Introduction
The Sierra Leonean fight for independence, which lasted from 1991 to 2002, is one of the most important instances of civil war in recent African history( Zulu et al. 1104). [1]It was not only a gruesome concept of geopolitical tension in the Black Continent, but it was also an event that influenced the practice change of global reaction to resolving conflicts. This paper will critically examine the source of the situation, offering a greater perspective on the principal and subsidiary parties engaged and the current energy balances while also considering the influencing factors. A study of the global response to the Sierra Leonean military conflict will be presented in the second portion of the research to illustrate the success of the worldwide group’s initiatives and the valuable lessons. The technique will be analytical to highlight the relationship between the severity of the dispute and the success of multilateral responses in the ancient and modern.
Background
History of the war
From 1991 until 2002, there was a military war in the Sierra Leone of West Africa ( Zulu et al.,1116). [2]The Rebel Groups Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, tried to oust President Joseph Momah’s Sierra Leone administration on 23 March 1991, with the help of Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor and his party, the National Patriotic Across from Liberia (NFPL). In a country of over five million citizens, the Sierra Leone American Revolution has been one of the deadliest in Africa, with more than 50,000 men murdered and half a million homeless. Because both the Sierra Leone administration and RUF were frequently funded by “blood diamonds” produced using slave workers, the fight was unusually lengthy and vicious
The RUF grabbed command of the diamond-rich areas in southern and Eastern Sierra Leone within the first year of military war. [3]President Joseph Momah was deposed on 29 April 1992 in a violent takeover named captain Valentine Strasser, who established the(NPRC) National Provisional Ruling Council According to Strasser, the corrupt Momah was unable to resurrect the economy, meet the needs people of Sierra Leone, and fight the invading rebels.
The Economics Profession of West African States Advisory Board (ECOMOG) dispatched largely Nigerian personnel to Freetown, the metropolis, in March 1993 to help the Sierra Leone military win back the diamond regions and drive the RUF to the Sierra Leone-Liberia boundary. Some observers had suggested the battle was over by 1993 when the RUF discontinued most of its bombing campaigns. The Sierra Leone state was backed by ECOMOG, the Guinea, United Kingdom, and the U.s., while the RUF was aided by (under Charles Taylor’s leadership) Liberia Burkina Faso, and Libya.
The Sierra Leone administration engaged Executive Outcomes (E.O.), a mercenary company based in South Africa, to ultimately destroy the RUF in March 1995. ( Zulu et al. 1117) Nevertheless, in March 1996, Sierra Leone voted for democracy, and the fleeing RUF negotiated the Abidjan Peace Accord, bringing the conflict to a close.[4] However, in 1997, the May Sierra Leone Military personnel band launched a coup and declared the National Army Republican Council (AFRC) to be the nation’s economic new administration. They encouraged the RUF to join together, and the two forces now dominate the nation’s capital, Freetown, with minimal opposition.
The war started over by Johnny Paul Koroma’s national regime. (Johnson,1120) However, theft, murder, and rape largely by RUF forces happened shortly after the new state’s proclamation, revealing its weakness. ECOMOG forces reappeared under the authority of the Koroma administration, and finally took Freetown but were incapable of controlling the surrounding districts. The RUF maintained the civil war.
In January 1999, leaders of other countries pushed to motivate the Government and the RUF to negotiate.[5] The Lomé Peace Accord was signed on 7 July 1999, in exchange for a cease-fire and establishing a Un mission to monitor the demilitarization operation.The RUF commander, Foday Sankoh, was given the republican nomination and possession of Sierra Leone’s mineral deposits. (Batty, 370) The RUF’s adherence to the denuclearization program was slow and patchy, and by May 2000, the rebels were advancing on Freetown again. The Sierra Leone Army successfully destroyed the RUF until they could capture Freetown ownership, thanks to U.N. forces, Guinean, and British fighters’ air support. President Tejan Kabbah, who had just been appointed, proclaimed on 18 January 2002.
