The impact of the civil war in Sierra Leone
The civil war in Sierra
Leone lasted from 1991 to 2002. The Revolutionary
United Front, led by Foday Sankoh and supported by Charles Taylor,
fought against the constantly changing government.
Sierra Leone is rich in diamonds but the government never shared their
success with the population. As a result, the population of Sierra Leone didn’t
have faith in the government and its members. The RUF fought because of
dissatisfaction with the government and desire for power. Many of their
soldiers were men without perspectives and child soldiers, kidnapped and forced
to fight. Ishmael Beah wrote “I would always tell people that I believe that
children have the resilience to outlive their suffering, if given a chance.”
Charles Taylor and the
RUF received the incomes of the diamond trade and the government was bankrupt.
The underpaid army started attacking villages and recruiting people and
children. Beah said that when he got his first gun, the corporal said that
“this gun is your source of power in these times. It will protect you and
provide you all you need, if you know how to use it well”. In the violent times of the Sierra Leone civil war,
weapons were power; Ishmael learned that he should focus his sense of security
and strength in his gun.
The
EO (Executive Outcomes) worked together with the self-defence militias because
the members didn’t trust the not reliable army, and together they recaptured
the diamond mines in Koidu and rescued the local civilians.
In February 1996, Ahmad
Kabbah became president of Sierra Leone and in November, he had to terminate
the contract with the EO because the government debts were too high. In
addition, the RUF was forced to sign a peace agreement with Kabbah’s government
in Abidjan. Six months later, the Armed
Forces Revolutionary Council took the power and allied with the RUF
and created an authoritarian regime. One year later, the elected government got
back the control over Sierra Leone. Kabbah dissolved the army to rebuild it with
more reliable soldiers. As a result, the RUF started with the so-called Operation No Living Thing, which means to
kill or maim as many civilians as possible to punish them for supporting the
new government.
In 1999, the RUF and
government signed another peace agreement but the violence continued. Finally,
the RUF-leader Foday Sankoh got arrested by British soldiers and the
disarmament of rebels started. In addition, the biggest global diamond
merchants agreed to refuse buying diamonds from conflict countries as Sierra
Leone. This agreement is called The Kimberly Process; “The Kimberley Process (KP) is a joint governments, industry and civil
society initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds – rough diamonds used
by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments.” This
agreement weakened the war parties. In fact, it was hard for them to keep
fighting without the required amount of financial support.
In May
of the same year, new elections confirmed Kabbah with 70.1% as the new
president. He strengthened the human rights, arranged the rebuilding of Sierra
Leone together with the UNIOSIL and increased the economic development.
The
war caused a lot of victims, amputees, expellees and escaped civilians. War,
rape and torture traumatized most of the population. Saidu, a friend of
Ishmael, said “Every time people come at us with the intention of killing us, I
close my eyes and wait for death. Even though I am still alive, I feel like
each time I accept death part of me dies. Very soon I will completely die and
all that will be left is my empty body walking with you.” This shows how much
war influenced the civilians; Saidu will never be the same and he will never
look at the world and people as he used to do, and Ishmael joined the army to
avenge the death of his family and to stay alive, but he said that in this
process he will “kill another person whose family will want
revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end.”
Works
Cited
Beah,
Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy
Soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print.
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"The
Kimberley Process (KP)." The Kimberley
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