankoh's house are shot and killed by members of RUF. Sankoh is arrested and other RUF members are fired from government jobs. Cease-fire ends as peace-keepers and pro-government forces rush to defend Freetown from RUF fighters moving on the capital to free Sankoh. RUF takes 500 peace-keepers with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) captive, releasing them gradually over the next several weeks as the combination of U.N. forces and Nigerian troops from ECOMOG regain control.
July 2000: The Security Council bans sale of diamonds, said to total tens of millions of dollars annually, sold by rebels who control 90% of Sierra Leone's diamond mines. (It was widely alleged that Liberian President Charles Taylor accepted diamonds as payment for arms from Sierra Leone rebels.)
January 2001: Liberian President Taylor announces he has ended support for RUF rebels. Taylor was long alleged to be a key arms supplier to RUF.
March-May 2001: Security council embargoes trade with Liberia in weapons and diamonds in an effort to cut off funds and arms to Sierra Leone rebels. Taylor ordered Liberia's border with Sierra Leone sealed. On May 16, the Sierra Leone government and rebels agreed to end hostilities and begin disarmament.
January 2002: President Kabbah declares the civil war officially over.
May 2002: Kabbah and his party win a landslide victory, including a majority in parliament.
March 2002: Sankoh of RUF is charged with war crimes in connection with RUF's conduct of the civil war. In July 2003 Sankoh dies of a stroke while awaiting trial.
October 2004: A Truth and Reconciliation Commission report (made public in 2005) blames the civil war on corrupt rule and recommends government reform. The government gives a non-committal response.
December 2005: U.N. peacekeeping forces leave Sierra Leone.
Bibliography
Francis, David J. "Mercenary Intervention in Sierra Leone: Providing National Security or International Exploitation?" Third World Quarterly. 20:2 (April 1999) 20p. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=1895473&site=isc-live
MacKay, Bruce M. "A View from the Trenches: The Special Court for Sierra Leone-The First Year." Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law. 35:2 (Spring 2003) 13p.
Okoth, P. Godfrey. "Building Peace in West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau." Journal of third World Studies. 21:2 (Fall 2004) 4p. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=16336916&site=isc-live
Zack-Williams, Alfred B. "Sierre Leone: The Political Economy of Civil War, 1991-98." Third World Quarterly. 20:1 (February 1999) 20p. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=1574260&site=isc-live