Nature of the conflict
The character of the war is influenced by several factors related to socio-economic deprivation caused by government incompetence, a fight for dominance of the country’s natural riches, and interaction unrest. ( Batty, 374) While the obligation of the first Head of state, Sir Milton Margai, appeared to ensure stability from the colonialism to an individual civilized [6]nation, the shift to totalitarianism in 1964 began an illiberal twenty-seven years of immiseration corporate greed and securing preferences on a representative of the country’s élite, particularly throughout Siaka Stevens’ principle from 1968 to 1985.
As a result, there has been a power fight in the region in both interest groups that have not benefited the general public, and as the Government’s distribution of basic services proceeded to degrade, and monetary policy started to climb alongside the rates of basic goods, the population’s disenchantment with the governing elite grew till it RUF entered the political landscape in 1991.
The verdict from earlier is yet another insult to working people.[7] We are condemned to repeat our past mistakes if we ignore the past lessons. ( Johnson,1120), We saw what happened in the 1920s and during the Great Depression when companies could put “yellow dog contracts” on their employees, prohibiting them from exercising strength via collective effort. It doesn’t make a lesson any less true just because it was taught long ago. Collective worker action is as necessary as it has always been, and allowing employers to take away employees’ ability to organize is as wrong as it has always been. We, the people, understand the importance of labor unions in America. To undo the damage caused by yesterday’s verdict, we must now call on our political representatives to stand with regular working Americans.
The origin of the conflict might thus be regarded as the result of the Government’s failure of the heritage of extraction structures that sought to limit wealth and influence to a series loop of persons, resulting in a lack of wealth distribution to the Government’s basic services. Things quickly got more violent than predicted when the RUF attacked Sierra Leone, claiming to want to remove the corrupt All Women’s Congress.
[8]Though RUF leaders and Sankoh may have begun with legitimate concerns about people suffering under the APC’s parasitic organizations, which might have prompted them to sign a petition early on, the situation swiftly altered and spiraled out of control. (Batty,360)With the fall of the state, which began under Stevens, who bolstered the authority of parasitic entities, and concluded under Momoh’s leadership, when the National Provisional Ruling Council and central Government vanished, unrest erupted across the country. Sankoh received help not just from Sierra Leonean rebels but also from Charles Taylor and his Liberian troops. They purported to participate in the assault due to the fluidity of foundational affiliations here between two adjacent countries.
Parties involved ( primary and Secondary)
Given the complex circumstances that contributed to the Sierra Leonean conflict’s outbreak, it’s critical to identify the key and subsidiary affected parties. The Sierra Leonean Army (SLA) was controlled by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) ( Zulu et al. 1121). The Sierra Leonean Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which Charles supported [9]Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), the All-People’s Congress (APC) political groups, as well as the Civil Defense Unit, earlier known as Kamajors, were the main players in this long and tough conflict (CDU).
Secondary parties involved in the civil war included the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, which was affiliated with the RUF; Gambia, Libya, and Burkina Faso were mentioned.[10]The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), the South African terrorist organization Executive Outcomes (E.O.), United Kingdom special forces backed by the Guinean Air Force, and finally, U.N. peacekeeping forces as part of UNAMSIL, which includes soldiers largely from Russia, India, and Ukraine, were supplementary groups that aided the weak Sierra Leonean legislature. The complicated interplay that led to the Sierra Leonean war rebellion makes distinguishing between direct and indirect causes essential.
[11]The RUF began as a small group of fighters led by Foday Sankoh, a defunct SLA lieutenant colonel who had just been educated in Muammar Qaddafi’s guerrilla prison in Libya. Liberian military units and their ruler Charles Taylor, who influenced the RUF’s extreme tactics of rape, looting, and maiming, backed the RUF in addition to Sierra Leonean army personnel. Both Sankoh and Charles Taylor conspired to control the diamond industry, and as a result, they eventually ended up dictating a US$ 250 million annually barter
While intrinsically motivated behaviors did not have particular presidential aspirations, Taylor intended to force Sierra Leone to disengage from the ECOMOG to acquire the authority of the production and trafficking – the notion being that these ambitions might be aided by assisting the RUF to regain leadership of Freetown.
The RUF did not use usual political techniques such as holding protests in rural towns and numerous cities but rather utilized ruthless measures to eliminate all those who did not favor their objective. [12]Youngsters who were usually poisoned and brainwashed, ‘sobs’ servicemen who became rebels and finally leaders of the NPFL – made up a large element of the RUF.
