Blood Diamonds & Sierra Leone Essay

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and the recent 2006 film Blood Diamond both depict how it was living in Sierra Leone, Africa during the Civil War in the ‘90’s. While A Long Way Gone focuses on child soldiers and what they had to live and go through for many years, Blood Diamond focuses mainly on how the country is torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. The film portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to stop them from voting in upcoming elections. Both the movie and the book try to tackle major issues by asking the questions: how

A brief historical account of Sierra Leone may provide only a glimmer as to why the Sierra

Since the start of the Sierra Leonean war in March of 1991, innocent civilians have been the primary target of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)’s wrath. The people of Sierra Leone have faced significant problems due to the invasions and attacks by the Rebel Forces and are the main population that is being affected by this group’s disapproval of the government. One person who experienced profound changes in her life due to the start of this war is Mariatu Kamara, a victim of a Rebel attack that cost her both her childhood and her hands. Throughout her memoir, “The Bite of the Mango,” she is faced with numerous traumatic events and meets an abundance of people who were very significant in her life and some of whom helped her survive the war. Kamara also gives the reader a variety of themes to use as a foundation to understanding war life, which also serve to help readers learn more about life, grow as people, and rise above to help others in need. Mariatu Kamara has not only changed the lives of people all throughout Sierra Leone by giving them a voice and an outlet to share their experiences, but has also proved to be an inspiration for countless amputees around the world.

Manipulation is a key factor in the outbreak of a war. Ishmael Beah discusses the several instances of manipulation that occur in Sierra Leone. In his memoir, A Long Way Gone, Beah discuses his life during the civil war outbreak in Sierra Leone. He explains how the affects of war affected in both a positive and negative connotation. Several publishers seek a better understanding of the struggle that Beat faces during the time of the civil war. Throughout the novel, Beah discusses the damage Sierra Leone goes through. He learns valuable lessons throughout his time in combat, which he seeks to share with others. Although Beah describes the importance of soldiers in a time of war, he believes in his memoir, “A Long Way Gone”, that awareness should

In Ishmael Beah’s memoir “A Long Way Gone”, Beah’s imagery reflects both his decrepit emotional state and Sierra Leone’s disarray. When Beah explains how he and Kaloko went to Kamator to see if there were signs of anything living, he describes the scene as such, “The silence in the village was too scary. I was scared when the wind blew, shaking the thatched roofs, and I felt as if I were out of my body wandering somewhere” (46). Here, Beah’s distinguished use of imagery represents his worn emotional state and Sierra Leone’s disarray. How the war has not only turned villages into ghost towns, but also displays the emptiness and the fear that he has felt during this experience. This imagery represents the effects the war had on Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone has been involved in a humungous amount of absurd human rights violations since 1991 when the civil war erupted. This detailed paper on the book, A Long Way Gone, set in Sierra Leone, will create interest by summarizing the memoir through descriptive examples and text on symbolism and imagery. The author of this memoir A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is Ishmael Beah, it's difficult to believe that this is a true and harsh story. You will be learning about Ishmael's resilience and the horrible struggles he faced as a child soldier, while somehow continuing to have hope. Ishmael Beah, 12 at the beginning of this memoir, unexpectedly gets recruited into a time consuming war over blood diamonds, against the rebels as a young child. Ishmael is at a loss, since with his own eyes he viewed not only his loving family, but his whole village as it was horrifically torn down by the dangerous rebels. Ishmael is not physically lonely during the book, but he is emotionally

In the book, A long way gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier, the author recounts vividly a period in his life where he experienced the civil unrest in Sierra Leone in the 1990’s. Ishmael Beah utilizes powerful imagery to allow the reader to visualize how violent the civil war was. One of the quotes that stood out, was “IT WAS INFURIATING to be told what to do by civilians. Their voices … enraged me so much that I would punch the wall, my locker or anything that I was standing next to. A few days earlier, we could have decided whether they would live or die.”

