HISTORY
European
contacts with Sierra Leone were among the first in West Africa.
In 1652, the first slaves in North America were brought from Sierra
Leone to the Sea Islands off the coast of the southern United
States. During the 1700s there was a thriving trade bringing slaves
from Sierra Leone to the plantations of South Carolina and Georgia
where their rice-farming skills made them particularly valuable.
In 1787
the British helped 400 freed slaves from the United States, Nova
Scotia, and Great Britain return to Sierra Leone to settle in
what they called the "Province of Freedom." Disease
and hostility from the indigenous people nearly eliminated the
first group of returnees. This settlement was joined by other
groups of freed slaves and soon became known as Freetown. In 1792,
Freetown became one of Britain's first colonies in West Africa.
Thousands
of slaves were returned to or liberated in Freetown. Most chose
to remain in Sierra Leone. These returned Africans--or Krio as
they came to be called--were from all areas of Africa. Cut off
from their homes and traditions by the experience of slavery,
they assimilated some aspects of British styles of life and built
a flourishing trade on the West African coast.
In the
early 19th century, Freetown served as the residence of the British
governor who also ruled the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and the Gambia
settlements. Sierra Leone served as the educational center of
British West Africa as well. Fourah Bay College, established in
1827, rapidly became a magnet for English-speaking Africans on
the West Coast. For more than a century, it was the only European-style
university in western Sub-Saharan Africa.
The colonial
history of Sierra Leone was not placid. The indigenous people
mounted several unsuccessful revolts against British rule and
Krio domination. Most of the 20th century history of the colony
was peaceful, however, and independence was achieved without violence.
The 1951 constitution provided a framework for decolonization.
Local ministerial responsibility was introduced in 1953, when
Sir Milton Margai was appointed Chief Minister. He became Prime
Minister after successful completion of constitutional talks in
London in 1960. Independence came in April 1961, and Sierra Leone
opted for a parliamentary system within the British Commonwealth.
Sir Milton's Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) led the country
to independence and the first general election under universal
adult franchise in May 1962. Upon Sir Milton's death in 1964,
his half-brother, Sir Albert Margai, succeeded him as Prime Minister.
In closely
contested elections in March 1967, the All Peoples Congress (APC)
won a plurality of the parliamentary seats. Accordingly, the Governor
General (representing the British Monarch) declared Siaka Stevens--APC
leader and Mayor of Freetown--as the new Prime Minister. Within
a few hours, Stevens and Margai were placed under house arrest
by Brigadier David Lansana, the Commander of the Republic of Sierra
Leone Military Forces (RSLMF), on grounds that the determination
of office should await the election of the tribal representatives
to the house. Another group of officers soon staged another coup,
only to be later ousted in a third coup, the "sergeants’
revolt," and Stevens at last, in April 1968, assumed the
office of Prime Minister under the restored constitution. Siaka
Stevens remained as head of state until 1985. Under his rule,
in 1978, the constitution was amended and all political parties,
other than the ruling APC, were banned.
In August
1985, the APC named military commander Maj. Gen. Joseph Saidu
Momoh, Steven's own choice, as the party candidate to succeed
Stevens. Momoh was elected President in a one-party referendum
on October 1, 1985. In October 1991 Momoh had the constitution
amended once again, re-establishing a multi-party system. Under
Momoh, APC rule was increasingly marked by abuses of power. Earlier
in 1991, in March, a small band of men who called themselves the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the leadership of a former-corporal,
Foday Sankoh, began to attack villages in eastern Sierra Leone
on the Liberian border. Fighting continued in the ensuing months,
with the RUF gaining control of the diamond mines in the Kono
district and pushing the Sierra Leone army pack towards Freetown.
On April 29, 1992, a group of young military officers, led by
Capt. Valentine Strasser, launched a military coup, which sent
Momoh into exile in Guinea and established the National Provisional
Ruling Council (NPRC) as the ruling authority in Sierra Leone.
The NPRC
proved to be nearly as ineffectual as the Momoh government in
repelling the RUF. More and more country fell to RUF fighters,
so that by 1995 they held much of the countryside and were on
the doorsteps of Freetown. To retrieve the situation, the NPRC
hired several hundred mercenaries from the private firm Executive
Outcomes. Within a month they had driven RUF fighters back to
enclaves along Sierra Leone’s borders.
As a result of popular demand and mounting international pressure, the NPRC agreed to hand over power to a civilian government via presidential and parliamentary elections, which were held in April 1996. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, a diplomat who had worked at the UN for more than 20 years, won the presidential election. Because of the prevailing war conditions, parliamentary elections were conducted, for the first time, under the system of proportional representation. However, on May 25, 1997 the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), led by Maj. Johnny Paul Koroma, overthrew President Kabbah and later invited the RUF to join the government. In March 1998 the Nigerian-led ECOMOG forces ousted the AFRC junta after 10 months in office, and reinstated the democratically elected government of President Kabbah. The RUF’s renewed attempts to overthrow the government in January 1999 brought the fighting to parts of Freetown, leaving thousands dead and wounded. ECOMOG forces drove back the RUF attack several weeks later.
