Origins of the Civil War in Sierra Leone

von: Florian Seidl
 

Introduction: "urban origins" and "social terrain"

Most of the post-colonial so-called ′rebel movements′ in Africa, which occurred in a number of African countries, long after the independence, are marked by an excessive use of violence, mostly against the innocent rural civil population, which is killed and tortured by the ′rebels′ in the pursuit of their ′revolution′. In trying to find a general explanation for this phenomenon, Mkandawire has basically argued that "the social terrain of rural Africa is highly unsuitable for classical guerrilla warfare and that, combined with the urban origins of rebel movements, this generates self-defeating behavior on the part of armed groups, and terrible suffering for rural populations." 1 According this interpretation, the violent actions of African rebels have to be seen in the context of (1.) the urban origins and agendas of the rebel movements and (2.) the rural terrain of Africa that is generally hostile towards them.

It is argued that post-colonial rebel movements in Africa commonly are driven by and rooted in urban concerns. A first source for the "urban crisis" often are "intra-elite conflicts", when the nationalist political pacts of the independence struggles start to deteriorate. Another reason is the ongoing decline of African national economies that is especially felt by the urban populations, due to "structural adjustment measures" imposed by the major donor-agencies, which result in tremendously rising living costs – contrasted by increases in luxury consumption of the elite. However, although the roots of the conflict are usually urban ones, the fighting takes place in rural areas, "until such a time as it is deemed appropriate to make the final assault on the urban areas". 2 For that reason it is necessary, to include also the responses and actions of the rural population into the analysis, not only the direct roots of the ′revolutions′. In Africa, Mkandawire observes, "peasants still have direct access to the main means of production – labour and land", they more or less own their land and are not directly exploited by capitalist landlords. As already "Che" Guevara has observed: "In all wars of liberation of this type, a basic element is the hunger for land, involving the great poverty …" – the new ′revolutionaries′ therefore have not much to offer to the peasants. What is more, the ability of the state to rip off the peasants deteriorated in the 1980s and 1990s, due to the adoption of structural adjustment programs and "by the general curtailing of the state′s reach in most African countries". 3

Thus, it is not the peasantry that calls for the urban youth to help them in their struggle, but the young urban rebels that try to persuade the peasantry to start a revolution. Convinced of the righteousness and necessity of the revolution, the originally urban rebels then "will tend to consider reluctant peasants as enemies or traitors, with death the usual penalty". 4 In this way, the peasants′ unwillingness to fight and their dissociation from the revolutionaries is seen as the root-cause for their terrible suffering in African civil wars. In the purpose of this essay is to confront this explanation with the reality of the civil war in Sierra Leone – perhaps one of the most extreme examples for atrocities agains t the peasantry among African civil wars, with the RUF′s "hideous reputation for human rights abuses", including "summary execution, rape, and mutilation … preceded by psychological tortures of breathtaking malevolence". 5 It is therefore necessary first to explain the origins and the course of this ′revolution′, especially with respect to the use of violence, before it can be shown how the case of Sierra Leone fits into the suggested model.

Origins and character of the civil war in Sierra Leone

[...]

1 Mkandawire, ′The terrible toll′, p 182.

2 Mkandawire, ′The terrible toll′, p 192-193.

3 Mkandawire, ′The terrible toll′, p 193-196.

4 Mkandawire, ′The terrible toll′, p 204.

5 Fanthorpe, ′Neither citizen nor subject?′, p 364.