PLEASE CLICK LINK ABOVE AND LISTEN TO AUDIO VERSION OF THE SCRIPT BELOW . SEE ORIGINAL ARTICAL WITH PICTURES
Sierra Leone: Lasting Peace or a Cruel Mirage
Dallas L. Browne. History Behind the Headlines: The Origins of
Conflicts Worldwide, Vol. 4, 2002.
THE CONFLICT
In January 2002 after a decade of
civil war, peace was proclaimed in Sierra Leone and tens of thousands of
soldiers disarmed as the country awaited democratic elections in May. Grave
concerns remain, however, about the endurance of the fragile peace. At Sierra
Leone's borders with Liberia and Guinea, continued fighting threatens the weak
new government in Freetown.
Political
The rebel group that initiated the civil war, the RUF, was formed as a
result of its leader Foday Sankoh's training in revolutionary camps sponsored
by Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi. The arrest of Sankoh and disarmament of RUF
forces within Sierra Leone may not eliminate the rebellion if it is springing
from regional sources.
The war in Sierra Leone involves many other countries; peace
negotiations that apply only within the country may not hold.
libhe rebel RUF, under the peace accord, is transforming into a
political party. Since many of Sierra Leone's citizens have been terrorized by
this group, there is resentment that its leaders may be coming into power.
The UN and the government of Sierra Leone have agreed to set up a
small-scale international war crimes tribunal to try those most responsible for
atrocities in the civil war. Some of the people responsible for war crimes,
however, are in positions of power within Sierra Leone, and placing them on
trial may stir unrest.
Economic
Sierra Leone's economy collapsed during years of war and the nation was
rated as having the worst economic conditions in the world in 2001.
Sierra Leone's diamond mines have provided funds to a wide variety of
organized criminals, rogue governments, revolutionaries, guerrillas, terrorist
organizations, and illicit businessmen throughout the world. It is not in their
interest for peace to reign in Sierra Leone.
In January 2002 the government and
rebel leaders of Sierra Leone declared the end of the 10-year-old civil war in
that country. An estimated 47,000 combatants had turned in their weapons, some
of which were burned in a ceremonial bonfire outside the capital city of
Freetown. At the ceremony the president of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah,
pronounced: "Today we are happy that those flames of war are being
extinguished. I declare the war is over and the curfew lifted." He added,
"Go and enjoy yourselves."
Although apparently close at hand at
the beginning of 2002, peace is like a mirage for the people of Sierra Leone.
With warriors disarming, child soldiers being returned to their homes, and
rebel leaders agreeing to stop fighting and join in the democratic process,
everyone is hoping for an end to the war that has laid ruin to the land and
traumatized its people. But after the horrors that have consumed the country
since 1991 and the failure of several peace accords, it is difficult for many
observers to get past doubt that the violence will end.
Civil war broke out in an already
unstable Sierra Leone in 1991 when a group of rebels called the Revolutionary
United Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, rose up against the government. It is
believed that the group was supported by Liberian rebel (later president)
Charles Taylor. Although the RUF claimed to be fighting against a corrupt
administration, any original ideology quickly dissipated when the rebels
realized that Sierra Leone's greatest natural resource, its diamond mines,
could bring them wealth and power beyond their wildest dreams. By 1994 the RUF
occupied significant parts of Sierra Leone and had control of the diamond
mines.
The war that ensued was bloody and
atrocious, notorious for its widespread and gruesome use of children in the
military service on both sides. Child soldiers serving the RUF have been
trained to attack and mutilate civilians, simply as a message to the population
that their government cannot protect them. Not only the civilian population
suffered from these atrocities; the children who were trained to kill were
often subjected to terrible physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, and were
forced into drug and alcohol abuse. Many have grown to adulthood in this
environment and have never experienced peace.
Several peace accords have been
negotiated in Sierra Leone since 1991, only to fall through.Many former enemies
now live together in "peace villages." Yet displays of common purpose
during past peace negotiations have at times served to disguise efforts to
rearm and regroup for the next battle. It is rumored that many rebels have
turned in their guns during disarmament proceedings, only to use the US$300
they were given for obsolete weapons to buy newer and deadlier weapons for the
next round of fighting.
This kind of ambivalence has been
ever apparent. In June 2001, for example, during an intense firefight in the
RUF stronghold of Kailahun, an on-the-spot cease-fire was negotiated between
combatants on the front lines. They simply stopped fighting, claiming they were
war weary
MAP OF THE REGION INCLUDING SIERRA LEONE, GUINEA, AND LIBERIA. (The Gale
Group) after years of killing each other with no obvious result for either side.
On the other hand, when temporary peace has been achieved in the past, it has
not always been appreciated. Ex-combatants in the peace villages complained
about living in mud huts with thatched roofs, eating poor food, not having
money, and not having status. A teenager who was, until recently, a general or
colonel with his weapon at hand was "somebody," but today he is just
another "nobody" in a run-down camp. Unless the ex-rebels and
ex-government forces are given good educations and jobs, it is difficult to
imagine this shaky peace lasting.
Although there is new hope in 2002 as
the RUF disarms for peace, there is concern that the war in Sierra Leone has
become a regional war; the country's precious diamond mines have attracted many
other countries and revolutionary groups into the conflict. To establish
lasting peace not only local players from Sierra Leone, but regional players
from countries like Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Libya
must be involved in negotiations or at least discouraged from buying conflict
diamonds and supplying arms in exchange. The same is true of international
players from a variety of nations such as Israel, South Africa, Russia, and
Lebanon, and of terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, which has apparently been financing
terrorist operations through profits made by trading the diamonds mined by the
RUF in Sierra Leone.
The United Nations has its largest
peacekeeping force—more than 13,000 people—in Sierra Leone. UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Sierra Leone government announced in
January 2002 that they would establish a war crimes tribunal to try those most
responsible for atrocities. The tribunal will have a difficult and
controversial task, since many of those who should stand trial are still in
positions of political power and some are well-liked by the population. Indeed,
during peace negotiations, the government has promised to create a multiparty
system in which the RUF can participate as a political party rather than as a
guerrilla group. Providing amnesty for the rebels is bound to stir up animosity
from some of the victims of RUF abuse; prosecuting rebels, though, will also
undoubtedly ignite protest among the factions.
The Devastation
Sierra Leone has become a nightmarish
landscape over the past ten years. "No hiding place from terror, no safe
haven, no place to turn—that is how I would describe my country today—Sierra
Leone," said historian and professor Dr. Sylvia Ojukutu-Macauley in an
interview with the author. Sierra Leone has a population of 5,233,000 people.
