Sierra Leone (catch all)

[Tom Odom]

Moderator's Note

I have changed the thread's title from 'OP 28: Military Interventions in Sierra Leone' to 'Sierra Leone (catch all)' to reflect a more general theme and a new post.(ends).

To prevent children from escaping their captors, many were often tattooed, scarred, or branded. If they tried to escape, they would often face death at the hands of soldiers or CDF or even village lynch mobs who would recognize the symbols displayed on the child soldier’s body. If they were recaptured by their own group, they were often made an example. As described by one boy, age fifteen,

One boy tried to escape, but he was caught. His hands were tied, and then they made us, the other new captives, kill him with a stick. I felt sick. I knew this boy from before. We were from the same village. I refused to kill him and they told me they would shoot me. They pointed a gun at me, so I had to do it. The boy was asking me, “Why are you doing this?” I said I had no choice. After we killed him, they made us smear his blood on our arms. I felt dizzy. I felt so sick. They said we had to do this so we would not fear death and so we would not try to escape.

...The group was known for wearing bizarre clothing to include women’s wigs and flip-flops and being almost perpetually drunk with homemade palm wine. The WSB (West Side Boys) were heavy users of locally grown marijuana and heroin bought with alluvial diamonds. Diamonds were also used to purchase many of their weapons, including ZPU-2 antiaircraft guns, RPG- 7 grenade launchers, 81-mm mortars, AK-47 rifles, and SLR rifles. Most of their vehicles had been hijacked from UN food convoys or captured from the SLA. The WSB operated in and around Freetown, and in the northeastern parts of Sierra Leone, often setting up road-blocks to extort money and goods from travelers. During the day, those who encountered the group paid them off with alcohol, drugs, tobacco, or equipment carried in the vehicle. During the evening, when the WSB were high on alcohol or drugs, travelers were often fired upon and killed.

Obviously the West Side Boys were not a teen heart throb boyband. They were some of the worst killers in recent history and many were less than 15 years old. It would take the combined efforts of the British Special Air Services and the 1st PARAS to end the WSB's terror in the small country of Sierra Leone.

This History Lesson focuses on Occasional Paper #28 Military Interventions in Sierra Leone: LessonsFrom a Failed State by Larry J. Woods and Colonel Timothy R. Reese of the Combat Studies Institute.

As a former Africanist who focused on the Congo and Rwanda, I found this study on Sierra Leone offered a number of familiar themes:

• Child soldiers: using child soldiers as killers has been long been a common practice on the continent; it is still going on today in the Congo.
• Mercenaries: Executive Outcomes (EO) bore striking similarities to the "Wild Geese" of Mad Mike Hoare in the 1960s Congo.
• All conflicts are local and regional: understanding a conflict in Africa first means understanding that borders are neither accepted nor effective.
• Confused peacekeeping perpetuates conflicts: ending the Sierra Leone war required multiple efforts all with a common fault in that they lacked an achievable end state.
• Purely military victories in civil wars are not victories: Sierra Leone offers repeated evidence that getting on the bus to go home as soon as the shooting stops guarantees you will be coming back.

You can download OP 28 here.

Best

Tom