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Introduction
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Management/Operations
5
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Methodology/Processes
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VOLUME 2 OF REPORT
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Executive Summary
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Findings
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Recommendations
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Reparations
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List of Victims
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VOLUME 3a OF REPORT
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Historical Antecedents
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Governance
3
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Military/Political History
4
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Nature of the Conflict
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VOLUME 3b OF REPORT
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Mineral Resources
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External Actors
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Women & the Conflict
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Children & the Conflict
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Youth
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RECONCILIATION
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National Vision
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Statistical Report
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The Final Report of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone
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Volume 2
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Volume 2: Chapter 1: Executive Summary
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CHAPTER ONE
Executive Summary
This Executive Summary provides a cursory overview of the Report and its principal areas of analysis. Substantive detail is contained in the chapters that comprise the remainder of the Report. It is particularly important to read the Executive Summary in conjunction with the Findings and Recommendations chapters. The Commission hopes those who read the Executive Summary will take the time also to read the rest of the Report. Only by so doing can a comprehensive understanding be obtained of one of the terrible human tragedies that unfolded in the last decade of the twentieth century.
Introduction
1.
On 23 March 1991, armed conflict broke out in Sierra Leone - a country on the coast of West Africa made up of just 4.5 million people - when forces crossed the border from Liberia into the town of Bomaru near the eastern frontier. An organisation styling itself the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) claimed responsibility for the incursion, with the declared objective being to overthrow the corrupt and tyrannical government of Joseph Saidu Momoh and the All People’s Congress (APC), which had ruled Sierra Leone since 1968.
2.
The events in Bomaru that day heralded the beginning of a decade of violence that devastated the country. As the conflict exploded into appalling brutality against civilians, the world recoiled in horror at the tactics used by the RUF, its allies and opponents. Reports emerged of indiscriminate amputations, abductions of women and children, recruitment of children as combatants, rape, sexual slavery, cannibalism, gratuitous killings and wanton destruction of villages and towns. This was a war measured not so much in battles and confrontations between combatants as in attacks upon civilian populations. Its awesome climax was the destruction of much of Freetown in January 1999.
3.
The war finally shuddered to a negotiated conclusion, reached at Lomé, the capital of nearby Togo, in July 1999. Although the Lomé Peace Agreement did not end the fighting entirely, it began a process that brought a fragile peace to the country. The subsequent presence of a sizeable United Nations peacekeeping force, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), did much to ensure that conflict would not be renewed and that the components of a lasting peace, notably disarmament and demobilisation, would be effected.
4.
Article XXVI of the Lomé Peace Agreement provided for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The mandate of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC or Commission) was then set out in several sections of the enabling legislation, the TRC Act, adopted in 2000 by the Parliament of Sierra Leone. According to Section 6(1) of the TRC Act:
[T]he object for which the Commission is established is to create an impartial historical record of violations and abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law related to the armed conflict in Sierra Leone, from the beginning of the conflict in 1991 to the signing of the Lomé Peace Agreement; to address impunity, to respond to the needs of the victims, to promote healing and reconciliation and to prevent a repetition of the violations and abuses suffered.
5.
In response to its mandate and in order to create an impartial historical record, the Commission examined the following areas:
the historical antecedents to the conflict and other events that defined or shaped the evolution of the Sierra Leonean state;
the causes of conflict, with a particular focus on issues of governance;
the story of the conflict, including its military and political dynamics, its nature and characteristics, the role of external actors and factors that fuelled it, such as the exploitation of mineral resources;
the impact of the conflict on specific groups, particularly on women, children and youths;
the relationship between the TRC and the Special Court for Sierra Leone; and
efforts that can be made to help Sierra Leone reconcile with its past, including the prospect of a reparations programme and the development of a National Vision for Sierra Leone.
6.
In making its findings and preparing its Report, the Commission took into account information gathered through a variety of means. Primary sources included: testimonies given by victims, witnesses and perpetrators at the Commission’s hearings and during its statement-taking phase; the outcomes of investigation and research conducted by the Commission’s staff; and the statistical or quantitative analysis derived from the Commission’s database of human rights violations.
Historical Antecedents to the Conflict
7.
How did a peace-loving nation become engulfed, seemingly overnight, in horror? What events occurred in the history of the country to make this conflict possible? Explanations put forward have varied from ‘bad governance’ and ‘the history of the post-colonial period in Sierra Leone’ to ‘the urge to acquire the country’s diamond wealth’ and the roles of Libya or the Liberian faction leader Charles Taylor. The international community initially dismissed the war as just another example of tribal conflict in Africa; another failed state imploding in the context of environmental degradation and acute economic crisis.