Despite being diamond rich and possessing other valuable commodities, Sierra
Leone has the lowest per capita income in Africa. In fact, the United Nations
Human Development Index rated Sierra Leone dead last in per capita income,
health care, life expectancy, and educational levels in its July 2001 ratings
of 162 countries of the world. The average person there earns less than $0.20
per day. The infant mortality rate is an appalling 148.6 per thousand. Well
over half the population is under 14 years of age. Life expectancy is a mere
34.7 years. There is one doctor for every 11,000 people and most doctors live
in the capital, Freetown. They seldom venture into the bush or forests, where
most youth live, fight, and die. National health services have collapsed except
in Freetown.
The educational system in Sierra
Leone has virtually collapsed and the literacy rate has fallen to an all-time
low of 31.4 percent. It is little wonder that war is seen as a principal trade
for a young person. The only type of education readily available to children is
training in the use of guns, bombs, rape, maiming, and murder. In the absence
of alternatives, youth accept this nightmarish education and a way of life in
which power and social recognition come from the barrel of a gun.
Between 50,000 and 75,000 people have
died in Sierra Leone's civil war, largely in fights over the control of diamond
fields. More than 20,000 others have been mutilated in RUF attacks that have
left victims without hands, arms, feet, legs, ears, or lips. Two million people
were living as refugees in neighboring countries in the year 2000. Even with
the war officially at an end, hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean refugees
are afraid to go home.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The Temne lived on the coast of
Sierra Leone when the Portuguese arrived in the 1400s, the first Europeans to
contact Sierra Leone. During the sixteenth century, Europeans frequently traded
in Sierra Leone, bringing in cloth and metal goods and taking in exchange
ivory, timber, and sometimes slaves. At about the same time Mende-speaking
people from what is now Liberia migrated into Sierra Leone. They set up Sierra
Leone's Mende states and soon were equal in number to the Temne. At the end of
the seventeenth century, a British philanthropic company purchased land from
some chiefs, including what is now the capital city of Freetown. There they
established settlements for freed slaves. The first group arrived there in
1789. Almost all members of this group perished from disease or were killed by
the Temne and the Mende. More freed slaves came from Nova Scotia and then from
Jamaica by 1800. The purchased land became a British colony in 1808.
After abolishing the slave trade in
1807 the British began to patrol Africa's west coast, intercepting slave ships
and forcing them into Freetown. An estimated 50,000 freed slaves were brought
to Freetown in this manner and, although they came from all over Africa, many
remained in Sierra Leone, where they became known as Creoles or "Krios."
Most were Christian. They developed their own culture in Sierra Leone and
prospered through agriculture and trade, forming an elite class that met with
resentment from the indigenous groups.
For many years Europeans considered
Sierra Leone the educational center of West Africa. Protestant missionaries
established Fourah Bay College, a European-style university, there in 1827.
Freetown became the headquarters of the British governor who also ruled the
Gold Coast (Ghana) and the Gambia colonies. The entire country became a British
protectorate in 1896, and English was the official national language. Several
times during Sierra Leone's history as a British colony, the indigenous people
rebelled against the British and against the Krios, who dominated in economics and
politics, but the British were too powerful for them.
Transition to
Independence
By the 1950s Britain introduced
changes into the Sierra Leone government, allowing the people there more
political responsibility. Sierra Leone achieved independence from Britain
without violence in 1961. The country chose a parliamentary system, and Sir Milton
Margai, leader of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), was elected prime
minister. He died in 1964 and his brother Albert Margai succeeded him. Albert
initially attempted to set up a one-party system, but was so violently opposed
by the All Peoples Congress Party (APC) led by Siaka Stevens, he was forced to
give up on the idea. In 1967 the APC apparently won a contested election. After
this, Sierra Leone was cast into a series of coups d'etat. Stevens took office,
but within minutes he was overthrown. Just a few days later, there was another
coup, and the National Reform Council (NRC) took over. Several years later,
another coup returned Sierra Leone to its parliamentary government under the
rule of Siaka Stevens.
In April 1971 Sierra Leone became a republic;
Stevens became its president. When general elections were held under the new
constitution in 1973 there was so much violence that the opposition withdrew.
In 1978 Sierra Leone became a one-party state. Stevens managed to survive two
attempted coups and kept an iron grip on his power, forging and breaking
alliances as needed, and relying on the military to quell the many rebellions.
When Stevens stepped down in 1985, his choice for a successor was Major General
Joseph Saidu Momoh, who was then chosen as president under the one-party system
by the APC.
Unfortunately, Momoh was an inept
politician. Under his seven-year-rule, Sierra Leone's economy collapsed.
Corruption and mismanagement bankrupted the government. Unpaid civil servants
were reduced to stealing office furniture, typewriters, and light fixtures and
selling them to get money for food. In Freetown gas, electricity, and currency
were scarce. Schoolteachers were not paid and the education system collapsed.
Teachers demanded fees from parents to prepare students for examinations. Only
professional families could afford to pay schoolteachers, so many children were
on the streets without education, jobs, or hope. Many went to work in the
diamond fields, but most of them got cheated out of the fruits their labor.
For years Siaka Stevens and then
Joseph Momoh had smuggled diamonds out of Sierra Leone, along with hardwood and
fish. According to William Reno in Corruption and State Politics in Sierra
Leone, Stevens and Momoh used money from smuggled diamonds to buy rice from
abroad. This rice was shipped to political bosses who distributed it to rural
communities and urban constituencies in return for votes and political loyalty.
At this time many Krios and others from Sierra Leone's professional classes
used their political connections and influence to migrate to Europe and
America.
Without this critical brainpower
Sierra Leone slid from its place as a nation ahead of Malaysia and Singapore to
a nation that ranked lower than Somalia and Rwanda in per capita income.
Despite its gold, diamonds, bauxite, rutile, iron ore, fish, coffee, and cocoa,
Sierra Leone became desperately poor. The population grew increasingly
disgusted with their government as poverty gripped them. In the early 1990s
prodded by the increasing protest demonstrations, Momoh was establishing a new
constitution that would provide for a multiparty democracy in Sierra Leone. He
was a little too late.
The Revolutionary
United Front (RUF)
In the spring of 1991 a tiny group
called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) invaded eastern Sierra Leone,
announcing that it was going to launch an armed campaign to eliminate the
corrupt politics and elitism of Momoh's government. The leader of this group,
Foday Sankoh, was a charismatic man with a background of radicalism. As a
student dissident in the 1970s, Sankoh had joined forces with others in Sierra
Leone who wished to overthrow the corrupt government. He had been involved in a
failed coup against former president Siaka Stevens in 1971, which earned him
some time in prison. Upon release he was given a dishonorable discharge from
the army. He was later fired from his job as a TV cameraman and he became very
bitter.
