Xiv.Appendices
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XIV. APPENDICES APPENDIX I SIERRA LEONE: of Sierra Leone Military Forces (the SLA). The major- GLOSSARY OF KEY PLAYERS ity of the ECOMOG forces were supplied by Nigeria. AND OTHER BASICS It eventually took the CDFs under its umbrella. The Green Book, a manifesto by Libyan leader FIGHTING FORCES, THEIR Moammar Gadhafi, preached revolutionary Pan- LEADERS AND POLITICAL Africanism and inspired student activists in Sierra PARTIES Leone in the 1970s and early 1980s to counter the policies of the APC. The book claims that people All People’s Congress (APC), a political party, gov- have rights to accommodation, food and property erned Sierra Leone from 1977 as effectively a one- and should not be allowed to accumulate wealth party regime. Its exclusionary politics prompted stu- beyond individual needs. RUF founders adapted dent protests for governmental reforms the beliefs these calls into their revolutionary rhetoric. and goals of which were ultimately co-opted and corrupted by the leaders of the Revolutionary United Alhiji Ahmed Tejan Kabbah is the current president Front. of Sierra Leone. First elected in February 1996, then overthrown in an AFRC coup in May 1997, he was Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) was reinstalled with the help of ECOMOG in 1998 and formed by government soldiers who ousted newly re-elected in May 2002. He is the leader of the SLPP. elected President Kabbah in a May 1997 coup. It invited the RUF to join the government as the Major Johnny Paul Koroma is the former leader of AFRC/RUF and continued systematic murder, tor- the AFRC. He subsequently became the chairman ture, looting, rape and destruction of economic sys- for the Commission of the Consolidation of Peace tems until its ousting in February 1998 by the (CCP) until the May 2002 presidential and parlia- Economic Community of West African States mentary elections, when he became a member of Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). parliament. Civil Defense Forces (CDFs), community-based fight- Joseph Saidu Momoh is the former army chief who ing forces comprised of tribes across Sierra Leone, succeeded Siaka Stevens as president of Sierra Leone were allied with the government forces against the and leader of the All People’s Congress (APC), rebel insurgents. They used children as part of their beginning in 1985. He and the APC were ousted by fighting forces, often engaging them in rituals to junior officers frustrated by lack of governmental make them believe they were impervious to injury support for their struggle against rebels in Sierra and forcing them to commit human rights abuses. Leone’s eastern forest region, who on March 23, 1991 had begun what would become nearly 10 years Diamonds — “Diamonds, bauxite, titanium,” young of insurgency. 391 people begin to list as they explain the many ways in which warring parties fought for control of their National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), a country’s natural resources. Perhaps more than any Liberian rebel group formed by former soldiers of other factor, profits from the illegal sale of diamonds then Liberian President Samuel Doe’s army, served as financed and thus sustained the brutal war and current Liberian President Charles Taylor’s vehicle to socio-economic destruction in Sierra Leone. power. It set the tone for the Sierra Leone conflict, as former NPFL recruits and Liberian refugees infused Economic Community of West African States the RUF rebel movement with their youth-centered Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), first established in terror tactics. Sierra Leone in 1990, was the Economic Community of West African States’ military contribution to fight- Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel group, ing off the rebels in collaboration with the Republic also known as “the movement” of Sierra Leone, Precious Resources: Adolescents in the Reconstruction of Sierra Leone 1 launched a military campaign against the govern- especially those in the fighting forces. It also pro- ment of Sierra Leone beginning in 1991, as well as a motes coordination among social welfare actors in campaign of terror against Sierra Leonean civilians Sierra Leone, encouraging standardized approaches. for nearly a decade. The RUF killed, maimed, Child Protection Agencies (CPAs) represented in the forcibly recruited and sexually abused and enslaved CPN are principally responsible for delivering servic- thousands of children and adolescents. es to children and adolescents. Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP), evolved Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration out of the RUF, which agreed to transform the group (DDR) program supports the disarmament, demobi- into a political party as part of the peace agreement. lization, care, protection and reintegration of chil- Members of the RUFP were apportioned positions dren associated with the fighting forces as mandated within the government of Sierra Leone. especially by Articles 16 and 30 of the Lomé Peace Agreement. The reintegration component is support- Foday Saybana Sankoh, leader of the RUF, was ed and implemented by UNICEF in partnership with given a status equivalent to that of a vice-president the NCDDR, MSWGCA and the CPN. The primary of Sierra Leone as a result of the Lomé Peace objective of the DDR program has been the consoli- Agreement and is currently in jail in Sierra Leone on dation of security and facilitation of the socio- charges relating to a firefight that took place outside economic reintegration of ex-combatants into civil his home in Freetown. society. The disarmament and demobilization ele- Sierra Leone Army (SLA) is the principal military ments of this program ended formally in January force of the government of Sierra Leone (GOSL) that 2002, when peace was officially declared. Only the fought the RUF with support from ECOMOG, reintegration component of the program continues. CDFs and other groups. Today’s SLA includes Lomé Peace Agreement was signed in Lomé, Togo retrained RUF fighters. on July 7, 1999 by Republic of Sierra Leone Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), a political party, President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and Revolutionary was first banned under the APC and re-formed in United Front of Sierra Leone leader Foday Sankoh, 1991 following a referendum on multi-party democ- marking a commitment to end more than eight years racy. It was and remains the leading political party of hostilities. The Agreement lays out all of the pro- within the government of Sierra Leone. Its support- visions for peace, such as cessation of hostilities; ers were principal targets of the RUF during the war. governance; pardon and amnesty for combatants Government forces under its watch also recruited and collaborators; disarmament, demobilization and and used children in combat. reintegration for former combatants, including chil- dren; and humanitarian assistance and human rights. Charles Taylor is the current President of Liberia and leader of the NPFL. Taylor’s push to overthrow Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Samuel Doe’s government in Liberia fueled the war in Affairs (MSWGCA) is a government ministry neighboring Sierra Leone from its start. In the hopes responsible for policy, coordination and monitoring of destabilizing Sierra Leone’s support for interna- of all child protection actors in Sierra Leone and tional peacekeeping efforts in Liberia, he encouraged chairs the CPN. and supplied the RUF. Violent instability continues National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) is along the Sierra Leone-Liberia border today. a governmental agency that evolved from the National Commission for Reconstruction, Resettlement and Rehabilitation (NCRRR). The ACTORS AND INITIATIVES IN mandate of NaCSA remains the same as that of the RECOVERY FROM THE WAR former NCRRR, with the exception that NaCSA mainly focuses its activities in the northern and east- Child Protection Network (CPN) is a group of over ern provinces. NaCSA is responsible for the overall 25 United Nations agencies, government ministries planning, programming, coordination, supervision and international and local NGOs established in and monitoring of all humanitarian, reintegration, 1996. It is chaired by the Ministry of Social Welfare, resettlement and reconstruction work resulting from Gender and Children’s Affairs (MSWGCA) and the civil war. works to promote and secure the provision of pro- tection and care to children affected by the war, National Commission for Disarmament, 2 Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children Demobilization and Reintegration (NCDDR) is a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees high-level policy body that was appointed, following (UNHCR) is the United Nations organization princi- democratic elections in Sierra Leone in 1998, to pally responsible for the protection and care of address DDR issues. Its original members were GOSL refugees. In Sierra Leone, its primary mission is to ministers and the United Nations Secretary-General’s facilitate and promote the voluntary return of Sierra Special Representative, but eventually also included Leonean refugees and internally displaced returnees, the RUF in its governance of the DDR program. to monitor security and living conditions within Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was Sierra Leone, to promote the enactment of national mandated by the Lomé Peace Agreement in Article legislation and the adoption of administrative proce- XXXVI to help “address impunity, break the cycle dures for refugee issues, and to provide assistance to of violence and provide a forum for both the victims newly arriving Liberian refugees. No one organiza- and perpetrators of human rights violations in the tion has principal responsibility for internally dis- conflict to tell their story, get a clear picture of the place people in Sierra Leone. past in order to facilitate genuine healing and recon- United Nations Children’s Fund in Sierra Leone ciliation.” (UNICEF SL) is the lead child protection agency in United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAM- Sierra Leone and provides CPAs in Sierra Leone with SIL), the UN peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone, had technical assistance, logistical support, funds and its first incarnation when established by the UN training.