The Executive Results was a corporate South African defense firm that not only trained the regular army, Fer but also instructed for aviation and artillery, such as gunships. ( Johnson 122), A former British officer, Anthony Buckingham, and founder of Heritage Exploration and Production in England, provided funding for the EO[13]. Its goal was to battle the RUF and expel them from the territory considering diamond rights. The E.O. never was compensated for all of its fees during the 18-month Sierra Leone deployment and had to rely on Angolan earnings to fund the activities. The RUF was allowed to launch new attacks after the E.O. left the country because of the Justice ministry for a more robust cease-fire. Due to the President’s need for a more successful peace process, the E.O. retreated from the nation, allowing the RUF to launch what was required, notably the storming of Freetown on 6 January 1999.
Response from the international community
General Secretary Kofi Annan assigned an Ethiopian ambassador B. Dinka, to remain with the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to encourage negotiation between combatants and try to repair security in February 1995. ( Johnson, 88) He collaborated on the Abidjan Pact peace deal in November 1996, but it was disrupted by the 1997 coup, which resulted in President Kabbah’s banishment to Guinea. Following that, F.G. Okelo, Ugandan envoy, began to negotiate the demise of the AFRC junta. In October 1997, the U.N. Security Council placed a fuel and arms blockade, assuring that ECOWAS could send ECOMOG forces.
The Security Council established the UNOMSIL (United Nations Monitoring Mission in Sierra Leone) with a six-month authority in June 1998, with Okelo as its leader. They were able to verify all continuous infractions of international norms under the shelter of ECOMOG soldiers. Following the ECOMOG troops’ reconquest of Freetown, Okelo actively sponsored discussions between the rebels and the parliament, resulting in the Lomé peace deal and the formation of a new administration.
The Six R2P Criteria
[14]To comprehend whether the tactical intercessions completed by the ECOMOG troops, the British armed force and the U.N. peacekeepers were supported, it is valuable to investigate whether the Sierra Leonean common struggle situation fulfilled the six Responsibility to Protect standards for military mediation.
- As far as ‘worthwhile motivation,’ the huge scope death toll because of the RUF attacks in the provincial and metropolitan region of the nation and the insufficiency of the focal Government to safeguard its residents most certainly legitimizes the mediations of all military in Sierra Leone. The complete loss of life of guiltless residents adds up to around 50,000.
For what the preparatory standards are concerned:
- The ‘right aim’ of stopping human enduring all through the nation legitimizes the mediation of the military in the country. Nonetheless, in the Sierra Leonean case, superior coordination of multilateral tasks would have likely stopped the contention years sooner – particularly assuming UNAMSIL had been carried out before and on the off chance that the Executive Outcomes powers had been conceded authorization to stay in the nation longer, keeping away from that hole of time which permitted the revolutionary powers to sack the capital, Freetown.
- The ‘final hotel’ rule has been fulfilled. More discourse endeavors, including the Abidjan Accord and the Conakry and Lome arrangements, were not to the point of getting harmony and shielding the regular folks’ privileges. It may be effortlessly confirmed that the final hotel rule had been fulfilled sometime before the real U.N. peacekeepers entered Sierra Leone and that they ought to have presumably supported the ECOMOG troops in overcoming the RUF and getting harmony in the country.
- As far as ‘relative means,’ the tactical mediation of the ECOMOG troops alone was not to the point of overcoming the agitator powers. The E.O. was not supported to the point of doing their main goal, causing us to accept that there was presumably the need for superior coordination between the various powers to safeguard the regular citizens. (Zulu et al. 1123) The British Operation Palliser helped the U.N. peacekeepers and different powers by sending off a tactical intercession that endured three months from May to September 2000 and ended up being a proportionate mission given that it killed the agitator powers from key vital focuses like the Lungi Airport of Freetown, and along these lines worked with the DDR interaction all through the nation before leaving in September 2001.
- At long last, for the ‘sensible possibilities’ of the tactical intercessions are concerned, the ECOMOG troops most likely underrated everything that was going on and the trouble of killing the RUF powers. In this respect, as many U.N. peacekeepers were abducted in 2000, the Security Council had the right instinct to grow the number of troops and workforce of the UNAMSIL through Resolutions 1289, 1299, and 1346 to increase the possibilities of achieving the mission.
