Explore the vast range of titles available.

This research focuses on the role of mercenaries in the Sierra Leone civil war. This gruesome event that lasted for more than a decade, represents a critical case study in understanding the multi-dimensional dynamics of privatized force participation in modern conflicts. The involvement of the Private Military Company (PMC) named Executive Outcomes had a significant impact on charting Sierra Leone’s conflict trajectory. Providers of typical mercenary services, they were contracted to counteract the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) insurgency, often filling gaps left by weak state security forces and insufficient international intervention. It can be claimed that mercenaries played an effective role in securing key fronts and defending essential assets in this particular conflict, but their involvement accentuates issues of long-term consequences for governance, international norms, and peacebuilding. Thus, this paper provides insights into the complexities of privatized warfare in fragile states and their implications for future conflict resolution paradigms.

Sierra Leone's government has pursued a vacillating policy since 1996. It has alternately negotiated with, and then fought RUF, usually depending on the degree and direction of outside backing or pressure on officials. A more fundamental problem lies in the aims of RUF. The organization does not attempt to administer areas that it controls, except with cursory gestures such as the appointment of complaint chiefs. This latest military campaign against RUF is likely to be more prolonged and intense than those since 1996, and reflects a fundamental shift in the political will of Kabbah's foreign backers. The deployment of 1,300 British troops has made clear that the Blair Government has returned to its 1998 strategy of backing the Kabbah Government's military campaign against RUF. The consequence is not likely to be democracy and prosperity in Sierra Leone. Instead, it will return the country to the status of a protectorate in fact, if not in name.

FREETOWN Two former leaders of a pro-government militia were convicted of war crimes including murder, cruelty and pillage yesterday...

Tripoli, 6 June: The brother leader of the revolution [Al- Qadhafi], chairman of the Community of Sahel-Sahara States, Comessa, received this morning President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, member of the community's Presidential Council...

Ambassador Hull said the boats are to be used for coastal security and law enforcement, giving the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces [RSLAF] the capacity to patrol and protect the natural resources of Sierra Leone waters, and congratulated personnel of the RSLAF Maritime wing who have completed basic boat driving training and a course in patrol craft propulsion systems maintenance administered by the US Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School, adding that in the near future the US would continue its support with expanded courses in maintenance and boat operations. He also spoke about the US government's support through its Department of Defence to the RSLAF HIV/AIDS programme. Ambassador Hull stated that Sierra Leone's waters are a precious resource, both beautiful and rich with sea life and expressed the hope that these boats would be used to protect the sea-borders as well as guard against illegal fishing along with other illegal activities off the coast of Sierra Leone. Let these boats be a symbol of the commitment of the people of the US for the ongoing development of Sierra Leone, Ambassador Hull concluded. He said while he EU took a position to ban fish from Sierra Leone for reasons of hygiene, a problem which the EU itself has agreed to help address, there some boats coming from Europe which anchored close to the country's borders, to buy fish from vessels fishing in Sierra Leone's waters pack them in cartoons with labels of other countries and take them to Europe thereby depriving the country of the much needed revenue. With these patrols boats he said our people would now be better equipped to identify those people who steal from the country's territorial waters, for which he expressed grateful thanks to the US. [Passage omitted]