Written By: Kakuna Kerina, Matthew Leone & David Tam-Baryoh

The All People's Congress (APC) and the Onset of the War

Since the onset of the war on March 23, 1991, successive governments discouraged the local press from reporting on the conflict. This policy has less to do with national security as publicly proclaimed, and was primarily a political strategy based on the belief that the critical press had forced the Sierra Leone's Peoples Party (SLPP) out of office in 1967. No government in office since has allowed what they perceive as the media's power to influence public opinion to remain unchecked.

The All Peoples Congress won the 1968 elections and held on to power through a strategy of intimidation and preventive detention of the political opposition, repression of the press, and outright electoral fraud. In July 1975, Ibrahim Bash-Taqi became the first journalist to be executed for treason after the alleged coup plot trials that also resulted in the execution of Dr. Sorie Fornah and Brigadier David Lansana.

By 1978, President Siaka Stevens enacted constitutional changes that rendered the country a one-party state and censored the media at will. Under the 1980 Newspaper Amendment Act, Information Minister Thaimu Bangura was granted the authority to ban any publication at will, and the press had no recourse against actions taken by the information minister in this capacity.

The war in Sierra Leone has historically been driven by both external and internal factors, and financed by the country's illegally appropriated mineral resources. The APC government of Major General Joseph Saidu Momoh, who was chosen as a successor by President Stevens in 1985, had joined with other Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) nations to form the Economic Community Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) force. ECOMOG subsequently intervened in Liberia's civil war and prevented Charles Taylor, then the most powerful warlord in Liberia, from taking control of the country. In retaliation, in February 1991, Taylor announced via the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that, for allowing ECOMOG to use Sierra Leone's Lungi International Airport to launch bombing attacks on his bases in Liberia, "Sierra Leone will taste the bitter pill of war."

Taylor's forces entered Sierra Leone at Bormalu in the eastern Kailahun district on March 23, 1991, with the support of mercenaries from Burkina Faso, and implanted a nascent RUF insurgency. Taylor's military offensive, paved the way for the April 27, 1992 coup d'etat that ousted President Momoh, at the hands of frontline officers incensed with the government's inadequate war efforts. Momoh's supporters in the army were sent to the frontlines and many quickly began to loot the countryside. These same troops would later participate in the coup d'etat that overthrew the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in 1997, and form an alliance with the RUF.

Sierra Leone's border with Liberia was largely undefended, and the Republic of Sierra Leone Military Force (RSLMF) was under-equipped and inadequately trained for combat with Taylor's experienced, heavily armed National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) guerrillas and their allies. To counter the Liberian-led attack on Sierra Leone, the government enlisted new recruits from among the impoverished urban youth of Freetown. These troops did not receive adequate logistical or medical support, a condition that exacerbated pre-existing discontent with the government. Simultaneously, the RUF (with Taylor's support) targeted diamond-mining districts and created the base for financing their war efforts giving them a great advantage over the government as they began to control increasing sections of the country.

The Liberian civil war not only spawned the war in Sierra Leone, it also served by example, introducing the RUF to the tactic of capturing youth and forcibly conscripting them. Captive soldiers were often branded or tatooed to prevent defection and this practice proved an effective deterrent when Sierra Leone government troops began to summarily execute easily identifiable captured rebels.

Sierra Leone, under the APC, was primarily a patrimonial state in which the ruling party distributed jobs, cheap rice, and educational opportunities in return for political support. As foreign aid decreased, the state became pressed to meet the demands of patrimonialism. Government officials became more dependent on the diamond trade because it generated the cash (often unreported) which allowed them to continue conducting business as usual. Economic policies favored mining over agriculture, and as diamond-mining operations expanded in the rural areas near the Liberian border, "urban slums" emerged around the mining sites. The government importation of cheap rice also suppressed domestic prices at the expense of local farmers. Youth were also pressuring the government for educational opportunities and employment. All of these factors led to widespread discontent with the APC government in Sierra Leone, but did not create a general or even localized rebellion. However, the recession of APC patrimonial state influence in rural areas (isolated by poor infrastructure and communications) created a vulnerability which Taylor's NPFL and the RUF exploited to destabilize the country. Although many RUF fighters were forced into service, others joined because they saw the opportunity to learn the skills of "bush fighting," a form of education that was regarded as better than none at all. The war lines were drawn as the rural poor versus the urban elite, and the young versus old. Yet, throughout the war, the rural poor and the youth of Sierra Leone have been victims of their purported champions with the war being fought against the rural communities, not as a traditional rural uprising.

Liberia was just one of many external actors in Sierra Leone's protracted war. Libya's political and financial influence over Liberia and Burkina Faso soon extended to Sierra Leone. In 1985, numerous Sierra Leonean political dissidents could be found studying in Libya (former Fourah Bay College student Allie Kabbah) and Ghana (Gibril Foday Musa, now editor of the independent newspaper New Tablet and Fourah Bay College student leader Samuel Foryoh). Students who remained in Ghana and refused to support the RUF plan for recruitment and destabilization, included Gibril Foday Musa and Samuel Foryoh.

The Libyan role in the war became an increasingly complicated point of contention for the Sierra Leone government. In 1997, when President Kabbah attempted to sue Libya to end its support of his enemies, he was warned against the action by the then Freetown-based British High Commissioner and the US Ambassador because they both countries were pursuing a resolution to the Pan Am bombing over Lokerbie, Scotland. Meanwhile, the RUF continued to receive arms from Libya via Burkina Faso and Liberia.

The Momoh APC government, showed little tolerance for media criticism of its poor defense against the Liberian-led invasion of the country. This strategy put rural communities at risk because they had little knowledge about the true nature of the war, and were caught unawares often ensuring willing conscription into the RUF. It is widely believed that a more efficient communications system and access to information could have warned citizens in the affected rural areas, specifically youth at risk of capture by the RUF, about the impending Liberian/RUF attacks. During the same month, the Constitutional Review Commission, appointed in 1990 by the APC government to draft a new constitution, submitted its recommendation for the return to multi-party democracy.

In June 1991, three months after the Liberian-launched attack on Sierra Leone, New Shaft editor and President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) Franklin Bunting-Davies was arrested and charged with "publication of a false statement which was likely to cause or instill fear or panic." Bunting-Davies was also charged with libel for criticizing the government's response to the invasion; his arrest launched the government campaign to silence public dialogue about the war and national security for the entire decade.

After approval by a parliamentary referendum, a new constitution went into effect on October 1, 1991, with parliamentary elections to be held in 1992. However, the anticipated transition to democracy did not translate into greater press freedom. Shortly after the New Breed newspaper, an organ of the opposition National Democratic Party (NDP), hit the streets on January 8, 1992, editor George Khoryama was summoned for questioning by police. The newspaper had published what reportedly were the minutes of a secret meeting of high-ranking APC officials suggesting the APC was willing to prolong the war in order to prepare for national elections. Khoryama was released after 32 hours, but then rearrested on January 29 and charged with "publishing a false report likely to cause fear or alarm," "knowingly publishing false and defamatory information," and "publishing a seditious publication."