U.N.’s Present Policy
[15]In 2008, the Security Council Resolution 1829 laid out the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Mission in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) with the order of zeroing in on political and formative issues and, in this way, supporting the local Government. (Johnson, 100)A portion of these issues include:
- Offering political help on a public and nearby premise, endeavoring to address any dangers of contention or strains.
- Checking that organizations have majority rule bases and stand to the law, helping counter all unlawful exercises, such as opiate and precious stone pirating.
- Ensuring that the Anti-Corruption Commission endorses great administration changes
- Coordination with the Peacebuilding Commission and every one of the undertakings supported by the Peacebuilding Fund
- Foundation of a solitary incorporated office with successful coordination techniques among the other U.N. organizations present in the country
- Need for participation between the UNIPSIL, ECOWAS, other U.N. missions, as well as the Mano River Union
- Underlining the job of ladies in struggle counteraction and the peacebuilding system, considering that the orientation point of view must be kept by UNIPSIL consistently.
In March 2014, Ban Ki-Moon the secretary-general declared the finish of peacekeeping tasks in Sierra Leone and insisted that:( Johnson 111), “Sierra Leone addresses one of the global best instances of post-struggle recuperation, peacekeeping, and harmony working Here we enjoy seeing extraordinary steps towards harmony, solidness, and long-haul advancement.”
Notwithstanding the end of the peacekeeping activities, the U.N. organizations will, in any case, stay in the nation, checking over all the admiration of basic freedoms and orientation equity.
After War
The British recruited a 200-strong combat detachment from the nation on 28 July 2002, leaving behind a 140-strong army training staff with orders to institutionalize the Navy and SLA. [16] ( Baty 369)UNAMSIL began a gradual decline in staff from a record of 17,800 in November 2002. Under British persuasion, the evacuation was stalled, and the UNAMSIL presence remained at 12,000 personnel in October 2003. UNAMSIL’s forces were reduced to slightly more than 4,100 by December 2004 as quiet situations remained. UNAMSIL’s mission was expanded twice by the U.N. Security Council, once in June 2005 and then until December 2005. UNAMSIL concluded the evacuation of all soldiers in 2005 December. The United Nations Consolidated Office took over in January 2006.
The Lomé Peace Accord requested for the creation of a Commission of Inquiry to allow victims and offenders of rights abuses during the disagreement to share their experiences and heal. Following that, the Sierra Leonean government requested assistance from the United Nations in establishing a unique Court for Sierra Leone, whose purpose was to strive against those who “bear the largest burden for such crime committed against compassion, war crimes, and serious inhumane acts, while misdeeds under applicable Sierra Leonean court within the territorial waters of Sierra Leone since 30 November 1996.” In the summer of 2002, both the Transitional justice Council and the Special Judiciary were established.
Conclusion
From our contention investigation and progressive conversation on the global mediations in the Sierra Leonean common clash, it has been feasible to examine how the absence of political responsibility for the benefit of the public authority to serve its residents as opposed to safeguarding the interests of the élite, steadily prompted the breakdown of the state and opened the entryways for what might have been at first viewed as an unreasonable territorial virus of viciousness from adjoining Liberia. The way that numerous Sierra Leoneans at first invited the appearance of the RUF in their towns conveys their feeling of franticness and dissatisfaction concerning the patrimonial express that had been ruining the country for a long time and which composed one more dull part of the country’s set of experiences of complaints. The prolongation of the contention for more than a decade addressed the absence of an organized multilateral activity that would experience got harmony significantly quicker and empowered the radicals to keep supporting their cannons with the blood jewel exchange. Albeit the ECOMOG ought to have been upheld a whole lot sooner by a planned U.N. mission, the U.N. peacekeepers completed an essential errand of harmony working in the nation, upheld by the British Pallisser Operation, which permitted all gatherings to find a seat at the arranging table and shut down the contention. How many exchanges, endeavors of harmony, strategic endeavors, and arrangements during the 11 years of contention struck and rendered the Sierra Leonean struggle one of the most complicated and vicious occasions of the post-Cold Wartime. For the U.N., the Sierra Leonean mission addressed a ‘first time’ under numerous viewpoints, like the formation of a multi-faceted peacekeeping with an order of incredible effort in the compassionate, political, and [17] security fields – consequently, the primary effective endeavor of harmony working in the U.N.’s set of experiences. As Ban Ki-Moon expressed at the end function of the UNIPSIL in Freetown in March 2014: “Numerous pleased children and girls of Sierra Leone have shown that an individual’s expectation is more grounded than any cleaver. That a shared objective can beat an automatic rifle. Furthermore, our decision will crush even the most destructive weapons. Sierra Leoneans showed the world numerous examples. However, none is more significant than the force of individuals to shape the future.
