European contacts with Sierra Leone were among the first in West Africa. In 1652, the first slaves in North America were taken from Sierra Leone to the southern United States. During the 1700s there was a thriving trade bringing slaves from Sierra Leone to the plantations of South Carolina and Georgia where their rice-farming skills made them particularly valuable.
In 1787 the British helped 400 freed slaves from the United States, Nova Scotia, and Great Britain return to Sierra Leone to settle in what they called the "Province of Freedom." Disease and hostility from the indigenous people nearly eliminated the first group of returnees. This settlement was joined by other groups of freed slaves and soon became known as Freetown. In 1792, Freetown became one of Britain's first colonies in West Africa. Thousands of slaves were liberated in Freetown. These returned Africans--or Krio as they came to be called--were from all areas of Africa.
In the early 19th century, Freetown served as the residence of the British governor and as the educational center of British West Africa. Fourah Bay College, established in 1827, rapidly became a magnet for English-speaking Africans on the West Coast. For more than a century, it was the only European-style university in western Sub-Saharan Africa.
The colonial history of Sierra Leone was not placid. Most of the 20th century history of the colony was peaceful, however, and independence was achieved without violence. Independence came in April 1961, and Sierra Leone opted for a parliamentary system within the British Commonwealth. Sir Milton Margai’s Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) led the country to independence and the first general election under universal adult franchise in May 1962. Upon Sir Milton's death in 1964, his half-brother, Sir Albert Margai, succeeded him as Prime Minister.
In closely contested elections in March 1967, the All Peoples Congress (APC) led by Siaka Stevens was set to become the new Prime Minister. Within a few hours, Stevens and Margai were placed under house arrest. Only after several coups did Stevens at last, in April 1968, assume the office of Prime Minister. He remained as head of state until 1985 and in 1978, banned all political parties.
In August 1985, the APC named military commander Maj. Gen. Joseph Saidu Momoh to succeed Stevens. He was elected President in a one-party referendum but quickly amended the constitution, re-establishing a multi-party system. In March 1991 a small band of men who called themselves the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the leadership of a former-corporal, Foday Sankoh, began to attack villages in eastern Sierra Leone on the Liberian border. Fighting continued in the ensuing months, with the RUF gaining control of the diamond mines in the Kono district and pushing the Sierra Leone army pack towards Freetown. The Momoh government was quickly replaced by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), which proved ineffectual in repelling the RUF. By 1995 the RUF held much of the countryside and were on the doorsteps of Freetown. The NPRC hired several hundred mercenaries from the private firm Executive Outcomes. Within a month they had driven RUF fighters back to enclaves along Sierra Leone’s borders.
Pressure for civilian government via presidential and parliamentary elections, elected Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, a diplomat who had worked at the UN for more than 20 years, as president. The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), led by Maj. Johnny Paul Koroma, overthrew President Kabbah on May 25, 1997, and invited the RUF to join the government. After 10 months in office, the junta was ousted by the Nigerian-led ECOMOG forces, and the democratically elected government of President Kabbah was reinstated in March 1998. On January 6, 1999, the RUF launched another attempt to overthrow the government. Fighting reached parts of Freetown, leaving thousands dead and wounded.
President Kabbah and RUF leader Sankoh negotiated the Lome Peace Agreement, which was signed on July 7, 1999. The accord made Sankoh Vice President and gave other RUF members positions in the government. Lome called for an international peacekeeping force run initially by both ECOMOG and the United Nations. The UN Security Council established the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) in 1999, with an initial force of 6,000. Almost immediately, however, the RUF began to violate the agreement and as a result, Sankoh and other senior members of the RUF were arrested and the group was stripped of its positions in government.
By early 2002, some 72,000 ex-combatants had been disarmed and demobilized, although many still awaited re-integration assistance. On January 18, 2002 President Kabbah declared the civil war officially over. In May 2002, President Kabbah and his party, the SLPP, won landslide victories in the presidential and legislative elections. Kabbah was re-elected for a five year term. The RUF political wing, the RUFP, failed to win a single seat in parliament. The elections were marked by irregularities and allegations of fraud, but not to a degree to significantly affect the outcome.