In 1987 Sankoh went to Libya to join
the military training programs sponsored by Libya's leader, Muammar Qadhafi,
who hoped to initiate revolutionary movements throughout West Africa. While in
Libya, Sankoh became friendly with some of the leaders of Liberia's rebel
movement, the National Patriotic Front (NPFL). In 1990 Sankoh went to Liberia
to fight in the NPFL's brutal campaign against the government, and while there
he got to know the NPFL leader, Charles Taylor, who would become Liberia's
president in 1998. With Taylor's backing, Sankoh, by then in his fifties,
returned to Sierra Leone and recruited young people there to join his
Revolutionary United Front.
While in Libya Sankoh had been
trained, along with other Liberian, Sierra Leonean, and Guinean exiles, in
Muammar Qadhafi's insurgency techniques. Qadhafi introduced both Charles Taylor
and Foday Sankoh to his revolutionary theory, teaching them, among other
things, that politics and the control of a country should be in the hands of
youth. In recruiting soldiers, Sankoh used some of Qadhafi's theory to
PEOPLE FLEE FROM SIERRA LEONE, WHICH HAS BEEN DEVASTATED BY FIGHTING
BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT AND REBELS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY UNITED FRONT, WHO
TERRORIZED THE POPULATION. (© AFP/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.) proclaim against
the current Sierra Leonean government's patron-client relationships, which used
diamond riches to reward only those in the president's small network and
neglected the bulk of the nation. Unemployed Sierra Leonean youth with no
prospect of gaining an education under the official system rallied to this RUF
message of anger, and to promises of shared wealth in the future.
As the RUF entered Sierra Leone, the
public was unaware of the group's existence and unprepared for what was to
happen next. Rather than waging war against the army or the Sierra Leone
government, the band of young soldiers that comprised the RUF attacked
defenseless rural civil-ians—elderly men, women, and young children. In order
to prove that the government was powerless to help these rural civilians, the
RUF butchered them, murdering and raping and frequently using their trademark
atrocity of amputating limbs, particularly of children. Whatever ideals the
group may have started out with seem to have been quickly lost. The two
Libyan-trained dissidents who had accompanied Sankoh as he began his
insurrection became disturbed by the atrocities and tried to intervene. He had
them executed.
When Sankoh and his soldiers entered
a rural region, he ordered the killing of traditional elders and authority
figures in areas that fell under RUF control. All government officials were to
be killed, leaving no legitimate leaders to oppose the RUF and, in effect,
leaving villagers no alternative to RUF control.
Sankoh's Child
Soldiers
Sankoh's success in taking over
territory was attributable in large part to his management of his youthful
troops, many of whom were young children. His initial mission, to recruit an
army from among Sierra Leone's poor and alienated rural youth to overthrow the
corrupt, wealthy, and powerful elite in Freetown, had strong appeal to many.
Beyond that, though, Sankoh made powerful use of traditional culture,
incorporating it into his initiation ceremonies for new recruits. Most of his
recruits were from the Mende tribe. Sankoh used the Mende initiation ceremonies
associated with the "Poro" society for boys.
During a traditional initiation into
the Poro society, a boy meets the "bush devil" that seizes him and
abducts him from his mother. According to Paul Richards, in Fighting for the
Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone, the RUF convinced
youth that since state schools had collapsed, it was the role of the RUF to
step into the breach, forcibly abducting boys from their mothers and teaching
them how to become men. Villagers could in some way justify child abduction by
the RUF by likening it to the Poro initiation. In fact, what the rebels did was
introduce the children to what is now known as "kalashnikov culture,"
teaching them to use modern weapons, training them to become looters, military
strategists, and violent, ruthless killers.
The captives were vulnerable to their
abductors. Poverty and lack of available educational facilities meant that they
had little to hope for in their futures. And after capture, many suffered from
the "Stockholm Syndrome," a condition in which initially terrified
captives subsequently identify with their captors. The RUF captors knew what
they were doing. They would first treat the children with violent disrespect
and force them to commit unspeakable atrocities. Then the captors would
surprise their captives by being suddenly kind, respectful, and gentle with
them. The result was predictable. Sierra Leone's abducted children became loyal
to the very people who, in many instances, had forced them to kill their
parents or brothers and sisters. The RUF commanders became more or less
parental figures for these lost youth. Plied with drugs and alcohol, the child
soldiers were stuck inside a culture of violence.
It was not just the RUF that used
child soldiers, though. The Sierra Leone Army also used forced recruitment of
children. For example, a child soldier named Ismael Baeh, who was forcibly
recruited into Sierra Leone's army at age 14 described his recruitment like
this (as quoted in the Child Soldier Newsletter in 2001): "I either
had to join the Sierra Leone Army or to be killed—it was the only way to
survive and to be alive. First of all they gave me a brief training in how to
use a weapon…. the rebels were attacking where we were in the bush. I did not
shoot my gun at first—but when you looked around and saw your school-mates
younger than you, crying while they were dying, their blood spilling all over
you, there was no option but to start pulling the trigger."
A Civil War
The Sierra Leonean Army under Momoh's
regime was incompetent and could not clear the RUF from the diamond fields. In
1992, not long after the RUF first attacked, Sierra Leone Army officers
overthrew Momoh. Frustrated by unreliable pay, poor equipment, lack of adequate
training, and bad transportation, a group of young soldiers installed
27-year-old Captain Valentine Strasser as head of state. Composed of army
officers, Strasser's National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) took over Sierra
Leone. They promised to end corruption, improve living standards, and support
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank monetary reforms. The RUF
was not appeased, however, and continued to fight the new government. For a
time, Strasser's army kept the RUF in retreat in Liberia. Charles Taylor and
his rebel troops in Liberia, however, came to the support of the RUF,
perpetuating the war.
The familiar cycle of corruption,
mismanagement, and misappropriation of government funds
A WOMAN WHOSE HAND WAS CUT OFF BY REBEL FIGHTERS IN SIERRA LEONE FEEDS
HER CHILD. REVOLUTIONARY UNITED FRONT REBELS HAVE MADE A PRACTICE OF VICIOUS
ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS. (© AFP/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.) repeated itself
under Strasser. Optimism gave way to disappointment in Sierra Leone, and the
fighting continued. Some soldiers became so corrupt that they were known as sobels
or soldiers by day and rebels by night. Each unit claimed a part of the diamond
fields and protected its turf against everyone, including the government that
they were sworn to protect and defend. Meantime, the rebels were making headway
throughout the country and rapidly approaching Freetown.
