Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leone Civil War

In 1961, Sierra Leone gained its independence from the United Kingdom. In the years following the death of Sierra Leone’s first prime minister, Sir Milton Margai, in 1964, politics in the country was increasingly characterized by corruption, mismanagement, and electoral violence that led to a weak civil society, the collapse of the education system. When Siaka Stevens entered into politics in 1968 Sierra Leone was a constitutional democracy. When he stepped down, seventeen years later, Sierra Leone was a one-party state. In 1985, Stevens stepped down, and handed the nation’s preeminent position to Major General Joseph Momoh, a notoriously inept leader who maintained the status quo. During his seven-year tenure, Momoh welcomed the spread of unchecked corruption and complete economic collapse. With the state unable to pay its civil servants, those desperate enough ransacked and looted government offices and property. By 1991, Sierra Leone was ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world, even though it benefited from ample natural resources including diamonds, gold, bauxite, rutile, iron ore, fish, coffee, and cocoa. The Sierra Leone Civil War began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front, with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia, intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. The resulting civil war lasted 11 years, enveloped the country, and left over 50,000 dead. The SLA soldiers and government leaders were cruel and brutal. The tows people were transported to concentration camps. Civilians turned against them and joined a rebel cause. Some soldiers decided they had to chance so they joined this team called the “sobels”. This stood for “soldiers by day, rebels by night”. By 1993 this two forces became indistinguishable and nobody knew who was on whose side or who to trust. The Kamajors came into play and civilians trusted them. There title was to protect civilians and their family and homes. The kamajors went against the government and won so people joined their side and this quickly lead to corruption and murder. Soon the government was unable to pay both its civil servants or SLA. With senior government officials neglectful of the conditions faced by SLA soldiers, front line soldiers became resentful of their poor conditions and began helping themselves to Sierra Leone’s rich natural resources. This included alluvial diamonds as well as looting and ‘sell game’, a tactic in which government forces would withdraw from a town but not before leaving arms and ammunition for the roving rebels in return for cash. The war continued to drag on. On 18 January 2002, President Kabbah declared the eleven-year long Sierra Leone Civil War officially over. Several factors led to the end of the civil war. One is that the government demanded that the government of Liberia expel all RUF members, end their financial support of the RUF, and halt the illicit diamond trade. The Kamajors felt less threatened and quit fighting the SLA’s. Over 1,000 primary schools were destroyed during the war by SLA members. Fun fact: the movie Blood Diamond was based off of this war.