When the State Fails

Description

Compared with Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, the recent western intervention in Sierra Leone has been largely forgotten. When the State Fails rectifies this, providing a comprehensive and critical analysis of the intervention.



The civil war in Sierra Leone began in 1991 and was declared officially over in 2002 after UK, UN and regional African military intervention. Some claimed it as a case of successful humanitarian intervention. The authors in this collection provide an informed analysis of the impact of the intervention on democracy, development and society in Sierra Leone. The authors take a particularly critical view of the imposition of neoliberalism after the conflict.



As NATO intervention in Libya shows the continued use of external force in internal conflicts, When the State Fails is a timely book for all students and scholars interested in Africa and the question of 'humanitarian intervention'.
Preface

Abreviations

Map of Sierra Leone

Part I

Introduction: Background to War and Post-conflict Peace building, by Tunde Zack-Williams,

1. Multilateral Intervention in Sierra Leone’s Civil War: Some Structural Explanations, by Tunde Zack-Williams

2. International Actors and Democracy Promotion in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone: Time for Stock-taking, by Marcella Macauley

3. International Peace building in Sierra Leone: The Case of the United Kingdom, by Michael Kargbo

4. Intervention and Peace-Building in Sierra Leone: A Critical Perspective, by Jimmy Kandeh

Part II

5. The Role of External Actors in Sierra Leone’s Security Reform, by Osman Gbla

6. Gender, Conflict and Peace building in Africa: The Sierra Leone Experience, by Sylvia Macauley

7. Youth Marginalization in Post-War Sierra Leone: Mapping out the Challenges for Peace, by J. D. Ekundayo-Thompson

8. Conflict and Peace building in Sierra Leone: The Role of the Sierra Leone Diasporas, by Zubairu Wai

Conclusion

Appendix 1 & 2

Bibliography

About the Authors

Index

Index

Sujets

• Political Science
• Sierra Leona
• Development studies
• General officer
• Peace
• Development
• General
• Sierra Leone

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 05 décembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849646215
• Langue: English

Extrait

When the State Fails

First published 2012 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
In cooperation with The Nordic Africa Institute PO Box 1703, SE-751 47 Uppsala, Sweden www.nai.uu.se
Copyright © Tunde Zack-Williams 2012
The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3221 5 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3220 8 Paperback ISBN 978 1 8496 4621 5 ePub ISBN 978 1 8496 4622 2 Kindle
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Swales & Willis Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to ‘real people of Sierra Leone’: the workers, peasant producers and the youth. It is your action that will determine the destiny of a once proud nation.
Contents


Preface
Abbreviations
Map of Sierra Leone

PART I


Introduction: Background to War and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding


1. Multilateral Intervention in Sierra Leone’s Civil War: Some Structural Explanations Tunde Zack-Williams


2. International Actors and Democracy Promotion in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone: Time for Stock-Taking Marcella Macauley


3. International Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone: The Case of the United Kingdom Michael Kargbo


4. Intervention and Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone: A Critical Perspective Jimmy D. Kandeh

PART II


5. The Role of External Actors in Sierra Leone’s Security Reform Osman Gbla


6. Gender, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Africa: The Sierra Leone Experience Sylvia Macauley


7. Youth Marginalization in Post-War Sierra Leone: Mapping out the Challenges for Peace J. D. Ekundayo-Thompson


8. Conflict and Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone: The Role of the Sierra Leone Diasporas Zubairu Wai