As the rebels advanced and the Sierra
Leone Army was proving ineffective, Strasser began to rely heavily on Nigerian
troops that came to his aid. He also privatized national security by hiring a
South African firm known as Executive Outcomes to protect government-controlled
diamond fields. Executive Outcomes worked with a rural militia made up of
Mendes called the Kamajors. This militia, led by Hinga Norman, was one
of several that had formed to protect the people in the countryside, since
their government army was unable to help them—these came to be known as the
Civil Defense Forces (CDF). The Kamajors went on to become a powerful fighting
and political force. They were successful in hunting down and destroying RUF
units. In addition, Strasser tried
SIERRA LEONE'S PRESIDENT AHMED TEJAN KABBAH AND REVOLUTIONARY UNITED
FRONT LEADER FODAY SANKOH TALK DURING A DINNER AT PEACE TALKS IN LOMÉ, TOGO.
THE TWO SIDES SIGNED A TREATY IN JUNE 1998 IN AN EFFORT TO BRING PEACE TO THE
COUNTRY. (A/P Wide World. Reproduced by permission.) to fortify the army
with unemployed youth who were rapidly recruited to swell the regular army's
ranks, but being poorly trained they were ineffective. The mercenary soldiers
that were called in performed well and drove back the RUF, but they demanded
such exorbitant payment that a scandal surfaced that brought down Strasser.
A Coup, an
Election, and Another Coup
In the mid-1990s civil society
leaders demanded that Strasser organize elections and step down immediately.
Strasser initiated the elections, but declared himself a presidential
candidate. At 30 years old he was ten years too young to run as a presidential
candidate under the Sierra Leone Constitution. His defense minister, Brigadier
General Julius Maada Bio, overthrew him, and Strasser fled to Guinea. Bio then
negotiated a settlement with the RUF and proceeded with national elections.
Chairman of the National Advisory Council Ahmed Tejah Kabbah, a Mende representing
the Sierra Leone Peoples Party, was elected in a highly tainted contest plagued
by many irregularities, not the least of which was intimidation by the rebel
troops. Since the RUF did not want the elections to go through, they used their
most vicious tactics—notably cutting off people's hands—to deter them from
voting. Kabbah won and was sworn in anyway, and on March 29, 1996, Maada Bio
handed power to him.
In November of that year the RUF and
Kabbah's government signed a peace agreement called the Abidjan Accord. The
agreement provided for demobilization and for the transformation of the RUF
into a political party. Within a couple of months Sankoh was arrested in
Nigeria. The RUF struggled over choosing a new leader, and the peace accord
collapsed when fierce fighting once again erupted.
Kabbah lasted in office only fourteen
months. On May 25, 1997, a soldier named Johnny Paul Koroma, heading the Armed
Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), overthrew the president. Koroma was just
out of jail for his part in a 1996 coup attempt, and he quickly formed a
military junta to rule Sierra Leone along with his RUF allies. President Kabbah
was evacuated to Guinea, along with 200,000 Sierra Leoneans.
Violent Years under
AFRC/RUF Rule
Under Koroma, Sierra Leone ousted
Israeli and South African private security firms that had been central in the
government's defense. The AFRC then suspended Sierra Leone's constitution and
formed an alliance with the RUF, bringing chaos to the country. The RUF and the
AFRC ravaged Freetown. At that point, Nigeria's dictator, Soni Abacha, with
support from the United States and Britain, sent Nigerian troops into Sierra
Leone, forming the backbone of the Economic Community of West African States
Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) force.
The RUF demanded recognition as a
legitimate government with the right to rule Sierra Leone and to control its
resources. No government on earth recognized the RUF/AFRC government. It was a
rogue state, a pariah. President Kabbah's government in exile held the distinction
of being legitimate to most of the world. Britain, the United States, and the
international community pressed for Kabbah's restoration to power. Nigeria,
Ghana, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) agreed and
kept a regional peacekeeping force in the area to remove Foday Sankoh and the
army junta and restore power to President Kabbah. In Sierra Leone new movements
arose in opposition to the brutal junta, notably the Movement for the
Restoration of Democracy. More civil defense forces emerged as the violent
junta became increasingly unpopular.
Battles in Freetown
In February 1998 the ECOMOG forces
under Nigerian command stormed Freetown in an offensive against the RUF/AFRC
forces, trying to get the junta out of the capital. In the terrible fighting
that ensued, the RUF/AFRC soldiers carried out many atrocities, increasing
their practice of cutting off the limbs of civilians, and burning and looting
the city as they retreated. ECOMOG, with the help of the civilian militia
groups, was finally able to force the RUF/AFRC troops out of Freetown, and in
March President Kabbah was brought back into the capital. His rule, though, did
not cover much beyond Freetown. In the ensuing fights around the country the
rebels terrorized wherever they fought, destroying towns and villages in their
path. Thousands of Sierra Leone's civilians fled to neighboring countries. The
RUF secured solid bases in Koindu, Kailahun, and the Kono District's diamond
mines by the end of that year. ECOMOG could not keep up with the rebels, and
accused neighboring countries, particularly Liberia, of sending in troops to
reinforce them.
By December 1998 the RUF had captured
several key towns and villages within miles of Freetown. With Sankoh under
arrest, RUF commander Sam "Maskita" Bockarie (often called
"Mosquito") was taking the lead. He demanded that the government
negotiate with him or he would attack Freetown. On the morning of January 6,
1999, the RUF entered the city to carry out "Operation No Living
Thing." For several weeks, the hundreds of thousands of city residents
were caught in a nightmare in which rebel soldiers raped, murdered, and
mutilated residents, and burned down whole neighborhoods.
The city was for the most part
without food, water, telephones, or electricity. When the rebels fought with
ECOMOG soldiers, they often forced residents to serve as human shields.
According to Ron Mitchell in Sojourners more than 5,000 people were
killed in this attack alone [other estimates run as high as 7,000], 150,000 became
homeless, 2,000 children were abducted by the rebels, and a significant number
of aid workers, journalists, and businesspeople were abducted and later
murdered. The majority of eastern Freetown's buildings were in ruins after the
attack, some of them burned with people locked inside.
