Let' Talk Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone :The Revolutionary United Front at War  by Peter Dumbya

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Editorial Comments

Documenting history is perhaps one of the most contentious aspect of social upheaval particularly when one deals with rebellious movements. History then can be relative as in the case of the RUF incursion into Sierra Leone.

Although there may exist official documents that would mark 1991 as the entry point for the RUF's birth in Sierra Leone, it is also documented that in fact, the movement made several entries into the country as early November 1990 by land through Bo and by Sea through Sulima and actually occupied most of Pujehun district before December of 1990. 

Mr. Bambay Kamara is said to have actually visited Pujehun in December 1990 when local residents reported incidents of RUF atrocities to the APC government. Mr. Kamara reported back to the government that in fact, the atrocities were committed out of family feud similar to one that occurred in the district between 1981 and 1982 which left most homes destroyed in Zimmi and Soro-Gbema chiefdoms. It is therefore possible that the RUF movement in Sierra Leone pre-dates March of 1991.

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Saffa Kemokai for the record

As the commander of the Republic of Sierra Leone Military Forces (RSLMF), Major General Mohammed S. Tarawallie said of the RUF offensive: "[W]e were really caught with our pants down. The strength of the army was small-a little above the colonial legacy-and arms and logistics were inadequate, all as a result of the economic difficulties the country had been going through over the years." The ensuing civil war posed serious challenges to the regime’s capacity to govern the increasingly fractious state, and raised questions about its ability to implement the program of transition from the one-party to the multi-party democratic system of government. The civil war and the army’s inability to cope with it led to the overthrow of Momoh’s regime and the establishment of the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) military junta by Captain Valentine Strasser in April 1992.

That the leader of the RUF, Foday Sankoh, chose March 23, 1991 to launch Operation Liberate the Motherland with the backing of the NPFL was symbolic in and of itself. On the same day in 1971 army commander, Brigadier John A. Bangura, led an abortive coup d’etat against the then Prime Minister Siaka P. Stevens and his three-year old APC regime. A military court found Bangura and three other army officers guilty of treason and sentenced them to death by firing squad; the regime carried out the sentences on June 29, 1971. The same court found Sankoh, an army photographer and a Bangura associate, guilty of treason and sentenced him to seven years in prison with a dishonorable discharge from the army; the former corporal was released from prison in 1976. As Abdul K. Koroma noted in his book, Sierra Leone: The Agony of a Nation (1996), "Sankoh nursed an abiding hatred for Joseph Saidu Momoh, who succeeded John Bangura as Army Force Commander, and who Sankoh accused of having betrayed Bangura. With this was also his deep animosity towards the All People’s Congress (APC), the destruction of which became his consuming ambition." In March 1991, the former corporal sought his revenge against the APC party and regime by invading Sierra Leone from Liberia.

According to the RUF’s internal documents, Sankoh established the RUF in 1982 to "rid Sierra Leone and the rest of Africa out of the evils of black neo-colonialism, Fascism, tyranny and dictatorship. ... to liberate, renovate and innovate mother Sierra Leone" without outside assistance. The RUF maintained that its membership ranged from student radicals of the late 1970s who found a safe haven in Liberia, to diamond miners in the Kono and Kailahun Districts. Although the RUF cast itself as "a traditional, independent, liberation, mass-revolutionary Movement whose Central theme is to build a New Sierra Leone," the evidence points to Liberian, Libyan, and Burkinabe assistance in training and arming its combatants in the 1970s and 1980s.

The RUF cadres committed themselves to "personal renewal and the discovery of each person’s own potential" as essential elements to the realization of political, economic, and social progress. The RUF also expressed a desire to eradicate "black neo-colonialism, sectarianism, wholesale poverty, tyranny, oppression and dictatorship," create new structures of powers, and establish a united, self-reliant, free, just, and democratic society. The leadership bristled at any suggestion that it was acting on behalf of Charles Taylor, or that it was a military force. It went on: "The Aim of this popular and progressive Operation [Liberate the Motherland] is not only to abolish tyranny, oppression and dictatorship rule, but also to set the pace for political freedom in Sierra Leone." After nine years of brutal warfare, the RUF has failed to abide by the terms of two-peace agreements, let alone demonstrate its commitment to political freedom.

At the apex of the RUF structure was the War Council, the movement’s decision-making body. It was responsible for training and arming the fighters, as well as enforcing the rules, regulations, and standing orders relating to them. The War Council consisted of six "wings"-the provincial, district, chiefdom, town, section, and village command councils-that mirrored the existing national, provincial, and local government structure of Sierra Leone. The RUF had a public relations Office which directed the movement’s political programs, implemented its decisions, resolutions, and directives, and appointed members of the secretariat.

In addition to the War Council and its wings, ten committees carried out other responsibilities. Among them was the Administrative and Finance Committee, which supervised and coordinated the daily activities of the RUF. To guard against what it called "bad governance," the RUF established the Revolutionary Education Committee to educate Sierra Leoneans about their history, development, rights and duties, and the dangers of black neo-colonialism. It also established the Mass Education Committee, the Mass Mobilization Committee, the Information and Publicity Committee, the Human Rights Committee, the Repatriation Committee, the Relief Service Committee, the Agriculture and Food Processing Committee, and the Women Concern Committee. These various committees remind one not so much of the kind of democracy the people had called for, but a mishmash of programs borrowed from pseudo-socialist states and groups.

(To be continued) Please respond to the article at TAV Response