Sierra Leone - Ethnic Conflict
The major factor dominating interethnic relations was the historic rift between the Creoles and the peoples of the interior. From the beginning of Sierra Leone’s modern history. Creoles proudly regarded themselves as having created an outpost of Western civiliza- tion. Members of other ethnic groups have deeply resented what they perceived as contemptuous and condescending Creole behavior. This resentment has provided a bond among these groups, which at times has overshadowed whatever latent rivalries and tensions may have survived from earlier warfare during the settling of the interior. As the power of the Creoles declined and the number of educated people in other ethnic groups has grown, rivalries among the latter have surfaced but without the virulence that had occurred in some other African countries.
A number of factors have made for fairly peaceful coexistence. Creoles failed to notice differences among the various peoples of the Protectorate who came to work in the Western Area. This prevented the development of fixed conceptions and fostered a feeling of oneness among the different ethnic groups. Cities and towns grew slowly, and newcomers were absorbed singly or in small groups. People usually settled in ethnically mixed neighborhoods, and there was a fair amount of intermarriage. Only the Kroo continued to live exclusively among themselves in small villages.
Although eighteen ethnic groups make up the population of Sierra Leone, the Mende and Temne tribes comprise approximately sixty percent of Sierra Leone’s total population. The Mende tribe inhabits the southeast of country while the Temne tribe inhabit the northwest. The Mende and Temne tribes ultimately formed the backbone of Sierra Leone’s two primary political parties (Sierra Leones People’s Party (SLPP) and All People’s Congress (APC)) that engaged in a series of coups over a thirty-year period that created serious political instability and economic turmoil.
Towards the late 1960s, the Temne tribe formed the APC party as a response to the unchecked power of the SLPP. The APC became the opposing political party to the SLPP. In 1967, Sierra Leone elected APC leader Siaka Stevens as Prime Minister. Steven’s election as Prime Minister posed problems. The SLPP disliked Steven’s election and a series of military coups followed.
The President of Sierra Leone on March 31, 2016 formally launched the Provisional Results of the Sierra Leone 2015 Population and Housing Census. The 2015 census showed a higher rate of population growth in the North (the heartland of the Temnes's governing APC) than the Southeast (the Mende SLPP heartland). Specifically, Census Sierra Leone produced no credible evidence to the effect that the natural rate of population growth was higher in the North than in the South/East, although the Temne of the north had long had a higher birth rate. And from time immemorial, the South/East had always experienced a positive net migration from the North. Moreover, many Northerners who were displaced by the war came to the Western Area and never returned.
Therefore, that the North’s population rose relative to the Southern and Eastern provinces in spite of this net migration of Northerners (to both the Western Area and the Southeast) raised questions. Mende critics claimed it could be explained by the APC committing massive census fraud by double-counting folks of Northern origin in the Western Area in both the Western Area and the Northern Province.
Sierra Leone’s history of freed slaves and Freetown is a consequential component to understanding a root cause of the civil war. Although established with good intentions, the division between the freed slave population of Freetown and the native Sierra Leonean population of the rest of the country created political, economic, and social inequality that induced instability over time.46 In 1896, the British reached an agreement with French Guinea and Liberia to rule the outlying land of Sierra Leone west of Freetown referred to as the Protectorate.47 The division between the political and economic hub of Freetown and rural Protectorate grew significantly over time.
Like most other sub-Saharan states Sierra Leone is marked by an ethnic heterogeneity that has in large part provided the terms in which competition for scarce resources — whether development funds or political power and opportunities in government — has taken place. Sometimes differential access to these resources has been a function of location; despite internal migration and ethnic mixture in some areas each ethnic group is identified with a core region.
Sometimes it has been a consequence of duration and intensity of contact with the British colonial power or other representatives of Western culture, for example, missionaries; and sometimes it has been generated by the initially greater adaptability to new situations and opportunities of the members of a given ethnic group. Often all of these factors have played a part. There has then been a tendency for those who have lagged behind for one reason or another to try to catch up either by organizing politically or by giving their support to political competitors thought to be responsive to their needs.
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