The children who, for the most part,
carried out this operation had been fed a steady diet of cocaine, marijuana,
free sex, and violence. They were on an insane rampage in Freetown. War
correspondent Sebastian Junger in Fire described the battle for Freetown
as follows: "It does not get any worse than January 6, 1999. Teenage
soldiers out of their minds on drugs, rounded up entire neighborhoods and
machine-gunned them or burned them alive in their homes…. They killed people
who refused to give them money, or people who didn't give them enough money, or
people who looked at them wrong…. They…. had been fight ing since they were
eight or nine, some of them, and sported names such as Colonel Bloodshed,
Commander Cut Hands, Superman, Mr. Die, and Captain Backblast."
The Lome Accord of
1999
By March Freetown was back in the
hands of ECOMOG, and President Kabbah was convinced that he needed to negotiate
peace, because military solutions could not hold back the RUF. In May 1999 U.S.
Special Envoy Jesse Jackson, who had already formed a relationship with
Liberian President Charles Taylor, put together a cease-fire, urging the Sierra
Leone government to come to terms with the rebels. Kabbah signed the cease-fire
agreement with the RUF in May. On July 7, 1999, the Lome Peace Accord was
signed. The accord awarded a blanket amnesty for rebels, allowing the RUF to
transform from a lawless guerrilla group to a legitimate political party within
the Sierra Leone government.
In October Foday Sankoh and Johnny
Koroma were brought back to Freetown. Under the accord, Kabbah was to preside
over a transitional government in which the rebels would hold key posts until
elections could be organized in 2001. Foday Sankoh was given the position of
vice president in charge of the national minerals resources commission. Four
other cabinet positions were given to RUF leaders. The blanket amnesty of the
Lome Accord was controversial. Sankoh, responsible for countless deaths and
atrocities, was awarded not only amnesty, but also a high government office
without standing for election. To most people, giving him the post of
overseeing diamond production was equivalent to letting a wolf guard the
chickens.
The Lome Accord set a December 1999
deadline for disarmament. The deadline came and went and only a small
percentage of combatants had turned in their weapons. Well into the year 2000,
the peace in Sierra Leone was tense, with outbreaks of new violence and
atrocities erupting regularly.
The Abduction of
the UN Peacekeepers
The United Nations Observer Mission
to Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) began arriving in the country at the end of 1999 to
help with the disarmament. The peacekeeping troops in Sierra Leone would soon
number around 11,000, but there were major delays in getting there. Great
portions of the country remained under rebel control and neither the UN
peacekeepers nor the ECOMOG troops were under a mandate to stop the violence.
No matter what Sankoh had agreed to, there were now thousands of RUF youths in
control of the eastern diamond-mining zone. They had no interest in disarming.
Everyone feared sparking another battle and the civilian population was waiting
out the upcoming elections in hopes that they would resolve lingering tensions.
But on May 3, 2000, those hopes were shattered when RUF soldiers took 500
UNAMSIL peacekeepers hostage.
Britain sent in its marines to save
the UN peacekeepers. Although all hostages were released by the rebels within
three weeks, the abduction of the peacekeepers was the end of conciliation.
Angry citizens mobbed Sankoh's home in Freetown, dragging him out and parading
him around the city bloody and naked, until the authorities brought him into
custody. UNAMSIL sent in more troops, more than 13,000, the largest
peace-keeping mission in the world. Britain left its forces in Sierra Leone
after its rescue mission and since then has taken a leading role in league with
UNAMSIL to create an effective Sierra Leone army and a democratic government.
The Liberian
Connection: Charles Taylor
After the arrest of Sankoh, the RUF,
led by General Issa Sesay, held on to the diamond mines and with them
maintained significant control. Despite international efforts, a tremendous
diamond mining and smuggling business under the RUF continued to exist well
into 2001. Many of the children the rebels abducted as soldiers were put to
work as miners. It is believed that the RUF sold the diamonds to smugglers at a
discount, bringing in millions of dollars and supplying the rebels with arms.
It became apparent in a UN
investigation that Charles Taylor, by then the established president of
Liberia, and President Campaore of Burkina Faso, were supporting and supplying
the RUF and were involved in the illicit diamond trade. A UN panel reported:
"unequivocal and overwhelming evidence that Liberia has been actively
supporting the [RUF] at all levels, in providing training, weapons and related
materiel, logistical support, a staging ground for attacks and a safe haven for
retreat and recuperation, and for public relations activities." The panel
recommended an embargo on all diamonds and timber coming out of Liberia, as
well as an air and travel ban for Taylor and his regime. The UN imposed some of
these sanctions—a ban on diamond sales and travel by senior officials—on Liberia
on May 7, 2001. There are many observers of the war who believe that Charles
Taylor is, and has always been, the real leader of the insurrection in Sierra
Leone.
On May 15, 2001, the Sierra Leone
government and the rebels once again agreed to stop fighting and began to
disarm. On May 25, 2001, 424 child soldiers were released in the town of
Makeni, Sierra Leone, raising the number the RUF had released to more than
1,000. Many of the children were destined for camps and humanitarian programs
sponsored by organizations such as UNICEF and Save the Children, where it is
hoped they will get help in the long and difficult process of rehabilitation.
British troops were at work training the government army troops. By the
beginning of 2002, disarmament was complete. This time there was no blanket
amnesty.
The UN and the government of Sierra
Leone agreed to a military war crimes tribunal to try
UN EMPLOYEES AND BRITISH CITIZENS ARE EVACUATED FROM FREETOWN, SIERRA
LEONE. REBEL FORCES OVERTOOK THE CITY AND TOOK 500 UN TROOPS HOSTAGE IN MAY
2000. (© AFP/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.) those "most
responsible" for the atrocities of the war since November 30, 1996, the
date of the failed Abidjan peace agreement between the RUF and the government.
Foday Sankoh will almost surely be tried for his part in war crimes.
Nevertheless, the RUF still exists and is once again preparing to change from a
military organization to a political party. Many of its members still call for
the release of Foday Sankoh from prison.
RECENT HISTORY AND THE FUTURE
Free, multiparty elections are to be
held in Sierra Leone in May 2002 and UNAMSIL has received a mandate to help
organize and monitor them. During 2001 the RUF changed to the RUFP
(Revolutionary United Front Party). Although during peace negotiations the RUF
urged a power-sharing interim government, it was not granted. They are not
popular among the many people they have terrorized. Election results may not be
pleasing to them, and they have undoubtedly stored up arms in preparation for
this.