The Lome Accord called for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to provide a forum for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations during the conflict to tell their stories and facilitate genuine reconciliation. Subsequently, the Sierra Leonean government asked the UN for help to establish to help set up a Special Court for Sierra Leone, which would try those who "bear the greatest responsibility for the commission of crimes against humanity”. In March, 2003 the Special Court for Sierra Leone issued its first indictments for war crimes during the civil war. Foday Sankoh, already in custody, was indicted, along with notorious RUF field commander Sam “Mosquito” Bockarie, Johnny Paul Koroma, the Minister of Interior and former head of the Civil Defence Force, Hinga Norman, and several others. On May 5th Bockarie was killed in Liberia, probably on orders from President Charles Taylor, who expected to be indicted by the Special Court and feared Bockarie’s testimony. Johnny Paul Koroma was killed, as well, although his death remains unconfirmed. In June the Special Court announced Taylor’s indictment (for which he is presently being tried). Sankoh died in prison in Freetown on July 29th from a heart attack, and Hinga Norman ‘passed away’ under somewhat suspicious circumstances in Senegal in 2007.
In August, 2003 President Kabbah testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on his role during the civil war. Democratic national elections were held in August/September, 2007. Kabbah’s S.L.P.P. (Sierra Leone Peoples Party – largely made up of Mendes) led by Solomon Berewa, was defeated in a close-run campaign which declared the APC leader, Ernest Bai Koroma, ethnically half Limba and half Temne ( of the All People’s Congress) with 54.6% of the vote, as the next president of the Republic of Sierra Leone. The elections were deemed to be ‘free’ and ‘fair’ by E.U. electoral officials despite several minor concerns. A peaceful transition of power took place in those elections and the country can safely say that democracy had once more been restored to this once troubled republic.
The new president, Mr. Koroma promised zero tolerance on corruption in his inaugural speech and said he'd fight against the mismanagement of state resources. Another of his primary concerns was an increase in the number of drug cartels, many from Colombia, using Sierra Leone as a base to ship drugs on to Europe. It was feared that this might lead to increased corruption and violence and turn the country into a narco state. However, the new government quickly amended the laws against drug trafficking in the country, updating the existing legislation from those inherited at independence in 1961, to address the international concerns, increasing punishment for offenders both in terms of higher, if not prohibitive, fines, lengthier prison terms and provision for possible extradition of offenders wanted elsewhere, including to the United States.
Despite what appears to have been respected leadership however over the last few years, there are fears in some quarters that there may be a return some degree of political ‘in-fighting’, curtailing some of the existing democratic freedoms within the country. The opportunities for the SLPP to regroup and strengthen its opposition since its defeat in 2007 do not seem to have been taken and indeed the collapse of the APC – PMDC alliance since that election, questions whether the APC will have enough political strength to mount a convincing challenge in 2012. This next election is certain to lead to smaller Parties jockeying to form alliances with the Party that wins the largest number of votes. This is healthy democracy (though many in the UK would cast doubt on this premise!!). What is not healthy, however, is the current, alleged, strategy of deliberately eroding the capacity of the opposition Parties, in advance of 2012, through ‘engineered’ defections to the ruling Party, largely induced by bribery and ‘gerrymandering’. Sierra Leone's 2012 elections could go down in the country's democratic history, as the most significant since 1967, if all of the political Parties are given the space and equal chance of organizing and mobilizing - lawfully and peacefully, without inference, intimidation, or violence. The world prays for this.
This data is based on notes from the US State Department, The B.B.C., The Sierra Leone Telegraph and other public domain sources, with new material added.
http://www.historyofnations.net/;
http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/;
http://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/articles/100513.htm
(article in Sierra Leone Telegraph by Prof. Joe A. D. Alie (USL))
