Sierra Leone

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Country in West Africa, on the Atlantic Ocean, bounded north and east by Guinea and southeast by Liberia.

Government
Sierra Leone has a directly-elected presidential executive. Its 1991 constitution, which was suspended by the military during much of the 1990s, provides for a multiparty system. The president, who is head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is elected by popular vote for a five-year term, renewable once. There is a single-chamber legislature, the 124-member House of Representatives, comprising 112 members directly elected for five-year terms by proportional representation in 14 multi-member constituencies, and paramount chiefs from the country's 12 administrative districts.

History
Freetown, the capital, was founded by Britain in 1787 for homeless Africans rescued from slavery. Sierra Leone became a British colony in 1808.

Independence
Sierra Leone achieved full independence as a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth in 1961, with Sir Milton Margai, leader of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), as prime minister. He died in 1964 and was succeeded by his half-brother, Dr Albert Margai. The 1967 general election was won by the All People's Congress (APC), led by Dr Siaka Stevens, but the result was disputed by the army, which assumed control and forced the governor general to leave the country.

One-party state
In 1968 another army revolt brought back Stevens as prime minister, and in 1971, after the constitution had been changed to make Sierra Leone a republic, he became president. He was re-elected in 1976, and the APC, having won the 1977 general election by a big margin, began to demand the creation of a one-party state. To this end, a new constitution was approved by referendum in 1978, and Stevens was sworn in as president.

Stevens retired as president in 1985, and the APC endorsed the commander of the army, Maj-Gen Joseph Momoh, as the sole candidate for the party leadership and presidency. Momoh appointed a civilian cabinet and dissociated himself from the policies of his predecessor, who had been criticized for failing to prevent corruption within his administration.

Short-lived democracy and the start of civil war
In 1991 a new multiparty constitution was approved by referendum. However, the move towards democracy was frustrated by a spillover to Sierra Leone from the civil war in neighbouring Liberia. Government forces became embroiled in a struggle with rebels operating from neighbouring Liberia under the banner of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by Corporal Foday Sankoh, and which was backed by a Liberian rebel group led by Charles Taylor. Concern about government corruption and the failure to deal with the RUF, led, in April 1992, to a group of young army officers, led by the 25-year-old Capt Valentine Strasser to overthrow the government. President Momoh fled to neighbouring Guinea, political party activity was suspended (until 1995), and an interim military-dominated Supreme Council of State was set up.

Fighting with the RUF guerrillas intensified into civil war and by 1995 over 20,000 had been killed, hundreds of thousands had become refugees, and the RUF held much of the countryside. Strasser responded by hiring foreign mercenaries to drive back the RUF, but in January 1996, he was overthrown in a coup and replaced by his defence minister, Brigadier Julius Maada Bio.

Brief return to civilian rule
There was a return to civilian rule, with multiparty presidential elections held in 1996, which were won by Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP). The new government agreed a ceasefire with the RUF in March 1996, but it did not hold.

In May 1997 a military coup, led by Maj-Gen Johnny Paul Koroma overthrew President Kabbah, who fled the country. Koroma suspended the constitution, banned political parties, and invited the RUF to join the government. Koroma's Armed Forces Ruling Council proceeded to devastate the county in a campaign of looting, rape, arson, and murder. This led to UN sanctions and the Commonwealth suspending the country from membership. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sent in Nigerian-led peacekeeping forces to subdue the rebels and in February 1998 Koroma's junta was driven out.

Kabbah returns to power to reach accord with RUF
In March 1998, President Kabbah was returned to power, but faced a mammoth task, with the RUF in control of more than half the country. Fighting continued across the country, with 6,000 killed in the Freetown area in January 1999 alone as the RUF rebels advanced on the capital, demanding the release of their captured leader, Foday Sankoh, who had been sentenced to death for treason. However, Nigerian-led peacekeeping troops repulsed the rebels and in May 1999 Kabbah and Sankoh agreed a ceasefire and, in July 1999, signed a peace accord. This provided for the formation of a power-sharing government between President Kabbah and the RUF, with Sankoh as vice-president, and an amnesty from prosecution for all armed forces.