With the huge UN peacekeeping force
in place in Sierra Leone and billions of dollars coming in from all over the
world, the prospects for peace are better than they have been in years. But
many fear that the expenses of keeping peace in Sierra Leone have prompted too
much international optimism. If the money and peacekeepers are withdrawn,
trouble could quickly resume.
The year the rebellion began in
Sierra Leone also marked the end of the cold war. When the cold war ended so
did most foreign aid. Without aid, many of the state's institutions have
collapsed, leaving an open door for opportunists who don't hesitate to use
violence to take power. Thus, for the past ten years Sierra Leone has drifted
from battle to battle. Peace for both the government and opposition groups has
been regarded as an opportunity to recruit fresh forces, to rearm, and to
reposition. Violence has been seen as a necessity for control of business and
resources.
To many theorists, war as it has been
undertaken in Sierra Leone is an extension of business. For the past decade in
Sierra Leone war has been the nation's dominant activity, around which have
grown many thriving businesses—most illegal and many profiting other nations,
while Sierra Leoneans are impoverished. Paul Richards, in his book Fighting
for the Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone, believes that
this new Sierra Leonean model of war and peace, which he calls the "New
Barbarism," is cultural. Those who have been left behind as the country
collapses reorganize themselves into warlord groups in order to gain power,
social recognition, and access to and control over resources. The two biggest
issues facing the young population of Sierra Leone are education and jobs. With
legitimate employment unavailable to them, many turned to warlords and violence
to insure their survival and their livelihood.
In the last decade the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund have imposed "structural adjustment
programs." These forced Sierra Leone to reduce the cost of government,
leading to dramatic cutbacks in education and social service programs. Forced
austerity measures also caused the government to reduce its armed forces,
another source of employment for young people. The World Bank may have
unwittingly become the RUF's ally in this way.
Cultures of violence evolve to fill
power vacuums. Cultural clashes, environmental breakdown, overpopulation, and
resource competition can provoke uncontrollable armed conflicts. Many of these
conflicts are anarchic disputes that resemble banditry and criminal behavior
more than they resemble political competition. Since terrorists attacked U.S.
targets on September 11, 2001, many Americans are responding more attentively
to the deep-rooted problems around the world. The United States's post-cold war
foreign policy often sought insulation from foreign ethnic conflicts and weak
governments threatened by collapse. But we now must wonder if these could be
the forces that create and nurture future terrorists. It has become apparent
that unless weak states receive help, they will provide fertile ground for the
violent new cultures of the future.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adedeji, Adebayo, ed. Comprehending
and Mastering African Conflicts: The Search for Sustainable Peace and Good
Governance. London: Zed Books, 1999.
Ayissi, Anatole, ed. Bound to
Cooperate: Conflict, Peace, and People in Sierra Leone. New York: United
Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2000.
Bangura, Yusuf. "Strategic
Policy Failure and Governance in Sierra Leone," Journal of Modern
African Studies. Volume 38, Number 4, 2000, pp. 551-57.
Bayart, J. K. The State in Africa:
The Politics of the Belly.London: Longman, 1993.
Bender, David. Urban Terrorism.
San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.
Blunt, Elizabeth. "The Guinea
Conflict Explained." BBC News. February 13, 2001. Available online at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1167000/1167811.stm (cited
January 22, 2002).
Bolton, John. "United States
Policy on United Nations Peacekeeping: Case Studies in the Congo, Sierra Leone,
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kosovo, and East Timor," World Affairs.Volume
163, Number 3: winter, 2001, pp. 129-147.
Campbell, Greg. "Peace at Last
in Sierra Leone?" Christian Science Monitor. Volume 93, Issue 160,
July 13, 2001, p. 6.
Chabal, Patrick, and Jean-Pascal
Daloz. Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1999.
Chiahemen, John. "Sierra Leone
Rebel Leaders Return Home," http://Time.com, October 4, 1999. Available
online at http://www.time.com/time/daily/latest/RB/1999Oct04/83.html(cited
January 21, 2002).
Child Soldiers
Newsletter. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, September 2001.
Available online at http://www.child-soldiers.org/(cited January
25, 2002).
Clarke, Michael. "Trouble
Shooting for Peace," World Today. Volume 56, Number 6, June 2000,
pp. 4-6.
Clausewitz, C. von. On War.
Translated by J. J. Graham.Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1968.
"Crisis in Sierra Leone"
BBC News. January 16, 2002. Available online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/africa/2000/sierra_leone/default.stm.
Davidson, Basil. The Black Man's
Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation State. London: James Currey,
1992.
Douglas, Mary, and A. Wildavsky. Risk
and Culture.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982.
Doyle, Mark. "Refugees Flee
Liberia Shooting." BBC News. January 27, 2002. [Cited 1-22-02]. Available
online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1785000/1785876.stm
(cited January 22, 2002).
Fanthrope, Richard. "Neither
Citizen nor Subject? 'Lumpen' Agency and the Legacy of Native Administration in
Sierra Leone." African Affairs. Volume 100, Number 400, July 2001,
pp. 363-86.
Farah, Douglas. "An 'Axis'
Connected to Gaddafi: Leaders Trained in Libya Have Used War to Safeguard
Wealth." Washington Post. November 2, 2001, p. A-22.
Francis, David. "Mercenary Intervention
in Sierra Leone: Providing National Security of International
Exploitation?" Third World Quarterly. Volume 20, Number 2, April
1999, pp. 319-338.
Furley, O. "Child Soldiers in
Africa." In O. Furley, ed. Conflict in Africa. London: Tauris,
1995.
Goodwin-Gill, G., and I. Cohn. Child
Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflicts. Oxford: Claredon Press,
1994.
Hirsch, John. Sierra Leone:
Diamonds and the Struggle for Democracy. London: Lynne Rienner, 2000.
Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of
Civilizations: The Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster,
1996.
Sierra Leone. Available online at http://free.freespeech.org/isierra-leone/civilwar/main.htm
(cited January 22, 2002).
Junger, Sebastian. Fire. New
York: W.W. Norton, 2001.
Kaplan, Robert. Balkan Ghosts: A
Journey Through History.London: Macmillan, 1993.
Kaplan, Robert. "The Coming
Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, and Disease Are Rapidly
Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet." Atlantic Monthly.
February, 1994, pp. 44-76.
Kpundeh, S. J. Politics and
Corruption in Africa: A Case Study of Sierra Leone. Lanham: University
Press of America, 1995.
Machel, Graça. Impact of Armed Conflict
on Children. New York: United Nations, 1996. Available online at http://www.unicef.org/graca/(cited
January 22, 2002).
