Army History - Civil War
By 1991, Sierra Leone’s Army was a victim to Sierra Leone’s weak infrastructure. It was small, poorly trained, and under equipped to protect the nation from virtually any external threat. With approximately 3,700 soldiers armed with older, less effective rifles, and plagued with inoperable ground transport, Sierra Leone’s Army could not defend the nation.
The army at that time was unused to any kind of warfare. It was purely a ceremonial army and was ill prepared for a war of this nature. It lacked logistics, and personnel. Intense political interference suppressed most training initiatives.
By the commencement of the conflict, the army didn’t have moveable vehicles, communication facilities were non existent, and most of the soldiers were not combat ready. They had not attended refresher courses or gone to the practice range for years. The senior officers had indulged in the good life and were therefore unwilling to go to the warfront. The army was simply in a mess.
SLA troops had been rendered not only collectively dysfunctional, but also individually disaffected. From the testimonies of soldiers who filled both the senior and junior ranks at the outbreak of the conflict, it is clear that personal, familial and tribal disharmonies had eaten away at the sense of common purpose that is supposed to be the very essence of a national army. At every level, right to the core of the institution, morale was pathetic.
In place of pride and professionalism, the soldiers – particularly senior officers – had indulged in vices such as embezzlement of public funds and favoritism along nepotistic or tribal lines. These were abuses of power that had been learnt and were copied from counterparts among the political elite. Their practice in the military meant that most of the officer class was corrupt while junior ranks harbored unhealthy levels of resentment towards their seniors.
Loyalty, respect and obedience did not obtain along the lines of conventional command structure; they depended much more on arbitrary considerations such as where you were from, which ethnic group you belonged to and whether you might be amenable to engaging in or turning a blind eye to someone else’s malpractice. Quite apart from feeling that the politicisation and stigma attached to their collective identity was unjustified, many soldiers confessed to disillusionment with the ways in which personnel were treated within the military hierarchy.
Most of the units deployed along the first line of defence in 1991 were without any form of modern communications equipment. Although they were scattered across considerable distances and unforgiving terrain, they mostly depended on human messengers to transmit situation reports or pleas for assistance to neighbouring deployments. The length of time entailed in delivering a message was almost always prohibitive of any robust preventive measures being taken by the recipient.
In 1989, the army had less than three infantry battalions (about 1,500 men) many of whom needed training; less than 30% of its transportation needs, less than 20% of support weapons and many more essential equipment in drastically short supply or non-existent. By 1991, the total strength of the military in Sierra Leone was less than four thousand, with the ‘cream of the crop’ deployed in Liberia as part of the LEOBATT contingent of ECOMOG.
By 1991 the armed forces of Sierra Leone appeared capable of containing Taylor’s forces within the southern and eastern regions of the country but not of defeating them, nor of ousting them from Sierra Leonean territory. The ability of the army to fight Taylor’s forces has recently been augmented by the provision of various types of support by Western governments. However, they continued to have supply and provisions difficulties: on December 4, 1991 their supply of ammunition was said to have been nearly depleted. And at the beginning of the second week of December Charles Taylor’s rebels again invaded and seized hold of a portion of eastern Sierra Leone. The difficulties of the Sierra Leonean army were compounded by the fact that Taylor was apparently supported financially and logistically by two nearby African governments, enabling his fighters to purchase a large amount of modern weaponry, including heavy artillery.
As a protective action by ECOMOG (the military wing of ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States), a small battalion of Nigerian soldiers has reportedly been safeguarding at least one of the larger towns in the affected regions and possibly some of the diamond mines. Charles Taylor’s forces seem to be unwilling to directly confront Nigerian military men.
Amidst poor logistics supply and maintenance of troops at the warfront, great losses were suffered in the hands of the well determined rebel forces. This brought about disgruntlement amongst junior officers and lower ranks that were mainly facing the bullets whilst senior officers remain at the rear purporting to be battle planners. This situation gave rise to a coup d’état by these junior ranks in April 1992 headed by Captain Valentine Strasser; sending President Momoh and his government into exile in neighboring Guinea. The junta which was named the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) took power with the promise of saving the sinking economy and executing the war to a speedy conclusion; but however also ended up failing the nation woefully.
During their 4 years tenure of office from 1992 to 1996, they had a change of leadership in a palace coup, which brought in Brigadier Julius Maada Bio as Head of State, and they perpetrated the worst corrupt practices aimed at self-aggrandizement. They transformed the Army into a tri-service institution with a Defense Headquarters and re-named it Armed Forces of the Republic of Sierra Leone (AFRSL). However, like their predecessors, they also left the Army with series of challenges.
In 1996, the new democratically elected SLPP government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabba on assuming office saw no dichotomy between the NPRC junta and the AFRSL. The AFRSL suddenly became a punch-bag to unleash all grievances borne against the NPRC: resources were drastically cut down, mass retirements were made without due consideration to the pittance given as benefits, soldiers were removed from presidential guards for no reason, and a Civil Defense Force (CDF) was raised parallel and hostile to the AFRSL and competing for the same defense resources. The then Deputy Defense Minister Chief Sam Hinga-Norman, whose legitimate job was to look after the military became head of the CDF and served as devil’s advocate for the AFRSL; as he shifted focus on the CDF who started attacking and killing soldiers in cold blood.
This status quo continued for a whole year unabated until the suffering lower ranks of the military took the law into their own hands and organized a mutiny in May 1997 which eventually sent the government into exile in Guinea once again. The mutineers named themselves the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), comprising mainly of soldiers from the rank of sergeant and below. They however broke into the country’s maximum security prison and released all prisoners including Major Johnny Paul Koroma who was detained by the government for an initial alleged coup plot and who they eventually appointed as their leader.
Convincing themselves that this might easily end the war, the junta invited the RUF rebels for a power-sharing arrangement which could not materialize. Despite series of negotiations with the international community, the AFRC junta was vehemently refused recognition and they were never allowed to consolidate power until they were finally ousted by an ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) intervention force in February 1998. Consequently, the government of Tejan Kabbah was reinstated in March 1998. Several arrests of allegedly culpable military personnel and civilians were made, and trials were conducted both at the civil courts and military courts martial.
Unlike the civil courts which took very long time and could not conclude trials, the courts martial concluded its trials culminating into the execution by firing squad of 24 military personnel comprising 22 officers (including the Chief of Defense Staff Brigadier Hassan Conteh and the Chief of Army Staff Colonel Max Kanga) and only 2 members of the coup plotters (Staff Sergeant Zagalo Sankoh and Corporal Tamba Gborie).
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