In October 1999, Foday Sankoh and his fellow rebel leader, Johnnie Paul Koroma, returned to the country to take part in a power-sharing government.

Implementation of UN peacekeeping force
The UN Security Council agreed in October 1999 to send 6,000 peacekeepers to help a fragile peace deal for Sierra Leone. The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) was the largest new UN peacekeeping mission since 1996 and it incorporated troops from Ecomog, the Nigerian-led West African intervention force. UNAMSIL later expanded to a peak of 17,500 personnel. Under a demobilization plan, rebels were given training and money, and efforts made to reintegrate them in their villages.

Increased rebel violence
In early 2000 it became apparent to UN monitors, that RUF rebels in the north were refusing to disarm and were continuing to loot, murder, and mutilate civilians. In May 2000 the peace accord effectively collapsed when the RUF clashed with UN peacekeepers, and 500 peacekeepers were taken hostage. Fighting intensified as rebels advanced on the capital. Koroma led an attack on the RUF, his former allies, as the UN called for peacekeeping reinforcements. An 800-strong British task force was sent to Sierra Leone to oversee the evacuation of foreigners from Freetown.

In May 2000 government troops and UN peacekeepers fought the RUF rebels in Freetown, and forced their retreat and the release of UN hostages, after Sankoh was captured and held under UN supervision. In July 2000, the UN imposed a ban on the sale of diamonds smuggled from Sierra Leone amid allegations that Liberia was involved in trading arms for Sierra Leonean diamonds, and aiding the RUF rebels. Also, the UN security council unanimously approved a resolution to create a court to prosecute rebel leaders responsible for deaths and maiming routinely carried out during the long-running civil war.

In November 2000, with the UN set to withdraw many of its troops from Sierra Leone, a fresh 500-strong British military task force arrived to defend Freetown against rebel attacks. More than two-thirds of the country, including the diamond mines, remained under rebel control. In December 2000, fighting spread to border regions of Guinea, with over 300 people killed in a single rebel border raid. There were over 330,000 Sierra Leone refugees in Guinea and they were temporarily cut off from aid by the fighting.

Peace agreement
In spring 2001 pro-government militia and Guinea's forces had pushed the RUF back to their stronghold in the eastern diamond fields. This persuaded the RUF to sign, in May 2001, a UN-brokered agreement with the government. The rebels agreed to disarm if pro-government militia did likewise, and both now began to do so. The RUF also released nearly 600 child-soldiers, and promised to release more. In July 2001, rebels and the government in Sierra Leone agreed to stop diamond mining in the east of the country, to help disarmament proceed, and allow the deployment of UN peacekeepers. The diamond trade had long been used to fund the civil war.

In February 2002 a first group of Sierra Leonean refugees returned home from Liberia under a UN voluntary repatriation programme.

In March 2002, rebel leader Foday Sankoh was charged in court with murder.

2002 elections
By January 2002, most of the rebels and militia had demobilized and 45,000 fighters had surrendered their weapons. The government began to reclaim control of formerly rebel-held areas and the state of emergency, in force since 1998, was lifted. President Kabbah declared that the civil war, which had claimed 50,000 lives, was over.

In multiparty elections held in March 2002 Kabbah was re-elected, with 70% of the vote, and his SLPP won a large majority of seats in the parliamentary elections. Voter turnout was high. In June 2003, the UN ban on the sale of Sierra Leone diamonds was ended. By February 2004, the UN had completed its disarmament and rehabilitation programme in the country, helping over 70,000 ex-combatants. By September 2004 Sierra Leone's police and army had taken over, from the UN, primary responsibility for security in the area around Freetown. A small number of UN peacekeepers remained to assist the government until January 2006.

The task of rebuilding a shattered economy and infrastructure was huge, as was that of reconciliation. In 2002 the government and the UN set up a Special Court in Freetown to try those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the civil war. It issued its first indictments in 2003, including to Koroma and Sankoh, but in July 2003 Sankoh died in prison, of a heart attack.

The stars are said to represent Syria and Iraq. Red, white, black, and green are the pan-Arab colours. Effective date: 29 March 1980. >>