Social impacts of violence are detrimental to individuals, communities, and entire nations. Beah’s harrowing ordeal in Sierra Leone’s civil war exposes him to all of these impacts. A sense of community is quickly lost

The doors open slowly when a semi-delirious man uses his back to push them open. Makeshift bandages are nearly bled-through despite the string tourniquets a kind passerby had made for the now-destitute man after he had collapsed on the road to the hospital. He numbly rambles out his story, it’s not one the hospital staff is unfamiliar with but the macabre details are still worthy of nightmares. The man, Ismael, relives a more coherent version once the antibiotics have started to fight off the infections around his amputated hands: “The first victim was dragged forward and forced to kneel before a stump. As the man screamed, he severed one limb first, then the next” (Campbell, Ch. 1, para. 6). Ismael described the way that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) attacked his village of Koidu, Sierra Leone – an area that is rich in diamonds, the catalyst that led not only to the RUF, but the civil wars that plagued the region. Even though Ismael’s story is likely a dramatized conglomerate of similar tales from the region, it does serve to illustrate the plight for which Sierra Leone was renown. Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, and certain other African nations had been in a state of near constant conflict since the 1980s, or earlier.

¹A cilvic war of corruption have turned apart the relationships of Sierra Leone and the trust among its people, its travesty esstitally have destroy once peaceful community. Prior to the cilvic war, the people of Sierra Leoner have shared an intimate relationship with each other, they were a tight communities, until the war took away their lives, forcefully turning the family against each other.

On March 23rd, 1991, a civil war started between the Sierra Leonean Government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). This war had an enormous impact on everyone in and around the country, especially young civilian boys who were taken from their families and homes to become child soldiers. One of these former government soldiers is Ishmael Beah, who was brought into this battle between powers at only 13 years old. Throughout his lifetime, he has had to confront many challenges and conflicts, most of which can be found in his memoir, “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.” After reading his memoir, I have gained much knowledge on the topic of both the Sierra Leone Civil War and the issue of children becoming soldiers. The themes of this

He trekked for days without food, helplessly watched rebel forces immolate villages, and spent two years killing enemy soldiers as a young teenager. He is Ishmael Beah and unlike much of his family and friends, he lived to tell his story. In 2007, Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone was published, an intense but honest account of the atrocities Beah faced as a child during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war. As the story depicts the awful tragedies that civil war and abuses of human rights inflict upon people around the world, it embodies Sharon High School’s Preventing and Confronting Global Injustice course, which prioritizes studying these case studies in order to prevent injustice from occurring in the future. Not only does the memoir explain the deadly war, but it also enlightens readers, emphasizing the importance of healing and rediscovering one's humanity, another essential aspect of the class. Beah successful teaches through his life story that although civil war permanently shapes and frequently destroys countries, families, and children's loss of innocence, there are ways to combat the injustice and find love, peace, and humanity. Therefore, A Long Way Gone is an extremely eye-opening memoir that depicts the struggle of Sierra Leone’s Lost Boys through Beah’s immensely heart wrenching experiences.

Due to these Blood Diamonds, Sierra Leone has faced many social and economic costs. One diamond is capable of causing a civil war. That’s all, a fight over diamond control took many lives. During this civil war, rebels came and committed disgusting crimes including murder,

Until 1974, Angola had been a colony under Portuguese jurisdiction since 1576. “The combined forces of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), and the National Union for the Total Independence succeeded in their struggle in removing the Portuguese colonial government in April, 1974”[1]. A bloody transitional period ensued throughout the next year, where a struggle for control of Angola’s government erupted between these three groups. The FNLA quickly disappeared from the scene, and the main battle for power evolved between the MPLA under Jose dos Santos and UNITA under Dr. Jonas Savimbi.

Building a nation… Slavery, Independence, Constitution, Military coups to Presidential elections! Senior Enlisted leaders, it is important to know that the freedoms we all prefer comes with a cost of sacrifice, bloodshed, and for some, nation before self for democracy. This essay will discuss the background, government, strategic importance, and future direction of Sierra Leone.