8.
In order to ‘‘compile a clear picture of the past’’ the Commission devoted considerable resources towards examining the pre-conflict history of the country. These efforts were intended to locate causes of conflict in Sierra Leone’s past, place the conflict within its proper historical context and offer explanations for what went wrong.
9.
The Commission identified social trends that spawned division and confrontation between the various groups that make up Sierra Leone. It picked out fault lines and key events that created the structural conditions for conflict. It highlighted decisions on the part of the political elite that were designed to strengthen their grip on power at the expense of common benefit, progress and ultimately peace.
10.
Central to the Commission’s study of history was the social and political interaction among Sierra Leone’s constituent groups. The nature and extent of such interaction - often negative and limited - influenced people’s perceptions of the state in which they lived and their own places within it. These perceptions in turn presented the greatest challenge to the concepts of nationhood and citizenship. They undermined the positive sense of national identity needed to build a strong and unified independent nation.
11.
The Commission examined the colonial period and the first few years of independence together under the section entitled ‘The Historical Evolution of the Sierra Leonean State’. In this section, four distinct phases proved crucial to understanding the roots of the conflict and some of the challenges that the country still faces today:
The Colony and the Protectorate.
Rather than constructing a unified Sierra Leonean state, the colonial government effectively created two nations in the same land. The colonial capital Freetown, known as the Colony, and the much larger area of provincial territory, known as the Protectorate, were developed separately and unequally. The colonial government formalised the common law practised in the Colony yet neglected the development of customary law in the Protectorate, thus producing two separate legal systems that persist to the present day. The impact of colonial policies and practices, including those relating to citizenship, ownership of land, land tenure rights and conflict of laws, was far-reaching. People in the Colony enjoyed vastly superior social, political and economic development and access to vital resources such as education. The divide between the two entities bred deep ethnic and regional resentment and destabilised the traditional system of Chieftaincy.
The Era of Party Politics.
In 1947, a new Constitution was proposed in order to prepare Sierra Leone for independence. This Constitution amalgamated the Colony and the Protectorate into a single political entity, but divided their elite representatives into opposing factions, each dedicated to protecting the interests of its own people. In due course these factions formed themselves into narrow, regionally based political parties with little or no national agenda. Party politics became the greatest obstacle to national cohesion and identity. Party allegiance was just as divisive as ethnicity, class or regional prejudice in the battle over who should succeed the British. On the cusp of independence in 1961, the ten-year-old Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) was joined in the political arena by the All People’s Congress (APC), which would become its main rival in contesting elections.
The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) in Power.
The SLPP majority party formed the first post-colonial government in 1961. The 1962 elections then revealed the depths of ethnic and regional polarisation in Sierra Leone and the superficiality of the ideological differences between the opposing parties. The SLPP retained power by winning most of its seats in the South and East of the country, which were predominantly populated by Mende people. The SLPP government was therefore labelled as a Mende government. This image polarised public opinion in the country, introduced notions of cronyism in many state institutions and laid the foundations for military involvement in politics. The period had terrible, albeit foreseeable consequences on the unity of the young state and served to deepen existing cleavages.
The 1967 Elections and their Aftermath.
The elections of 1967 were scarred by bitter power struggles based on ethnicity, personality and party affiliation. Although the APC won the most seats, the leadership of the SLPP stoutly refused to concede defeat. The resultant standoff signalled a watershed in the political fortunes of the country and ultimately led to the destruction of the multi-party system. The head of the Army sabotaged the swearing-in of the APC Prime Minister and declared martial law. When it became apparent that this move was engineered to favour the SLPP leadership, junior-ranking soldiers staged a coup. The consequent period of military rule served to narrow the political space in Sierra Leone and compelled others to seek alternative routes to power that did not depend on free and fair elections. It set the scene for multiple further coup attempts in the following decades.
12.
In the second section of the chapter, the Commission focussed on the prolonged period in power of the All People’s Congress (APC). The APC government used concerns about internal security as a pretext to stifle the nascent democratic culture. All the institutions of the state were subjected to strict party control and Siaka Stevens, the new President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, adopted an increasingly authoritarian approach.
13.
