The West Side Boys: military navigation in the Sierra Leone civil war

2008 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Utas ◽  
Magnus Jörgel
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Military Training ◽  
Political Strategies ◽  
The West ◽  
West Side ◽  
Sierra Leonean ◽  
Military Commanders ◽  
Western Media

ABSTRACTThe West Side Boys were one of several military actors in the Sierra Leonean civil war (1991–2002). A splinter group of the army, the WSB emerged as a key player in 1999–2000. In most Western media accounts, the WSB appeared as nothing more than renegade, anarchistic bandits, devoid of any trace of long-term goals. By contrast, this article aims to explain how the WSB used well-devised military techniques in the field; how their history and military training within the Sierra Leone army shaped their notion of themselves and their view of what they were trying to accomplish; and, finally, how military commanders and politicians employed the WSB as a tactical instrument in a larger map of military and political strategies. It is in the politics of a military economy that this article is grounded.

Sierra Leone

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Schneider ◽  
Vanessa Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Urban District ◽  
The West ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Coastal City ◽  
Western Area ◽  
British Colony ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations

Sierra Leone is located on the west coast of Africa, with an area of 71,740 square kilometres (km), bordered by Guinea, Liberia, and a coast line on the Atlantic Ocean of 402 km. The capital of Sierra Leone is the coastal city of Freetown and commands one of the world’s largest natural harbours. It has a population of 7.557 million (2017). The Western Area Urban District, which includes the capital city of Freetown, has a population density of 1,224 people per square kilometre. Formerly a British colony, Sierra Leone became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1961 and attained republican status on 19 April 1971. The Sierra Leone civil war took place from 1991 until 2002, a war which had a devastating effect on the country and its economy. Since 2002. Sierra Leone has been in the process of rebuilding and regeneration following the civil war. Official business hours are from Monday to Friday from 0800 to 1700. The currency of Sierra Leone is the Leone (Le).

scholarly journals Decay or Resilience?

2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Koos
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Psychological Trauma ◽  
General Question ◽  
Trauma Research ◽  
Feminist Literature ◽  
Sierra Leonean ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Long Term Impact

This article examines the long-term impact of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) on prosocial behavior in Sierra Leone. Two theoretical arguments are developed and tested. The first draws on the feminist literature and suggests the presence of a decay mechanism: victims and their families are stigmatized by their community and excluded from social networks. The second integrates new insights from social psychology, psychological trauma research, and anthropology, and argues for a resilience mechanism. It argues that CRSV-affected households have a strong incentive to remain part of their community and will invest more effort and resources into the community to avert social exclusion than unaffected households. Using data on 5,475 Sierra Leonean households, the author finds that exposure to CRSV increases prosocial behavior—cooperation, helping, and altruism—which supports the resilience hypothesis. The results are robust to an instrumental variable estimation. The ramifications of this finding go beyond the case of Sierra Leone and generate a more general question: What makes communities resilient to shocks and trauma?

Conclusion

Out of War ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 256-266
Author(s):  
Mariane C. Ferme
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
West African ◽  
Global Community ◽  
African Region ◽  
The West ◽  
Rural Villages ◽  
Urban Households ◽  
Sierra Leonean ◽  
West African Region

This chapter returns to a theme first advanced in the introduction of the overlap between the West African region affected by the 2014–2016 Ebola crisis and the region affected by the 1991–2002 civil war to argue that the humanitarian intervention followed symmetrical practices of securitization of the national landscape, checkpoints, blockades, and a politics that tended to contain the population in urban households and rural villages. For the global community, the Ebola emergency was the more critical than the war because of the speed with which the disease could circulate beyond original boundaries of transmission. But for Sierra Leonean communities that experienced both realities, the war continues to be remembered as the most horrific and critical experience of emergency in recent decades.

Consequences and Continuities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Escott
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
African Americans ◽  
National Government ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
The West ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
North And South

This chapter focuses on the consequences of the Civil War, especially for the nation-state, for African Americans, and for the West. It examines, with commentary and suggestions, new ideas about how to conceptualize the era. An uneven process of national consolidation yielded a national government that was strong in some areas and weak or absent in others. The long-term effects of the war on communities, veterans, immigrants, and attitudes North and South are key areas for research.

US–Guinea relations during the rise and fall of Charles Taylor

2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dane F. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Economic Transition ◽  
Military Training ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
The Us ◽  
Seriously Ill

The Liberian civil war was the major issue in US–Guinea relations between 1990 and 2003. During the first half of this period, the US sought with limited success to secure Guinea's cooperation in finding a diplomatic solution. President Conté viewed Charles Taylor as Guinea's implacable enemy and authorised arms support for anti-Taylor factions, while the US pressed for a negotiated peace. The Guinean leader's negative reaction to US criticism of the flawed 1993 presidential elections halted most dialogue on Liberia for the next two years. When Taylor continued supporting civil war in Sierra Leone after 1997, and fighters allied to him assaulted Guinea border posts in 1999, the US strengthened its engagement with Guinea. Providing military training and non-lethal equipment, it sought to counter the threat that Guinea would succumb to the destabilisation which had afflicted Liberia and Sierra Leone. The US appears positioned to play a positive role in Guinea's political and economic transition after the departure from the scene of the seriously ill Guinean president.

