Civil wars have been a part of world history since before 130 BC when the Crisis of the Roman Republic took place. The Crisis of the Roman public was a extended period of social unrest in Rome that lasted from 133 BC to 30 BC. Civil wars happened back in 133 BC and still happen today. Many studies have been conducted on how wars and conflict affect the social outcomes and ideals, but few have been conducted on how they can and do effect the environment and the animals that live in it. This research paper will take a close look at the Sierra Leone civil war, the “blood diamonds” that funded the rebels, and how they effected the environment and its inhabitants. Compounding difficulties erupted in Sierra Leone in March 1991 when conflict in neighboring country Liberia fell across borderlines. (Fyfe, 2013) Joseph Momoh responded by deploying troops to the border region to repel the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). Sierra Leone’s army would also come under attack by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by former Sierra Leone army corporal Foday Sankoh. Both the NPFL and RUF would work together to overthrow the Sierra Leone government and would drag out a long brutal civil war. (Fyfe, 2013) In April 1992 Joseph Momoh was removed from office in coup, led by Capt. Valentine E.M. Strasser, who claimed that there were poor conditions endured by the troops engaged in fighting the rebels. A National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) was established with Strasser as the head of Sierra Leone. During Strasser’s administration the civil war escalated, with the RUF increasing the amount of territory under its control. This territory included large proportions of unregulated diamond mines. Astonishing reports were made about atrocit... ... middle of paper ... ...rect impacts include hunting, poaching, destruction of protected areas, and destruction of biodiversity by the rebels. The negative indirect effects include the activities of the refugees and displaced people. One of the best examples of indirect effects is in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most bio diverse regions in Africa, which suffered civil war in 1994. (Minarova, 2012) In 1994, approximately eight hundred fifty thousand moved towards Virunga National Park, “they cleared and destroyed approximately three hundred square kilometers while searching for food and firewood and collected up to four hundred ten to seven hundred seventy tons of forest materials everyday.” (Minarova, 2012) The same concepts of negative direct and negative indirect impacts on the environment can be applied to the Sierra Leone civil war.
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.
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...
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.
During the 1900’s two deadly wars were raging on, the civil war in Sierra Leone and the genocide in Rwanda. The civil war in Sierra Leone began in March 1991, while the genocide began in 1994. Combined these two wars killed upward of 1,050,000 people, and affected the lives of all the people that lived there. The conflicts in Sierra Leone and Rwanda occurred for different major reasons, but many little aspects were similar. Politics and Ethnicity were the two main conflicts, but despite the different moments rebellions and the murder of innocent people occurred in both places.
Whilst the Civil War in Sierra Leone now seems archaic, the RUF still competes in a battle for control over the diamond-producing regions of Sierra Leone.
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).
For decades, Uganda’s economy has suffered through disappointing economic policies and instabilities. These setbacks have been put forth by a chronically unreliable government, leaving it as one of the world’s poorest countries. Uganda’s weak infrastructure and corrupt government are two of the primary constraints against a continuation of economic growth. Uganda has ongoing military involvement in the War on Congo, wrongly taking money from the already deprived country and into the war. Many villages in Uganda also have to waste their precious money and time in pursuit of hiding places. They are faced with a group known as, The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). LRA is infamous for their twenty years of massacre and slaughter in Uganda, causing an estimated 1.5 million internally displayed persons. Several people are questioning why the LRA is still terrorizing the country and criticizing the government’s commitment to putting an end this horrific group. The Inspector General of Government (IGG) ...
While rebels had control of the diamond mines, they killed approximately 4 million people and countless families were displaced. The acts of violence that were perpetrated 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 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.
During the author’s life in New York and Oberlin College, he understood that people who have not experienced being in a war do not understand what the chaos of a war does to a human being. And once the western media started sensationalizing the violence in Sierra Leone without any human context, people started relating Sierra Leone to civil war, madness and amputations only as that was all that was spoken about. So he wrote this book out o...
This relates back to Congo, where violence spurred by ethnic rivalries is due to local groups’ desire to make money by getting into the extractive industries. In another example, Newmont, an American company, mines Ghanaian gold and pays the government part of the profits. Here, Burgis shined the spotlight on an environmental issue: the sodium cyanide spill in Kwamebourkrom that killed aquatic life and posed hazardous living conditions for locals (Burgis, 134). Finally, in the last few chapters, Burgis touched on Cecil John Rhodes’ legacy as the founder of De Beers, blood diamonds, imperialism, and violence carried out by local governments and mining companies in order to protect their interests.
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.
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.
Orogun, P. (2004). "Blood diamonds" and Africa's armed conflicts in the post—cold war era. World Affairs, 166(3), 151-161. doi:10.3200/WAFS.166.3.151-161
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.