Sierra Leone Army
The Sierra Leone Police [SLP], under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is responsible for law enforcement and maintaining security within the country, but it was poorly equipped and lacked sufficient investigative, forensic, and riot control capabilities. The Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) is responsible for external security but also has some domestic security responsibilities through the “Military Aid to Civil Power” (MACP) program, which authorizes assistance to police in extraordinary circumstances upon request. While civilian authorities generally maintained effective control over the SLP and the RSLAF, and the government has mechanisms to investigate and punish abuse and corruption, at times impunity was a problem.
In the mid-1970s the Sierra Leone army was organized into a single infantry battalion of four rifle companies, an armored car squadron, and supporting services. The army headquarters was in Freetown. Included in the army’s arsenal were ten Mowag (Swiss; armored cars, 60-mm and 81 -mm mortars, and light weapons.
In early 1976 the highest ranking officer in the army was Brigadier Momoh, a Limba, appointed as force commander by then Prime Minister Stevens, also a Limba, on March 30, 1971, after an attempted coup earlier that month by an army unit. He was a colonel at the time of his appointment. Appointed deputy force commander at the same time was Colonel Sam H. King, a Creole. King was a lieutenant colonel at the time of his appointment. The First Battalion commander was Sheku M. Tarawallie, a Koranko from Koinadugu District in the far north. Major Conteh, a Temne, was the commanding officer of the Daru Training Center. Tarawallie and Conteh were among those arrested in connection with the 1971 coup attempt, but they were both cleared of wrongdoing.
Army ranks and grades and their insignia were essentially those of the British army. It is likely, however that the crown that once formed a part of the insignia of officers of field grade and above was replaced by another symbol after the establishment of a republic in 1971.
The major assigned function of the army in Sierra Leone had been to protect the country’s borders from foreign encroachment. Because of cordial relations with its neighbors, however, prior to the 1991 Civil War the army never had to defend the country against external aggression. Instead on several occasions it has been called upon to preserve interna) security when it has been threatened by disturbances arising from political agitation and interethnic rivalry.
Thus in December 1968 a state of emergency was declared in a number of towns, particularly in the south, as a result of ethnic violence. Clashes had erupted between Mende and Temne workers at the Marampa iron mines, the Mokanji bauxite mines, and the rutile mines in Bonthe District. Ethnic disturbances were also reported to have been spearheaded in other southern towns by the Mende secret society against non-Mende. (This is the only indication of organizational control in the course of interethnic rivalry and violence in Sierra Leone.) On those occasions members of the army manned roadblocks, paraded at strategic places, helped to control or disperse crowds, and performed general police duties.
On ceremonial occasions, such as the state visit of a foreign dignitary, the army has also mounted impressive parades. In the realm of crime control and detection a special army and police unit, AMIPOL, patrols the country’s coast and borders as part of a general plan to combat diamond smuggling.
During the preindependence constitutional conference held in London in 1960, Great Britain agreed to provide funds, on a diminishing basis, to cover the capital and recurrent expenditures of the Sierra Leonean army through 1964. In 1959 Great Britain provided 590,000 pounds (one pound equaled US$2.80) of the total defense provision of 820,000 pounds. In fiscal year (FY) 1964 British disbursements under the 1960 arrangement provided some 25 percent of total defense expenditure.
At the time of independence British equipment was turned over to Sierra Leone, and Great Britain continued to supply arms and to train Sierra Leonean army personnel. Between 1953 and 1957 a total of nineteen Sierra Leonean officers were trained at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, England, and fifty-one at Eaton and at the Mons Officer Cadet School at Aldershot, England. Great Britain also provided short-service commission facilities at Mons where cadets undertook a training course after graduation from the preofficer training at the Nigerian Military Training College in Kaduna, Nigeria. Because the training at Sandhurst was longer and more expensive and also because in the early 1960s only two places per year were reserved for Sierra Leonean cadets at Sandhurst, most of them took advantage of the accelerated scheme at Mons. Ghana and Nigeria have also provided preofficer training for Sierra Leone.
In September 1965 Sierra Leone and Israel concluded a technical assistance agreement. In November a Ministry of Defense statement revealed that Israel had agreed to train Sierra Leonean army officers and noncommissioned officers. The military academy at Benguema was established with Israeli assistance in April 1966 and officially opened in June 1966 with an initial student body of twenty-six Sierra Leoneans and one Nigerian. Four Israeli officers and three Sierra Leonean officers ran the academy. Cadet officer training courses at Benguema lasted for twelve months. Credit for establishing Sierra Leone's Army Special Branch (military intelligence element) also belonged to the Israelis.
The PRC provided military equipment and personnel training assistance to Sierra Leone, and Swedish pilots who navigated the president's helicopter also provided flying lessons for Sierra Leone's pioneer air force. It was not clear whether the Swedish aid was the result of a private contract or part of an intergovernmental military assistance package.
During the troubled months after the abortive coup attempt in 1971 a Guinean force was dispatched to Freetown to help guard Stevens. The troops were sent as a result of a mutual defense pact signed by President Stevens and President Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea just one day after the coup attempt. The Guinean force was composed of some 200 men, three jet fighters, and a nelicopter. The Guinean troops were gradually withdrawn as the country returned to normal, and the last of them left Sierra Leone soil in mid-1973.
Sierra Leone's army chief on 24 March 2015 ordered soldiers to remain in their barracks and warned them to steer clear of a political crisis that erupted following the controversial dismissal of the West African nation's vice-president. "Politics is not for a soldier," Major General Samuel Omar Williams told more than 2,000 troops gathered at a military barracks in Freetown. "No soldier has got this right to discuss politics or partake in it. Our focus should be on the fight against Ebola, and let us leave politics for the politicians," he said.
President Ernest Bai Koroma sacked his deputy, Samuel Sam-Sumana, saying he had abandoned his duties by requesting asylum at the US Embassy in the capital Freetown. The ruling All People's Congress accused the vice-president of creating his own political movement and kicked him out of the party.
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