Mitchell, Ron. "Why Kosovo and
Not Sierra Leone?" Sojourners, Sojo Net. Available online at http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/sojourners/issue/soj9907/article/990741c.html
(cited January 2002).
Onishi, Norimitsu. "In Sierra
Leone, War's Iron Grip Slowly Loosens," New York Times, May 26,
2001, pp. A-1, A-3.
Personal interview with Dr. Sylvia
Ojukutu-Macauley, conducted by Dallas L. Browne, September 2001 at the
University of Missouri, St. Louis Alumni House.
Ramsey, F. Jeffress, ed. Global
Studies Africa ninth ed. Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2001.
Reno, William. Corruption and
State Politics in Sierra Leone.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
——Warlord Politics and African
States. London: Lynne Rienner, 1998.
——"The Failure of Peacekeeping
in Sierra Leone," Current History. Volume 100, Number 646, May
2001, pp. 219-225.
Richards, Paul. Fighting for the
Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone. Portsmouth:
Heinemann, 1996.
Rutsch, Horst. "Peacewatch:
Sierra Leone." United Nations Chronicle. Volume 38, Number 2,
June-August, 2001, pp. 74-75.
"Sierra Leone and Liberia,"
Global Policy Forum, UNSecurity Council. Available online at http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/slindex.htm
(cited January 22, 2002).
Smillie, Ian, Lansana Gberie, and
Ralph Hazleton. "The Heart of the Matter: Sierra Leone, Diamonds and Human
Security," Partnership Africa Canada. Available online at http://www.sierra-leone.org/heartmatter.html
(cited January 20, 2002).
United States Congress, House
Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Africa. Sierra Leone,
Prospects for Peace and Stability: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa.
Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. Serial Number 106-26.
March 23, 1999.
Wyse, Akintola. Search Light on
the Krio of Sierra Leone.Freetown: Institute of African Studies, 1980.
——Krio of Sierra Leone: An
Interpretive History. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1991.
Zack-Williams, Alfred. "Sierra
Leone: The Political Economy of Civil War, 1991-98." Third World
Quarterly. Volume 20, Number 1, February 1999, pp. 143-62.
Dallas L. Browne
CHRONOLOGY
1991 The Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) invadesSierra Leone, causing more than one million people to
flee from their homes.
1992 In a military
coup, 27-year-old Captain ValentineStrasser overthrows President Joseph Momoh.
1996 Sierra Leone has
its first multiparty elections since1967. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah is elected.
March 29, 1996 Kabbah takes
office as president ofSierra Leone.
November 1996 The Abidjan Accord
is signed by theSierra Leone government and the RUF. It provides for
demobilization and for the transformation of the RUF into a political party.
Within a couple of months, however, fighting resumes.
May 25, 1997 Johnny Paul Koroma
and his ArmedForces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) overthrow President Kabbah in
a military coup. The AFRC then allies with the RUF.
July 19, 1997 Charles Taylor
wins the presidential elections in Liberia.
March 1998 ECOMOG, a West
African InterventionForce led by Nigerian troops, storms Freetown; President
Kabbah is restored to power.
January 6, 1999 The RUF stage an
attack on Freetown known as "Operation No Living Thing," killing more
than 6,000 people and committing unspeakable atrocities on the residents of the
city.
March 1999 ECOMOG regains
control of Freetown.
May 1999 Kabbah and the RUF
sign a cease-fire agreement.
July 7, 1999 The Lome Peace
Accord is signed. The accord awards blanket amnesty for rebels, allowing the
RUF to transform into a legitimate political party within the Sierra Leone
government.
December 1999 The deadline for
disarmament under the Lome Accord comes and goes and only a small percentage of
fighters disarm. Violence continues as UN peacekeepers (UNAMSIL) begin to
arrive to help with disarmament.
May 3, 2000 The RUF captures
500 UNAMSIL peace-keepers.
May 28, 2000 The RUF releases
the last of the UN peace-keepers in Liberia, after the British marines arrive.
May 7, 2001 The UN imposes
sanctions on Liberia—a ban on diamond sales and travel by senior officials.
May 15, 2001 A new peace accord
is signed byRevolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, the civil defense forces,
and the Sierra Leone government.
May 25, 2001 Hundreds of child
soldiers are released in the town of Makeni, Sierra Leone, by the RUF as
disarmament begins.
January 18, 2002 The government and
rebel leaders ofSierra Leone declare the end of the 10-year-old civil war in
that country as disarmament is complete. Weapons are burned at a ceremonial
bonfire outside Freetown.
TROUBLE IN LIBERIA, 1980-2000
In 1980, during
widespread food price riots in Liberia, a group of military officers led by
Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe carried out a coup d'etat in Liberia, killing its
president, William R. Tolbert, and publicly executing 13 leading officials of
his government. Doe, elected president in 1985, ran a corrupt and violent
regime, and Liberia grew increasingly unstable. One of Doe's advisors was
Charles Ghankay Taylor, who returned to his native Liberia from the United
States to work in Doe's regime. But within three years, Taylor was accused of
embezzling $900,000 from the government and fled to Boston to escape prison.
The United States tried to extradite him, but he again escaped, making his way
to Côte d'Ivoire.
Back in Africa,
Taylor began to organize an insurrection, becoming the leader of the National
Patriotic Liberation Front (NPLF). In December 1989 he led a military offensive
against Doe's government in the mineral-rich area at the border of Liberia,
Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Côte d'Ivoire. The war was vicious, and many local
people fled across the border into Guinea, starting a refugee crisis there that
remains today.
By 1990 there was a
split in the NPLF. A rival group formed under the leadership of Prince Yormie
Johnson. Johnson and his troops captured Doe and gruesomely tortured and
mutilated him to death on videotape. Although both Johnson and Taylor
proclaimed themselves president of Liberia upon Doe's death, a transitional
government was formed with Amos Sawyer, a moderate academic, at its head.
Liberia was to be
in a state of war for the next seven years. More than 250,000 people died in
this war; at least half a million became refugees. Taylor repeatedly agreed to
peace accords and then violated the terms. Taylor's NPLF fought ECOMOG troops,
the Armed Forces of Liberia, and the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for
Democracy (ULIMO). The country began to collapse under the economic and social
toll of the violent war. Guinea, one of the founding members of ECOWAS,
permitted ULIMO and the growing opposition to Charles Taylor to organize within
its borders.
