Sierra Leone Civil War Failure

742 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Economic factors of civil war

This is the order in which the civil war was happening. “During the first year of the war, the RUF took control in eastern and southern Sierra Leone which had a great mining industry to its gold and diamonds. The Sierra Leone government had a tough time combatting against the RUF. However, the Sierra Leone Army made RUF rebels retreat to the Liberian border, but the RUF recovered and fighting continued. In March 1995, Executive Outcomes (EO), a South Africa-based private military company, was hired to repel the RUF. Sierra Leone installed an elected civilian government in March 1996, and the retreating RUF signed the Abidjan Peace Accord. Under UN pressure, the government terminated its contract with EO before the agreement could be implemented …show more content…

Then in 2002 with the past help of Nigerian military (ECOMG and United Nations forces, the RUF was taken down slowly but surely and the war was declared over.
As I think about what was the reason for this great travesty and is what power money has over people. Momoh was willing to put an entire country of millions of people at risk just to satisfy his own greed. My hypothesis in this case was that during the civil war in Sierra Leone there was also a civil war going on in neighboring Liberia, where Charles Taylor as president at the time. Both were greed infested humans that didn’t care about their people whatsoever. I believe there was illegal exporting of diamonds into Liberia in exchange for weaponry and promise of not letting refugees into Liberia. Then I believe president Momoh reneged on the deal and didn’t follow through on his promises. This sparked outrage by Taylor and his colleagues decided that they were going to use tactics that were going to turn Sierra Leone’s citizens against their government such as the Liberians did so to them. It seemed very odd that

Show More
Related

  • The Bite Of The Mango And The Sierra Leone Civil War

    749 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Sierra Leone Civil War was a savage conflict that would rage for over a decade, claiming the lives of 300,000 and displacing 2.5 million civilians. The Bite of the Mango and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier are firsthand accounts of children affected by the war. Mariatu Kamara had her hands severed and was left for dead. Ishmael Beah was conscripted by the government army to fight the rebel forces. Ishmael and Mariatu were both victims of the bloody Sierra Leone civil war, however their journeys to safety were vastly different.

    Read More

  • Sierra Leone and the Blood Diamonds: Civil War and Children

    524 Words  | 2 Pages

    Being located in the west coast of Africa and between Guinea and Liberia, “Sierra Leone has an abundance of easily extractable diamonds”(BBC News). The diamonds had brought “encouragement” for violence in the country in 1991. Attacks of the Revolutionary “United Front (RUF) ,led by former army corporal Foday Sankoh”(Encyclopedia Britannica), were on government military and civilians. In response to a corrupt government, the RUF performed violent and terrorist acts that scarred many. “The RUF captured civilians and forced them to work”(Analyzing the Causes) in their army to gain control over Sierra Leone. The savages went a...

    Read More

  • Compare and Contrast A Long Way Gone and The Bite of the Mango

    879 Words  | 2 Pages

    There was a war in Sierra Leone, Africa, from 1991 to 2002 where a rebel army stormed through African villages amputating and raping citizens left and right (“Sierra Leone Profile”). Adebunmi Savage, a former citizen of Sierra Leone, describes the reality of this civil war: In 1996 the war in Sierra Leone was becoming a horrific catastrophe. Children were recruited to be soldiers, families were murdered, death came easily, and staying alive was a privilege. Torture became the favorite pastime of the Revolutionary United Front rebel movement, which was against the citizens who supported Sierra Leone’s president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.

    Read More

  • Similarities and Differences Between the Conflicts in Sierra Leone and Rwanda

    563 Words  | 2 Pages

    Politics was the factor that caused the Sierra Leone Civil War, while ethnicity and years of oppression fueled the genocide in Rwanda. These two causes are vastly different, and caused for two different results. The Sierra Leone Civil War was caused by political corruption, years before the war started in 1991 Sierra Leone’s government and economy was rapidly declining. In 1968 Siaka Stevens was elected into the presidential position and when he stepped down 17 years later, 1985, the country was completely ...

    Read More

  • Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ori, Konye. “Sierra Leone: UN-backed Court Closed after administering Civil War justice.” AFRIK-NEWS, n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.

    Read More

  • The Effects of War on Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone

    2374 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the early 1990s, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone, led by former military agents invaded Sierra Leone from Liberia. The RUF initially said they were leading a political movement. Their main goals were to promote liberation, democracy, and freedom. They said they wanted justice and equality for all civilians living in Sierra Leone. In spite of what the RUF said they were doing, they were forceful and left trails of murder in their path. When civilians lacked support for the “political revolution”, the RUF started a decade long war that ravaged the country as a whole. The RUF developed a sense of structured, militarized violence. It created a climate of opportunities for average civilians to obtain cheap weapons. With the greater access to weapons for civilians and the RUF, the politics became more militarized also. As the war waged on, poverty rose and people began to resort to looting of national resources. Laws diminished and seemed to lack any strength against the brute force of the RUF and their civilian followers (Denov, 2010).

    Read More

  • Joseph Momoh Dbq

    1691 Words  | 4 Pages

    Joseph Momoh was a president of Sierra Leone in 2016. He reigns as president was a threat to the members of the Revolutionary United Front. Because of a lot of policies that Momoh put into place, the members of the Revolutionary United Front wanted him overthrown. This movement led to the beginning of the war in Sierra Leone. To look at the policies that Momoh contributed to Sierra Leone, you have to also look at the life of the man who made the policies.

