Sierra Leone Research Paper

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.

“Liberian Civil war fought in 1989-1996, is among the most deadly and destructive war in the history that lasted for more than 7 years and killed almost 3 hundred thousand people. This war was the worst ever in the history of Africa because it caused the infrastructural and property damage in the country. The war also displaced more than 1 million people in refugee camps in neighboring countries. This war led to a complete breakdown of law and order in the country. There was not any direct cause that led to this war but several reasons contributed in the creation of this destructive event. Hunger for power, greed and opportunities to control and to get more out of Liberia’s natural resources were the main reasons behind this conflict. As D. Elwood Dunn quoted “We begin with the assumption that the conflict arose from the tugs and pulls of different identities the differential distribution of

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.

Sierra Leone is a small country found on the west coast of Africa. The country shares a border with the Atlantic Ocean, Liberia, and Guinea. Sierra Leone has a population of 5,525,000 people, and 27,699 square miles of land. In 1462 Freetown, Sierra Leone was founded by Pedro da Cintra, a Portuguese explorer from Lagos, Portugal. da Cintra originally named the country Sierra Lyoa , the Lion Mountains, but in 1787 the British officially adopted Sierra Lyoa changing its name to its modern day spelling- Sierra Leone. This small country has faced many horrors within its history. The Sierra Leone civil war is a major contributing factor to the country’s current state of poverty and corruption. Most problems that the country faces today all stem

I have chosen to dissect two West African countries, Sierra Leon and Ghana, along with Peru located in South America and lastly the United States located in North America. Sierra Leon is a British established colony founded in 1787 for slaves returning to Africa from Great Britain and also the United States, its primary language is Krio spoken by 97% of citizens. Sierra Leone became an independent country within the Commonwealth of Nations on April 27 of 1961 and Freetown was deemed the capital city. Sierra Leone holds a population of 6,453,184 and population density of 89.4 per square kilometer. In spite that this country is very poor it still suffers the consequences of the Civil war. Yet its mineral, farming and angling assets still ensures potential for monetary future developments. Earnest Bai Koroma is the current President of Sierra Leon. Earnest Bai Koroma is a graduate from the oldest University in West Africa, Fourth Bay College class of 1976, born October 2 1953. Sierra Leon Presidential term limit consists of a maximum of 2 five-year term limits. Earnest BK is now serving his 2nd term as of 2007. During Earnest Bai Presidency Sierra Leonean faced detrimental governmental issues, commanded by the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014. As the nation experienced the most exceedingly sicknesses ever. The President was condemned for the Government slow reaction and for the outrageous measures it took, for example, "shutting down" the whole nation to check the spread

Sierra Leone is a small country in West Africa mainly known because of the bloody and vicious civill war which ended about 3 years ago.

This semester, the topic of Child Soldiers presented a very interesting dilemma that several countries in Africa continue to face today. Sierra Leone, in particular, has struck an interest because of the many films and readings that try to depict this story of the civil war. In class, we have viewed two films representing the problems with child soldiers in Sierra Leone which include films titled Blood Diamond and Ezra. Both films represent opposite sides of the spectrum, as Blood Diamond shows the Western view of child soldiers and Ezra represents the first African view of child soldiers.

In the 1970’s when educated indigenous Liberians protested the raise in rice prices, the Tolbert government violently put down the protest by killing 40 students and wounding 400 (59). This set the stage for a group called The People’s Revolutionary Council led by Samuel Doe to lead a coup on April 12, 1980 that took over the government killing President Tolbert and many others (61). Doe became a dictator who put his ethnic Krahn tribe in charge of everything and took all the natural resources for his own profit (62). Any ethnic groups not of the Krahn tribe were persecuted and many were killed (63). Due to the atrocities suffered under Doe’s dictatorship, different ethnic groups formed rebel organizations to try to defeat Doe. Charles Taylor led an invasion into Liberia with the backing of the Gola and Mano tribes (Global Security, 2). The Gio tribe under Prince Johnson formed its own rebel force (2). This began a bloody three-way war. Although the reason given for the civil war was to provide different ethnic groups with the right to participate in the government, one of the factors that drove the warlords was the desire to exploit Liberia’s natural

The recent conflict in the Congo has been rooted in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and related violence in Burundi which saw hundreds of thousands of Hutus flee both countries into eastern Zaïre. (First and Second) In the Rwandan genocide, Hutu-power groups (called the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi) led mass killings of Tutsis and pro-peace Hutus, murdering 800,000 people in approximately 100 days. (Congo) In response, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front, or RPF, overthrew the Rwandan Hutu government.

The UN had not yet ratified its “Responsibility to Protect” policy and arguably Blair’s successful intervention paved way for a formal justification on humanitarian grounds applicable to UN member nations (UN, 2005). Sierra Leone was not only facing enormous challenges through anarchy but was also faced with a population that was brutalized by widespread amputations, a practice aimed at limiting their basic application of human and civil rights.

The film Blood Diamond, portrays the life of a child soldier accurately as all someone needs to do is discover Ishmeal Beah’s autobiographical composition “The Making and Unmaking of a Child Soldier” to identify that the events are based on a firsthand account of the operation. From 1991–2002, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) carried out an insurgence that annihilated the small West African nation of Sierra Leone. The conflict created 2 to 3 million refugees and completely demolished much of the country 's infrastructure. This began a brutal war of terror against ordinary Sierra Leoneans. Villages of this nation were burned

The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a group of exiled Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus that formed in 1988 came into action. They had to

Sierra Leone or the Republic of Sierra Leone is West African country that borders to the north and east with Guinea, to the southeast with Liberia, and to the west and southwest with Atlantic Ocean. It is a beautiful country with white sand beaches, orange and coconut trees all around, and people of good hearts; however Sierra Leone or Sa Lone in its native language, Krio, has been underdeveloped and was struggling for many years to gain its independence as a British Colony. Even thou, now Sierra Leone is a constitutional republic and got its independence 49-years ago, the country has been struggling with rebellious forces called Revolutionary United Force, and the corrupted government. Now, Sierra Lone is facing not only economic issues

Compared to the Rwanda Genocide and the Humanitarian crises in Darfur, the United Nations reaction to Libya’s case was powerful and significant. For the first time all the pillars of the Responsibility to Protect were put into practice. Meaning that, if the troubled State is incapable or not disposed to protect its citizens, “the State and the

In 1993, a ceasefire between Juvenal Habyarimana’s government and the RTF was reached during the “Arusha Accords” in Tanzania, which included the support of the United Nations peacekeeping mission called the UNAMIR, comprising of 2 548 personnel led by Romeo D’Allaire (NSA, 2014). This quasi-ceasefire took a turn for the worst on April 6 1994, when Habyarimana’s airplane was shot down by extremists (their affiliation is unknown). The following day would mark the beginning of a Hutu extremist led genocide of minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. UNAMIR was rendered to minimal effectiveness once the killings began, as Chapter VI of the UN Charter limited UNAMIR to a strict mandate of assistance with a reduced force of 270 personnel, following resolution 912 from the UN Security Council (UNAMIR, 1999). By the time the Security Council decided to reinforce D’Allaire’s force with 5 500 more troops in May via resolution 918, the estimated number of casualties had already reached 500 000. While D’Allaire’s forces were able to save 32 000 Rwandans from an imminent death, 1 000 000 had perished at the hands of the CDR and Interahamwe by the end of the war in July 1994, including 70% of the Rwandan Tutsi population (ICRC, 2004). ***ONE MORE SENTENCE***This unfortunate event of needless