Work Cited
Batty, Foden. “Enacting the Mines and Minerals Act (2009) of Sierra Leone: Actors, Interests, and Outcomes.” African Studies 72.3 (2013): 353-374.
Johnson, McKenzie F. “Fighting for black stone: extractive conflict, institutional change and peacebuilding in Sierra Leone.” International Affairs 97.1 (2021): 81-101.
Stanford University,
Zulu, Leo, and Sigismond Wilson. “Whose minerals, whose development? Rhetoric and reality in post‐conflict Sierra Leone.” Development and Change 43.5 (2012): 1103-1131.
[1] Zulu, Leo, and Sigismond Wilson. “Whose Minerals, Whose Development? Rhetoric and Reality in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone.” Development & Change, vol. 43, no. 5, Sept. 2012, pp. 1103–31
[2] Zulu, Leo, and Sigismond Wilson. “Whose Minerals, Whose Development? Rhetoric and Reality in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone.” Development & Change, vol. 43, no. 5, Sept. 2012, pp. 1103–31
[4] Zulu, Leo, and Sigismond Wilson. “Whose Minerals, Whose Development? Rhetoric and Reality in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone.” Development & Change, vol. 43, no. 5, Sept. 2012, pp. 1103–31
[5] Batty, Foden. “Enacting the Mines and Minerals Act (2009) of Sierra Leone: Actors, Interests, and Outcomes.” African Studies, vol. 72, no. 3, Dec. 2013, pp. 353–74. EBSCOhost,
[6] Batty, Foden. “Enacting the Mines and Minerals Act (2009) of Sierra Leone: Actors, Interests, and Outcomes.” African Studies, vol. 72, no. 3, Dec. 2013, pp. 353–74. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/10.1080/00020184.2013.851465
[7] Johnson, McKenzie F. “Fighting for Black Stone: Extractive Conflict, Institutional Change and Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone.” International Affairs, vol. 97, no. 1, Jan. 2021, pp. 81–101. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/10.1093/ia/iiaa056.
[8] Batty, Foden. “Enacting the Mines and Minerals Act (2009) of Sierra Leone: Actors, Interests, and Outcomes.” African Studies, vol. 72, no. 3, Dec. 2013, pp. 353–74. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/10.1080/00020184.2013.851465
[9] Zulu, Leo, and Sigismond Wilson. “Whose Minerals, Whose Development? Rhetoric and Reality in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone.” Development & Change, vol. 43, no. 5, Sept. 2012, pp. 1103–31. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2012.01788.x.
[10] https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297a/Conflict%20in%20Sierra%20Leone.htm
[11] https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297a/Conflict%20in%20Sierra%20Leone.htm
[12] Johnson, McKenzie F. “Fighting for Black Stone: Extractive Conflict, Institutional Change and Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone.” International Affairs, vol. 97, no. 1, Jan. 2021, pp. 81–101. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/10.1093/ia/iiaa056.
[13] Johnson, McKenzie F. “Fighting for Black Stone: Extractive Conflict, Institutional Change and Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone.” International Affairs, vol. 97, no. 1, Jan. 2021, pp. 81–101. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/10.1093/ia/iiaa056.
[14] https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297a/Conflict%20in%20Sierra%20Leone.htm
[15] https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297a/Conflict%20in%20Sierra%20Leone.htm
[16] Batty, Foden. “Enacting the Mines and Minerals Act (2009) of Sierra Leone: Actors, Interests, and Outcomes.” African Studies, vol. 72, no. 3, Dec. 2013, pp. 353–74. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/10.1080/00020184.2013.851465
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