Under the APC, central government sustained itself through corruption, nepotism and the plundering of state assets. These practices were replicated at regional and local levels, where Chieftaincy became synonymous with power, patronage and control of resources. When Sierra Leone adopted a one-party constitution in 1978, any semblance of accountability or effective opposition had already been eliminated. Historical trends like economic decay and fragmentation of the national spirit were exacerbated under the one-party system and became key causes of the conflict.
14.
Neither the SLPP nor the APC made any genuine effort to attend to the debasement of the post-independence politics and economy of the country. On the contrary, history speaks of a systemic failure, whereby all the members of the political elite belonged to the same failing system. While they claimed to be ideologically different, in reality the two parties shared a brand of politics that was all about power and the benefits it conferred. Tragically these characteristics persist today in Sierra Leone.
15.
The final section of this chapter traces past dynamics at District level in order to help explain the manner in which the war unfolded across the nation. There were undercurrents of conflict in many areas, from the border Districts that served as ‘gateways’ for the fighting forces, to the strategically located ‘heartland’ Districts that initially supported the insurgency to overthrow the APC. At local level as at national level, many of the answers as to why and how this conflict happened are to be found in its historical antecedents.
Governance
16.
The Commission heard submissions from a variety of authoritative sources that the war in Sierra Leone was largely the result of failures in governance and institutional processes in the country. Successive governments diminished the state’s capacity to meet such critical challenges as the security and livelihood of its citizens, let alone to provide for democratic participation in decision-making processes. The Commission shares the view that unsound governance provided a context conducive for the interplay of poverty, marginalisation, greed and grievances that caused and sustained the conflict. The Commission hopes its treatment of issues of governance - by identifying past distortions, evaluating the adequacy of current remedies and making recommendations to fill the gaps - will enhance efforts towards national recovery, stability and reconciliation.
17.
The instruments of proper governance include laws, institutions, due processes and humane practices that lead to such desired ends as security, justice, enhanced livelihoods and democratic participation. The perceptions adduced by the Commission during its hearings indicate that Sierra Leoneans yearn for a principled system of governance. They want a system that upholds the rule of law over the rule of strong patrons and protects the people from the abuse of rulers through a system of checks and balances. They wish to see horizontal and vertical accountability through the effective operation of such institutions as the judiciary, the auditor general’s office, the electoral commission, the media and civil society.
18.
The Commission looked at the record of each of the post-independence governments on the following critical ‘indicators’: separation of powers; decentralisation; political participation; independence of the judiciary; the rule of law; and the existence and effective operation of oversight bodies and institutions of accountability. The Commission analysed approximations towards or deviations from proper governance on two levels. First, it reviewed the basic legal documents of the land, such as Constitutions and the evolving body of laws, to assess whether ‘indicators’ of proper governance were enshrined and guaranteed. Second, it assessed the manifestation of these ‘indicators’ in practice.
19.
The Commission concluded that all the administrations of the post-independence period contributed to the structural and proximate contexts that led to the conflict in 1991. The duality of the country’s administrative and judicial structures made them vulnerable to manipulation, which the regimes of Sir Milton Margai, Sir Albert Margai and Dr. Siaka Stevens duly utilised to their respective advantages. In the provincial areas, for example, local courts and Chieftaincy structures were used to clamp down on opposition activities and to entrench the authority of whichever traditional ruling houses were allied to the party in power. Meanwhile the continual assault on the rule of law weakened the capacities of state institutions to perform. The judiciary was subordinated to the executive, parliament did little more than ‘rubber-stamp’, the civil service became a redundant state machine and the Army and police force became vectors of violence against the very people they were established to protect. Non-state bodies that ought to ensure accountability - like media houses or civil society groups - were thoroughly co-opted. Opposition political parties were suppressed and eventually banned by President Stevens’ One Party Constitution of 1978.
20.
The successor to Stevens, President J. S. Momoh, attempted to decelerate the economic and political decline through the promulgation of an economic state of emergency and a multi-party constitution. These measures were, however, managed in a dictatorial and abusive fashion, which rendered them ‘too little, too late’ to salvage the situation. Against this backdrop, Sierra Leoneans became increasingly disgruntled and aggrieved with the malaise in governance and their inability to do anything to alleviate it. Many citizens, particularly the poor, marginalised youths of the provinces, became open to radical means of effecting change: they would readily answer the call to arms when the so-called ‘revolution’ began to enter the country in 1991.
21.