The Colonial Subtext of British-Led Police Reform in Sierra Leone

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erlend Grøner Krogstad
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sierra Leonean ◽  
International Alliances ◽  
British Colonial

This chapter examines the role of memories of Sierra Leone’s British colonial past in shaping policing practices in the wake of a long civil war. Sierra Leonean powerholders mobilise this history nostalgically to build international alliances, ensure continued funding and as an insurance against coups. This is a particularly complex exemplar of the global and historical interconnectedness of police, for the connections here are as much to the past as to the present, and as much to Sierra Leone itself as to Europe.

Ethical Challenges for Mineral Resource Extraction in Sierra Leone

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Rollinson
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The Poor

<p>Sierra Leone is one of the world’s poorest countries and has been so for over 40 years. It is currently ranked by the IMF as the tenth poorest country with a per capita GDP of $505. In recent years it has been ravaged by civil war (1991-2002) and paralysed by the Ebola virus. Yet it is a country rich in mineral resources – in particular diamonds, thus an economy highly dependent upon geoscientific knowledge. Sierra Leone therefore serves as an illustration of other African countries also rich in mineral resources. At The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion in Cambridge we are engaged in research into the relationship between Science, Faith and Human flourishing. However, in Sierra Leone the application of geoscientific knowledge is not leading to human flourishing. In fact the reverse is true. Maconachie, writing in 2012, states that ‘today, some of the worst poverty in Sierra Leone is concentrated in diamond mining towns’. In this particular context therefore the application of geoscience prevents human flourishing, a topic discussed elsewhere as the ‘resource curse’. It is suggested that an appropriate solution can be found in the concept of a ‘preferential option for the poor’ rooted in a Christian understanding of God’s priority for the poor.</p><p>Diamonds have been mined in Sierra Leone since the 1930’s and in 2016 it was Africa’s seventh largest diamond producer and diamond exports made the largest contribution to the GDP. Much of the mining is alluvial and the deposits, distributed over several thousand km<sup>2</sup>, are impossible to police. This has led to widespread illegal artisanal mining, extreme social exploitation through patronage, diamond smuggling, the funding and prolonging of a civil war. Further, legally exported diamonds yield a very low return to the local economy and there is a lack of economic transparency.</p><p>The fact that mining was not included in the UN 1992 Agenda 21, the Agenda for Sustainable Development means that the minerals industry globally is controlled almost entirely by the ‘free play of a market that is interested primarily in profits’. Recent models of sustainable development challenge this view and now see people as a part of the total ecosystem, so success is measured in terms of its long term contribution to human flourishing and will be expressed in respectful and authentic relationships at a local level between a mine and its community.</p><p>At a governmental level Sierra Leone is seeking to adopt the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative requiring greater corporate and social responsibility on the part of mining companies. This initiative, which has received a renewed emphasis under President Bio, is designed to ensure that the ‘natural resource wealth becomes an engine for sustainable economic growth and poverty eradication in Sierra Leone’. However, it is unclear whether a governmental initiative can generate suitable authentic relationships at a local level. It is suggested here that locally based faith communities, where natural networks already exist, can play a better role in generating long-term authentic relationships between mine and community to foster human flourishing.</p>

scholarly journals Kerjasama UNICEF dan IRC dalam Penegakan Hak Anak di Sierra Leone

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-48
Author(s):  
Damar Kusumawardani
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Child Soldiers ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Girl Child ◽  
Sierra Leonean ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Children Rights

Sierra Leone was one of the countries with the largest use of child soldiers during the civil war between 1991-2002. Girl child soldiers made up to 30 percent of the total child soldiers involved in the Sierra Leone civil war. The Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration program (DDR) which was one of the UN mandate as a post-conflict peace consolidation could only reach 506 out of a total of 6,845 child soldiers who have been disarmed. This was because the requirement for the disarmament phase was to hand in their weapon, while many girls were not equipped with weapon by their armed forces commander considering that most of them acted as cooks, house workers, and bush wives. UNICEF and IRC as international organizations then carried out further DDR projects with more gender-responsive and community-based with gender mainstreaming and inclusive citizenship policies to enforce children rights of Sierra Leonean girl soldiers who previously had not included in DDR program. This paper will discuss the enforcement of children rights of Sierra Leonean girl soldiers in the furtjer DDR projects.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone: An Initial Comment

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 635-651
Author(s):  
Stuart Beresford ◽  
A.S. Muller
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Sierra Leonean ◽  
Large Numbers

The proposed establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone is a valiant effort to end impunity for the egregious crimes that were committed during the Sierra Leonean civil war. Nonetheless, the Special Court – which will have jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, war crimes, and various offences under Sierra Leonean national law – will have a number of major hurdles to cross in order to fulfill its mandate. Most notably the Court as currently empowered lacks the ability to induce the authorities of third states to comply with its orders and has limited temporal jurisdiction: thereby allowing a number of accused to escape justice. More alarmingly the on-going discussions within United Nations Headquarters concerning the financing of the organisation has substantially eroded the credibility of the institution, especially as large numbers of potential accused have been languishing in jail for significant periods without being formally charged.

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