Gradually Taylor
and the NPLF gained control of the country's infrastructure—transportation,
banks, businesses. By 1995 he was Liberia's de facto leader. Taylor was
feared as a brutal warlord, but in 1997 he won the presidential elections,
promising to provide a strong and modern government and get the economy back on
track. But five years after his election, the population of Liberia was still
living in harsh conditions. The economy has not been revived, and many of the
nation's institutions remain in shambles. Taylor's government has been accused
of serious human rights abuses. Government security forces have beaten, tortured,
and murdered insurgents and political enemies, and they have looted and raped
civilians. Taylor has been accused of fueling the war in Sierra Leone and of
possible involvement with terrorist groups. His government has been accused of
discriminating against certain ethnic groups, of allowing child labor, and much
more. The UN placed sanctions on Taylor and his government in 2001
In Liberia in 2002
there was great unrest. Guinea has continued to support ULIMO and another group
of insurgents called Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, who
oppose Taylor's government. Taylor has sent military units to the border in
response. Liberia, in turn, has sheltered Guinean insurgents. RUF commander Sam
Bockarie crossed over into Guinea with a large RUF force to help reinforce
Taylor's fighters there. There are many other rebel and militia groups at the
borders of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, and when battles erupt it is not
always certain who is fighting whom or why. The hundreds of thousands of
refugees in camps at the borders have been hit the hardest, and rescue efforts
have been in place in 2001 and 2002 to remove them from the border area, where
not only rebels and soldiers, but also the neighboring civilians have been
known to attack them.
Tensions between
Taylor and Guinean President Lansana Conte have been so bitter that even Taylor
agreed to put West African monitoring forces at the borders. According to BBC
African analyst Elizabeth Blunt, international alarm about the conflict has led
some to theorize that Charles Taylor, with the backing of Burkina Faso, Côte
d'Ivoire, Libya, and perhaps even France, is attempting to reorder West Africa,
wresting power from the English-speaking countries and reducing American
influence. Whether there is merit to the theory, Sierra Leone, with its weak
new government, is in grave jeopardy of a coup or a new outbreak of war because
of the ongoing conflicts between Liberia and Guinea at its borders.
THE DIAMONDS AND INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT
Diamond mines were
discovered in Sierra Leone in 1930, and the country's diamonds quickly became
known for their high quality as well as their abundance. In 1935 the huge
international diamond trading company, De Beers, received exclusive mining and
prospecting rights over the entire country for 99 years, but it was clear a
decade later that they could not enforce these rights. In the early 1950s a
diamond rush hit Sierra Leone; many countries became involved in smuggling,
using Liberia as a diamond route. Diamond traders from all over the world
opened offices in Monrovia. Even De Beers, foreseeing the inevitable, set up an
office there not long before the colonial government took away its exclusive
rights to the diamond mines. Israeli, Lebanese, Russian, and Italian organized
crime got into the action.
Liberia had been
heavily involved in Sierra Leone's diamonds since the beginning, but once the
RUF started its rebellion in 1991, Liberia's forces had an official connection.
Ian Smillie, Lansana Gberie, Ralph Hazleton, in their Partnership Africa Canada
(PAC) report, conclude:
By the end of the
1990s Liberia had become a major center for massive diamond-related criminal
activity, with connections to guns, drugs and money laundering throughout
Africa and considerably further afield. In return for weapons it provided the
RUF with an outlet for diamonds, and has done the same for other diamond
producing countries, fueling war and providing a safe haven for organized crime
of all sorts.
The
multibillion-dollar business of smuggling and trading "conflict
diamonds" or "dirty diamonds" in exchange for small arms is
vastly complex and involves people and institutions worldwide. One example of a
diamonds-for-guns trader was a Ukrainian businessman named Leonid Minin,
arrested by the Italian police on June 21, 2001, for supplying arms to the RUF
through front businesses in Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Liberia. Italian
court records show that Minin supplied the RUF with huge supplies of AK-47's,
rocket launchers, self-propelled grenades, and anti-aircraft guns.
Minin and a Spanish
associate operated companies registered in Milan, Italy, with headquarters in
Monrovia, which shipped weapons to Liberia and from there to the RUF in eastern
Sierra Leone.
During the Cold War
the former Soviet Union flooded Africa with weapons. Consequently many African
warlords possess Soviet-made weapons and prefer to buy ammunition and
additional weapons that are compatible with current arsenals. The Moscow-based
company Avia Trend supplies BAC-111s to fly weapons from Bulgaria via Ibiza,
Spain, to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Leonid Minin paid for these shipments through
Swiss and Cypriot banks, according to records found by Italian police when they
raided his Milan apartment. Diamonds worth hundreds of millions of dollars were
found in Minin's apartment in Milan. It is clear from the records recovered
from his apartment that his principal business partners included Charles
Taylor, president of Liberia and Blaise Compaore, president of Burkina Faso.
Other well-known
arms merchants have also been found to supply the RUF, and are paid in conflict
diamonds. These dealers routinely break UN sanctions against supplying the
rebels with weapons. Exotic, high-cost hardwoods are also used in payment for
illegally supplied weapons to the RUF.
In 2001
international sanctions made it harder to sell conflict diamonds. Travel
restrictions on Taylor and his cabinet made it hard for them to travel to
Europe or elsewhere to put together arms for diamonds deals, which once
enriched Taylor and the RUF. Sanctions were effective in smothering the arms
trade and forcing combatants to make peace, like it or not. Thus, to the extent
that the Taylor regime can no longer support RUF rebels with weapons, prospects
for peace look bright. But, realizing how dependent they are on Taylor's
success, some RUF commanders have crossed over into Liberia, where they are
fighting anti-Taylor groups. They fear that if Taylor loses power an anti-RUF
president will forever cut off their weapons supply.
COPYRIGHT 2000-2002 Gale, COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale, Cengage Learning
Source Citation:
Browne, Dallas L. "Sierra Leone: Lasting Peace or a Cruel
Mirage." History Behind the Headlines: The Origins of Conflicts
Worldwide. Ed. Sonia G. Benson, Nancy Matuszak, and Meghan Appel O'Meara.
Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 2002. 263-277. Global Issues In Context. Web. 1
June 2012.
Document URL
http://find.galegroup.com/gic/infomark.do?&source=gale&idigest=619cc97d40326802b25b175f99cf1e19&prodId=GIC&userGroupName=dist214&tabID=T001&docId=CX3410600156&type=retrieve&contentSet=EBKS&version=1.0
http://find.galegroup.com/gic/infomark.do?&source=gale&idigest=619cc97d40326802b25b175f99cf1e19&prodId=GIC&userGroupName=dist214&tabID=T001&docId=CX3410600156&type=retrieve&contentSet=EBKS&version=1.0
Gale Document Number:CX3410600156