9. Conclusion


Appendix 1 Historical Outline: The Making and Unmaking of Sierra Leone


Appendix 2 Minerals and the Mining Industry in Sierra Leone

Bibliography
About the Contributors
Index
Preface

The idea for this collection came from the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) via the head of research, Dr Cyril Obi. As a collective, we are grateful to the institute for the opportunity to create space for Sierra Leonean voices. It is true that Sierra Leoneans and others have published extensively on the war (Richard 1996; Abdullah 1997, 2005; Zack-Williams 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006; Bangura 2000; Bundu 2001; Gberie 2004; Adebajo and Rashid 2004), but the opportunity to meet and compare ideas and experiences has helped us to develop our reflections on the state of affairs in the country.
The aim of the collection is three-fold: first to provide space for Sierra Leonean voices, in particular those within the country, to reflect on the nature and impact of post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding; second, to focus on the role of external interventions in post-conflict reconstruction; finally, to stimulate capacity building among those young researchers working in the area of peacebuilding. Though each individual was asked to tackle specific issues such as the role of regional actors, international actors such as the United Kingdom and the United Nations, and the role of security outfits such as Executive Outcomes, Sandline International and the Gurkhas, we make no apologies for overlapping discourses, as this is inevitable in such a project. Some contributors have tackled issues such as the implications of the war for women, the promotion of democracy, security reforms and the question of youth.
An initial workshop was held in Freetown in 2006 to establish the modality and methodologies to drive the project. This was followed by another meeting in Uppsala by a much smaller group of the team looking at the major issues surrounding the pending general elections due in July 2007. The latter meeting resulted in the publication The Quest for Sustainable Development and Peace: The 2007 Sierra Leone Elections (Policy Dialogue No. 2, published by the Nordic Africa Institute).
One common thread holding the contributions together is the assertion that the civil war was not caused by greed or squabbling over the country’s diamonds. Though the political elite may have suffered from ‘chronic kleptomania’, it was the lack of political space and the ailing economy that drove young people into the bush and challenge for state hegemony. Diamonds may have prolonged the war, but it was not the primary cause of conflict. Prior to the war, diamonds and other minerals (gold, platinum, chromites, iron ore, bauxite, rutile) had been mined for over fifty years (Zack-Williams 1995), accounting for over 70 per cent of foreign exchange earnings by the late 1970s. A significant percentage of the best stones were smuggled out of the country by organized foreign groups (including Lebanese dealers) and their Sierra Leonean accomplices, through routes that were well established in the period of the monopoly of the colonial mining company, the Sierra Leone Selection Trust (SLST), via Monrovia, the Liberian capital. This illegal export was the first part of a trade connecting illegal miners in Sierra Leone and cutters in Europe and the USA. Whilst these routes changed many times, by the early 1950s Lebanon and Monrovia had emerged as the two most important routes for illegally exported diamonds from Sierra Leone (Van der Laan 1965); in particular, cutters wanted a shorter route to the source that would involve fewer intermediaries and this gave a premium to the Monrovia market. Furthermore, the fact that the US currency was legal tender in Liberia, as well as being a currency free from restrictions and carrying a premium against other currencies, gave Monrovia an added premium. Proximity to the Sierra Leone deposits and the premium of the US dollar was not all that accounted for the triumph of the Liberian market. Liberia’s diamond trading laws can be traced back to the 1930s, with an amendment in 1955 in anticipation of the reform around the Alluvial Diamond Mining Ordinance in Sierra Leone (1956), which brought the monopoly held by the SLST to an end by legalizing corporate and individual mining. The export duty imposed by the Liberian authorities was 9 per cent on the declared value of the stone, compared to 7.5 per cent in Sierra Leone, which should have been a disincentive for dealers to smuggle the stones from Sierra Leone across the border. Indeed, the real export duty imposed by the Liberian authorities was between 1 and 2 per cent, thus producing an anomaly:


according to the statistics no diamonds were imported into Liberia, so that the Liberian exports had to be considered as "domestic merchandise". The existence of small diggings and with negligible production until 1957 gave a certain basis for clinging to this delusion. (Van der Laan 1965: 129)
According to Van der Laan, it was clear that the success of the Monrovia market was based on the supply of diamonds from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic (ibid.), and the president of Liberia stated that Sierra Leone diamonds formed a large proportion of the increased exports (Moyar 1960). Moreover, it is ironic that De Beers Diamond Corporation, which ran the Government Buying Office in Freetown, decided to set up an office in Monrovia in order to mop up the good stones that were being smuggled into the Liberian market.
So what is this point of this narrative? Simply to point to the fact that the marketing of Sierra Leone diamonds always favoured Liberia, and there was no need for Charles Taylor, the Liberian warlord, to try to upset the status quo ante in order to obtain diamonds from Sierra Leone. There is a consensus among these writers that it is the mismanagement of the economy, which stemmed from the growing authoritarian nature of the state, and politics which emasculated the emerging ‘civil society’. This air of intolerance and widespread corruption impacted upon the economy as skilled individuals started voting with their feet, and economic decisions were based not on rational criteria, but were designed to satisfy a plethora of patrimonial networks, leading to the delegitimization of the state.
Abbreviations


ACC
Anti-Corruption Commission
ADB
African Development Bank
ADMS
Alluvial Diamond Mining Scheme
ACPP
Africa Conflict Prevention Pool
AFDSL
Action for Development Sierra Leone
AFRC
Armed Forces Revolutionary Council
APC
All People’s Congress
AU
African Union
CCFSL
Concerned Citizens and Friends of Sierra Leone
CCYA
Centre for the Co-ordination of Youth Activities
CCMS
Co-operative Contract Mining Scheme
CDF
Civil Defence Forces
CESPA
Centre for Economic and Social Policy Analysis
CGG
Campaign for Good Governance
CISU
Central Intelligence and Security Unit
CIVPOL
Civilian Police
CODISAL
Coalition for Democracy in Sierra Leone
COMBOs
Community-Based Organizations
CSLRD
Concerned Sierra Leoneans for the Restoration of Democracy
CSOs
Civil Society Organisations
DACO
Development Assistance Coordinating Office
DDR
Disarmament, Demobilization and Re-integration
DELCO
Sierra Leone Development Company
DFID
Department for International Development (UK)
DiCorWaf
Diamond Corporation West Africa Limited
DISECS
District Securit