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THE SIERRA LEONE CIVIL
WAR (1991-2002)
JA N UA RY 16 , 20 17 / CON T R IB UT E D BY: SA M UE L M OM ODU
Diamond panning, Sierra Leone
Courtesy World Heath Organization
The Sierra Leone Civil War was an armed conflict in the West
African country of Sierra Leone from 1991 t0 2002. The war
began on March 23, 1991, when the Revolutionary United Front
(RUF) under Foday Sankoh, with support of Liberian rebel
leader Charles Taylor and his group, the National Patriotic
Front of Liberia (NFPL), attempted to overthrow the
government of Sierra Leonean President Joseph Momah. The
Sierra Leone Civil War was one of the bloodiest in Africa
resulting in more than fifty thousand people dead and half a
million displaced in a nation of four million people. The
conflict was particularly violent and long because both the RUF
and the Sierra Leone government were often funded by “blood
diamonds” mined with slave labor.
During the first year of the war, the RUF took control of the
diamond-rich territory in eastern and southern Sierra Leone.
On April 29, 1992, President Joseph Momah was ousted in
military coup led by Captain Valentine Strasser who created the
National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). Strasser said the
corrupt Momah could not resuscitate the economy, provide for
the people of Sierra Leone, and repel the rebel invaders.
In March 1993, the Economic Community of West African
States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) sent mostly Nigerian
troops to Freetown, the capital, and assisted the Sierra Leone
Army in recapturing the diamond districts and pushing the
RUF to the diamond districts and pushing the RUF to the
Sierra Leone-Liberia border. By the end of 1993, many
observers thought the war had ended because the RUF ceased
most of its military operations. Yet what had begun as a civil
war now had international implications as the Sierra Leone
government was supported by ECOMOG, Great Britain,
Guinea, and the United States while the RUF was backed by
Liberia (now under the control of Charles Taylor), Libya, and
Burkina Faso.
In March 1995, the Sierra Leone government hired Executive
Outcomes (EO) a South Africa-based mercenary group to
defeat finally the RUF. Meanwhile, Sierra Leone installed an
elected civilian government in March 1996, and the retreating
RUF signed the Abidjan Peace Accord which brought an end to
the fighting. In May 1997, however, a group of Sierra Leone
Army officers staged a coup and established the Armed Forces
Revolutionary Council (AFRC) as the new government of the
country. They invited the RUF to join them, and the two
factions now ruled Freetown, the nation’s capital, with little
resistance.
The new government under Johnny Paul Koroma declared the
war over. Yet looting, rape, and murder mostly by RUF forces
quickly followed the new government’s announcement and
illustrated its weakness. ECOMOG forces returned and retook
Freetown on behalf of the Koroma government but could not
pacify outlying regions. The RUF continued the civil war.
In January 1999, world leaders intervened to promote
negotiations between the RUF and the government. The Lome
Peace Accord was signed on July 7, 1999. That agreement gave
Foday Sankoh, the commander of the RUF, the vice presidency
and control of Sierra Leone’s diamond mines in return for a
cessation of the fighting and the deployment of a UN
peacekeeping force to monitor the disarmament process. RUF
compliance with the disarmament process was inconsistent and
sluggish, and by May 2000, the rebels were again advancing on
Freetown. With help from United Nations forces, British
troops, and Guinean air support, the Sierra Leone Army finally
defeated the RUF before they could take control of Freetown.
On January 18, 2002, newly installed President Ahmad Tejan
Kabbah declared the Sierra Leone Civil War had finally ended.
Subjects:
Global African History, Events
Terms:
20th Century (1900-1999), Africa - Sierra Leone
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CITE THIS ARTICLE IN APA FORMAT:
Momodu, S. (2017, January 16). The Sierra Leone Civil War
(1991-2002). BlackPast.org.
https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/sierra-
leone-civil-war-1991-2002/
SOURCE OF THE AUTHOR'S INFORMATION:
Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy
Soldier (New York: Sarah
Crichton Books, 2007); “The Sierra Leone Civil War,” BBC
News,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14094419; Greg
Campbell, Blood
Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World’s Most
Precious Stones
(Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2004).
PR EVIOUS N EXT
Revolutionary United Eustace Edward
Front (1991–2002) Ricardo Braithwaite
(1912–2016)
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