Today, proper governance is still an imperative, unfulfilled objective in Sierra Leone. Corruption remains rampant and no culture of tolerance or inclusion in political discourse has yet emerged. Many ex-combatants testified that the conditions that caused them to join the conflict persist in the country and, if given the opportunity, they would fight again. Yet, distressingly, the Commission did not detect any sense of urgency among public officials to respond to the myriad challenges facing the country. Indeed, the perception within civil society and the international community is that all efforts at designing and implementing meaningful intervention programmes, such as the National Recovery Strategy, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) or ‘Vision 2025’, are driven by donors rather than the national government. This is lamentable.
22.
The state is an abstract concept to most Sierra Leoneans and central government has made itself largely irrelevant to their daily lives. In order to correct this deficit in engagement, an overhaul in the culture of governance is required. The executive needs to prove that it is different from its predecessors in the post-independence period. It needs to demonstrate ownership, leadership, imagination and determination in developing and implementing programmes for change. Strong and independent monitoring institutions must hold the government accountable in this exercise. Only then will Sierra Leoneans believe that the necessary lessons have been learnt from the decades of rotten governance that culminated in the tragedy of conflict.
The Military and Political History of the Conflict
23.
The Commission recounts the story of the eleven-year conflict by charting its key events and dynamics in the military and political spheres. A description of the factors that led to the outbreak of hostilities is followed by a detailed accounting of the conflict itself, divided into three distinct ‘phases’. Phase I (Conventional ‘Target’ Warfare: 1991-93) covers the early period defined by inter-factional fighting and the capture of territory. Phase II (‘Guerrilla’ Warfare: 1994-97) describes the shifts in tactics as attacks spread through the country. Phase III (Power Struggles and Peace Efforts: 1997-2000) reviews various military and political alliances, moves towards peace and the resumption of hostilities, before the conflict was finally declared over in 2002. Although each ‘phase’ assumed a slightly different character, they all shared one devastating characteristic: gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by all warring factions.
24.
In the pre-conflict stage, the innumerable failings in governance caused Sierra Leonean activists to seek alternative outlets for expression of their dissent and dissatisfaction with the one-party system. In the late 1980s, a small group of would-be revolutionaries formed a nascent programme for change, which included the idea of undertaking ‘self-defence’ training in Libya. The original ‘revolutionary’ programme never materialised in the form it was intended to take. It was supplanted by a deviant, militant agenda spearheaded by Foday Sankoh, who elicited support from foreign contacts, notably Charles Taylor, and conceived a plan to organise and lead an armed insurgency into Sierra Leone. Sankoh assembled and trained in Liberia a force comprising 385 commandos, who became the ‘vanguards’ of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Taylor authorised nearly 2,000 of his own men from the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) to become ‘Special Forces’ and operate jointly with the RUF in Sierra Leone. Shortly after dawn on 23 March 1991, a band of fighters from Taylor’s NPFL struck the town of Bomaru, Kailahun District. This attack sparked a conflict that was unprecedented in its intensity and nature.
25.
Phase I describes the initial ‘war on two fronts’ and the inclusion of civilian settlements within the scope of NPFL and RUF assaults. It assesses the role of the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and the APC Government’s failure properly to supply it at the outset of the conflict, which contributed to the April 1992 coup forming the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). It explains how an expanded Army then gained ascendancy over a divided insurgent force in 1993, reducing the RUF to a confined area of forest territory on the Liberian border. Nevertheless, there came no decisive thrust from pro-Government forces to end the conflict.
26.
Phase II began when the RUF launched a ‘guerrilla’ strategy, becoming less visible, less predictable, less consistent and less distinguishable. It expanded the scope and coverage of combat operations into every District of Sierra Leone. An RUF trademark was to carry out ‘false flag’ attacks dressed in full SLA military uniforms. This tactic, combined with increased human rights violations by soldiers, led to the breakdown in trust between the civilian population and the SLA. A ‘Palace Coup’ saw a change in the leadership of the NPRC and eventually secured a transition to democratic elections in 1996. Although marred by violence, the elections ushered in a new Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) Government headed by President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. The Abidjan Peace Talks of 1996 were a false dawn and the SLPP Government endorsement of the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) as an arm of the state security apparatus further antagonised the SLA. This phase ended in a collapsed peace process, violence with ethnic undertones by the CDF of the South and East, known as the Kamajors, and an embittered Army looking to exploit a volatile security situation.
27.
Phase III started with the bloody military coup of May 1997 and the appointment of Major Johnny Paul Koroma as Head of State. It heralded a large-scale shift in allegiance away from the SLA to a ‘new’ fighting for
