A Long Way Gone_ Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah [107]
May 1997 Kabbah is overthrown by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a military junta headed by Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Paul Koroma, and the junta invites the RUF to participate in the new government.
March 1998 The AFRC is ousted by the Nigerian-led ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) forces, and the democratically elected government of President Kabbah is reinstated.
January 1999 The RUF launches another attempt to overthrow the government. Fighting reaches parts of Freetown again, leaving thousands dead and wounded. ECOMOG forces drive back the RUF attack several weeks later.
July 1999 The Lomé Peace Accord is signed between President Kabbah and Foday Sankoh of the RUF. The agreement grants the rebels seats in a new government and all forces a general amnesty from prosecution. The government has largely ceased to function effectively, however, and at least half of its territory remains under rebel control. In October, the UN Security Council establishes the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to help implement the peace agreement.
April/May 2000 Violence and rebel activity return, most notably when RUF forces hold hundreds of UNAMSIL personnel hostage, taking possession of their arms and ammunition. In May, members of the RUF shoot and kill as many as twenty people demonstrating outside Sankoh’s house in Freetown against RUF violations. As a result of these events, which violate the peace agreement, Sankoh and other senior members of the RUF are arrested, and the group is stripped of its position in the government. In early May, a new cease-fire agreement is signed in Abuja. However, disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) does not resume, and fighting continues.
May 2000 The situation in the country has deteriorated to such an extent that British troops are deployed in Operation Palliser to evacuate foreign nationals. They stabilize the situation and are the catalyst for a cease-fire and the end of the civil war.
2001 A second Abuja Peace Agreement is signed to set the stage for a resumption of DDR on a wide scale. This brings about a significant reduction in hostilities. As disarmament progresses, the government begins to reassert its authority in formerly rebel-held areas.
January 2002 President Kabbah declares the civil war officially over.
May 2002 President Kabbah and his party, the SLPP, win landslide victories in the presidential and legislative elections. Kabbah is reelected for a five-year term.
July 28, 2002 The British withdraw a 200-man military contingent that had been in the country since the summer of 2000, leaving behind a 105-man-strong team to train the Sierra Leone army.
Summer 2002 Both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Special Court begin to function. The Lomé Accord calls for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to provide a forum for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations to tell their stories, and to facilitate genuine reconciliation. Subsequently, the Sierra Leonean government asks the UN to help set up a Special Court for Sierra Leone, which will try those who “bear the greatest responsibility for the commission of crimes against humanity, war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law, as well as crimes under relevant Sierra Leonean law within the territory of Sierra Leone since November 30, 1996.”
November 2002 UNAMSIL begins a gradual reduction in personnel, from a peak level of 17,500.
October 2004 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission releases its final report to the government, although widespread public distribution is delayed until August 2005 because of editing and printing problems. The government releases a white paper in June 2005, accepting some and rejecting or ignoring a number of other recommendations. Civil society groups dismiss the response as too vague and continue to criticize the government for its failure to follow up on the report’s recommendations.
December 2005 The UNAMSIL peacekeeping mission formally ends, and the UN Integrated