Sierra Leone

The economy was getting worse, and, eventually, the children of Sierra Leone had to start working. They started to work in the in the worst place they could, the

Over a period from 1960-1965, the first Republic of the Congo experienced a period of serious crisis. There was a terrible war for power that displayed senseless violence and the desperation to rule. There were many internal conflicts among the people. The country eventually gained independence from Belgium. For many countries this would be a time for celebration. Unfortunately for the people of the Congo this became a time to forget. Almost immediately after independence and the general elections, the country went into civil war. Major developed cities like Katanga and Kasai wanted to be independent from the Lumumba government. Different factions started to fight the government and Katanga and Kasai tried to secede from the rest

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

These events that led to the civil war in Sierra Leone destroyed its economic, political, and social system. The economics have been driven down since independence as seen before, from smugglers, to crooked political leaders destroying the economic system into pieces. The collapse of the economic system can trace back to many things. The political system has played a big part in it. The corrupt leaders as seen before in history like Stevens, and Mohob. In the book “Along Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah he experiences the messed up politics. He had first heard about it in the news about neighboring wars. Those wars were in Liberia. He had first hand experience, as he had fought for the government side which is no better than the rebels known as RUF. Ishmael roughly experiences this as he says

The change in Sierra Leone culture is one of the first consequences of war seen in the story. Throughout the civil war the rebels (RUF) recruited or forced many children to become soldiers. In order to get these children they would raid villages and then draft the strongest ones. They would then tell the children that they would not need their families

Before reading “A Long Way Gone,” I was not at all familiar with the civil wars occurring in Sierra Leone. I didn’t know anything about Sierra Leone’s political dynamics either, however I could infer much about what might be going on there if asked. At least that is what I thought. That is until I read part of Ishmael’s memoir. I figured, previously to reading the memoir, that civil wars began as a result of some generally good reason, and were continued for a generally good reason. The civil wars in Sierra Leone, as I read, were quite the opposite, rather blind fight for power, as narrated by Beah, “A lot of things were done with no reason or explanation.” It is also implied that each side in the war believed that they themselves were doing

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.

When Sierra Leone was colonized, it was considered a rich environment for slave trade, they referred to human beings like a natural resource that Sierra Leone was abundant in. Eventually, when slave trade was made illegal, though, in an attempt to try and mend what they had done, Britain sent former slaves to live in Sierra Leone, and eventually the US followed suit. This made it so all the native cultures that were already there got mixed in and even distorted with American and British slave culture and in some cases other forms of European culture. This severely impacted the overall culture and, therefore, made the government more vulnerable to “traditions” getting out of hand.

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

Sierra Leone was in dismay, but the majority of the world was unaware. People were running from burning villages, from warriors high on drugs, and from death itself. Even though the majority of the country was running, until the war came it was not thought of. Villagers imagined that the war was far away in another land, but it was killing people and ravaging their villages left and right. Beah noted that as soon as he left the areas torn down by war, no one seemed to care. The war was a story, something heard but not believed until people saw it. The man and woman who questioned Beah were ignorant towards the war, causing Beah to become enraged at their inquiries and inspire him to write A Long Way Gone.

Republic because they had suffered three separate army mutinies in 1996. The UN operation is helping to maintain security in the capital of Bangui. They also helped to provide a secure place for the elections and they trained the country's police. In Siberia Leone, there have been revenge attacks by the former military group called Junta. Hundreds of villagers had been killed and thousands more mutilated by former Junta troops hiding in the country. The Security Counsel voted to establish a 70-member team that worked with peacekeepers to reduce Junta. They also support to restore the new government. The UN pledged 55 million dollars in humanitarian aid for refugees there and in neighboring countries. In June of 1998, the Security Council lifted an arms

I chose the country of Sierra Leone because of my personal connection with the country. Sierra Leone is a small West African country bordered by North Atlantic Ocean, Liberia and Guinea. Sierra Leone became an independent nation from the British on April 27, 1961. The official language spoken is a form of broken English called Krio – “English-based Creole, spoken by the descendants of freed Jamaican slaves who settled in the Freetown area, a lingua franca and a first language for 10% of the population but understood by 95%" (CIA World Factbook). Despite being on the list of least developed countries, Sierra Leone is richly endowed with natural resources, especially diamonds, titanium ore, bauxite, iron ore, gold, chromite.

Following the end of Liberia’s civil war (which was borne out of the relationship of the US and Samuel Doe, the Liberian people elected a government in a free and fair democratic elections), the country was in need of the US and other world powers to help stimulate the country’s economy and help rebuild its damaged infrastructure. However, the US basically walked away from Liberia at the opportune moment leaving Liberia to its own devices and also at the mercy of the Supreme Being to perform some sort of miracle to rebuild this nation that was once very important to the US during the Cold War.

“Give War a Chance” is an article written by the American economist, historian and military strategist Edward Nicolae Luttwak in 1999, in the American magazine Foreign Affairs. It make an easily understandable “buzz”, since its main assumption is that most kind of peacekeeping or humanitarian operations are, in an objective point of view, a bad thing for the peace, and that it tends, paradoxically, to slower its establishment. We will analyze here the main hypothesis that Luttwak is developing among the article, the first one being the destruction of the legitimacy usually accorded to peacekeeping operations, led by the UN or by other military organizations, and the second one being the obstacle to a durable peace establishment, created