With the
assistance of the international community, President Kabbah and
RUF leader Sankoh negotiated the Lome Peace Agreement, which was
signed on July 7, 1999. The accord made Sankoh Vice President
and gave other RUF members positions in the government. Lome called
for an international peacekeeping force run initially by both
ECOMOG and the United Nations. The UN Security Council established
the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) in 1999,
with an initial force of 6,000. ECOMOG forces departed in April
2000. Almost immediately, however, the RUF began to violate the
agreement, most notably by holding hundreds of UNAMSIL personnel
hostage and capturing their arms and ammunition in the first half
of 2000. On May 8, 2000, members of the RUF shot and killed as
many as 20 people demonstrating against the RUF violations outside
Sankoh's house in Freetown. As a result, Sankoh and other senior
members of the RUF were arrested and the group was stripped of
its positions in government.
After
the events of May 2000, a new cease-fire was necessary to reinvigorate
the peace process. This agreement was signed in Abuja in November
of that year. However, DDR did not resume, and fighting continued.
In late 2000, Guinean forces entered Sierra Leone to attack RUF
bases from which attacks had been launched against Liberian dissidents
in Guinea. A second Abuja Agreement, in May 2001, set the stage
for a resumption of DDR on a wide scale and a significant reduction
in hostilities. As disarmament has progressed, the government
began to reassert its authority in formerly rebel-held areas.
By early 2002, some 72,000 ex-combatants have been disarmed and
demobilized, although many still awaited re-integration assistance.
On January 18, 2002 President Kabbah declared the civil war officially
over.
In May 2002 President Kabbah was re-elected to a five-year term along with the SLPP, which also won a landslide victory. The RUF political wing, the RUFP, failed to win a single seat in parliament. The elections were marked by irregularities and allegations of fraud, but not to a degree to significantly affect the outcome. On July 28, 2002 the British withdrew a 200-man military contingent that had been in country since the summer of 2000, leaving behind a 105-strong military training team to work to professionalize the Sierra Leonean army. In November 2002, UNAMSIL gradually began drawing down personnel until the end of its formal peacekeeping mission in December 2005. Following the end of the UNAMSIL mandate, the UN established the UN Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL), which assumed a peacebuilding mandate.
In the summer of 2002, Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) began operations. The Lomé Accord had called for the establishment of a TRC to provide a forum for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations during the conflict to tell their stories and to facilitate genuine reconciliation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Final Report to the government in October 2004. In June 2005, the Government of Sierra Leone issued a White Paper on the Commission’s final report which accepted some but not all of the Commission's recommendations. Members of civil society groups dismissed the government’s response as too vague and continued to criticize the government for its failure to follow up on the report’s recommendations.
The Special Court was established by an agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone pursuant to Security Council resolution 1315 (2000) of 14 August 2000. The Court’s mandate is to try those who "bear the greatest responsibility for the commission of crimes against humanity, war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law, as well as crimes under relevant Sierra Leonean law within the territory of Sierra Leone since November 30, 1996." The Special Court has issued indictments against individuals representing all three warring factions of Sierra Leone’s civil conflict in addition to the case against former Liberian President Charles Ghankay Taylor. On June 20, 2007, the Court issued its first verdicts in the trial of the AFRC accused Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu all of whom were found guilty on 11 of 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Court issued an indictment against a fourth AFRC defendant, former junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma, who is rumored to have been killed, though his death remains unconfirmed. In the trial against the leaders of the Civil Defense Forces (CDF) accused, on August 2, 2007, the court found Moinana Fofana and Allieu Kondewa guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. A third defendant in the CDF trial, Sam Hinga Norman, the former Minister of Interior and head of the CDF died in Dakar prior to the announcement of a judgment. Five alleged leaders of the RUF, Foday Saybana Sankoh, Sam Bockarie, Issa Hassan Sesay, Morris Kallon, and Augustine Gbao, were indicted on 18 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. The indictments against Sankoh and Bockarie were withdrawn on December 8, 2003 due to the deaths of the two accused. On March 25, 2006, with the election of Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo permitted transfer of Charles Taylor, who had been living in exile in the Nigerian coastal town of Calobar, to Sierra Leone for prosecution. Two days later, Taylor attempted to flee Nigeria, but he was apprehended by Nigerian authorities and transferred to Freetown under UN guard. Taylor is being tried before the Special Court on 11 indictments of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