    Read More

  • The Conflict Diamonds of Africa

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    The acts of violence that were performed by rebels in Africa were horrific. Adults and children were murdered, mutilated, tortured, and raped. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone performed despicable acts of cutting off a people's body parts with machetes to instill fear in the community. If you were working in the diamond mines and not performing up to the standards of the rebels you would lose a body part as punishment. Rebels would continue to do this from one village to another in order “to take control of the mines in the area” (Hoyt). It is estimated that in Sierra Leone that over 20,000 people suffered mutilation. The acts that the rebels performed to these innocent victims was clearly a violation to their human rights. The RUF collected 125 million a year to fund their war on the government and the people of Sierra Leone.

    Read More

  • The Sierra Leone Civil War

    2682 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Sierra Leone Civil War lasted eleven years and left Sierra Leone scared and unconstructed. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) bombarded the country but faced constant resistance from the Sierra Leone Military. Both sides relied heavily on child soldiers throughout the war and a projected 5,000 to 10,000 child soldiers were collectively used by both the Sierra Leone government and the RUF. These children forcibly entered into a life of violence and oppression, and they have since struggled to reintegrate back into society. Child soldiers have returned home with no family or future and many still face severe complications.

    Read More

  • The Development of Liberia

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    For my essay I will be evaluating the sub-saharan African country of Liberia. Over the course of this essay i shall try and shed some light on the main threats to peace and stability in the country. Threats that, if not treated responsibly and correctly, could throw Liberia, the Liberian people and potentially a large proportion of West Africa back into the violence and political instability that has plagued the region over the last few decades.

    Read More

  • South Sudan: A Struggle Within

    904 Words  | 2 Pages

    The inequality felt by the South resulted in a civil war against the North. The first Civil War took place in 1955. before Sudan declared independence and ended in 1972 resulting in autonomy for the South. Another ...

    Read More

  • Conflict and Corruption in the Democratic Republic of Congo

    1388 Words  | 3 Pages

    Africa has long been a nation of conflict and strife. Certain countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have a prolonged history of corrupt leaders, violence and lack of resources. These conflicts often can lead to spill over and create wars in their neighboring countries. When a weak state has internal conflict it often spreads to surrounding weak states as it did with many of the countries in central Africa. This type of crisis will often involve the entire world in a variety of capacities such as militaries, foreign aid and the global economy. Congo especially has proved to create problems that continue to persist in the modern world and much of that is due to leadership of Motubu Sese Seko. “The conflict [in Congo] produced tremendous carnage: as many as 3.8 million dead and many more injured or displaced. Both phrases of the war (1996-97 and 1998-2002) involved domestic militias, a massive foreign invasion, and shifting alliances – with Angola, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe playing major roles. Even though the was has officially ended, peace remains elusive”(Atzili 2007 pg 141). One player’s internal conflicts spread through an entire continent and affected the whole world and caused enormous damage. All countries need to strive to maintain strong institutions to be a good global citizen and one of the keys to this is leadership.

    Read More

  • Civil War in Congo

    1684 Words  | 4 Pages

    Congo's Civil War began on November 2nd, 1998 when Laurent Kabila tried to drive out Rwandan militants who helped him overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko.2 Sese Seko came into power in 1966 when he led a rebellion to overthrow the government of Patrice Lumumbra. Sese Seko led to Africanizing of the country by requiring that all citizens drop their Christan names, and by renaming all the geographical locations with more African names.3 During the 1980's Sese Seko's government received support from the United States, in response to communism's rising popularity in Africa. Because of the misuse of the funds and wealth generated by natural resources, the rich got richer and the poor fell farther into poverty. Sese Seko abused Congo's natural resources and eventually helped lead the country into a state of economic ruin. In 1997 Sese Seko was overthrown by Laurent Kabila. When Kabila took over the country it was in terrible condition but he did nothing to try and improve the state of the nation. When he tried to expel the same Rwandan rebels that helped him come to power, he started a war that eventually led to his death. Many various ethnic and rebel groups inside of Congo who relied on the Rwandans for protection joined the uprising.4 Africans inside and around Congo chose s...

    Read More

  • The Congo Crisis

    2492 Words  | 5 Pages

    Over a period from 1960-1965, the first Republic of the Congo experienced a period of serious crisis. There was a terrible war for power that displayed senseless violence and the desperation to rule. There were many internal conflicts among the people. The country eventually gained independence from Belgium. For many countries this would be a time for celebration. Unfortunately for the people of the Congo this became a time to forget. Almost immediately after independence and the general elections, the country went into civil war. Major developed cities like Katanga and Kasai wanted to be independent from the Lumumba government. Different factions started to fight the government and Katanga and Kasai tried to secede from the rest of the country out of fear of the mutinous army that was out of control looting and killing.

    Read More

  • British Colonial Policy And The Nigerian Civil War

    2828 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Nigerian Civil War lasted from July 6, 1967 until January 15, 1970. The belligerents were the Federal Republic of Nigeria, led by the military governor Yakubu Gowon, and the Republic of Biafra, led by the military governor C. Odumegwu Ojukwu. After an abortive counter-coup d'etat in favor of Northern independence, General Ojukwu declared the independence of southeastern Nigeria. Each of these regions were dominated by one particular tribe, and the Hausa of the north long felt oppressed by the southerners underneath colonial rule, while during the short-lived military government from 1966 to 1967 the Igbo had been the victims of several pogroms within the army itself.1 2 To further complicate the tribal tensions already fueling the conflict, British Petroleum, and several other oil companies, had vested interests in vast fossil fuel reserves in the secessionist state, which they feared would be unfriendly to their business.3 The ultimate result was a 3 year civil war, during which 150, 000 troops and as many as 3 million civilians died.

    Read More

More about Sierra Leone Civil War Failure

Open Document