By Nicole Andrade López
Sierra Leone has been involved in a civil war that began in March 1991 and lasted a decade, when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) attempted to overthrow successive governments (Ducasse, 2004). This conflict involved fights and attacks between multiple ethnic groups, having as a result 15,000 deaths from 1991 through 1996, also the number of displaced people were about 2.5 million, more than half of the entire country’s population. Many people went to Guinea and Liberia to escape from the civil conflict, and survive outside Sierra Leone on their own or in refugee camps (Rubin, 2011). The brutality of this conflict demonstrated the instability of the government to provide security for its citizens, therefore, they have been forced to look for outside assistance, mainly from the private mercenary firms of the international market (Williams, 2001). In this way, the purpose of this study is to answer how private military firms profit from Sierra Leone’s security vacuums in order to gain market opportunities? To find out the answer, the first section is dedicated to the study of the conflict’s causes, then the second part focuses on the role of the South African military company Executive Outcomes (EO) in Sierra Leone’s civil war. Finally, through a liberal approach, the third section analyses how foreign military firms take advantage of the free market to privatize security in fragile states.
First of all, it’s important to mention that the responsibility for Sierra Leone’s economic and political collapse is attributed to Siaka Stevens (1968-1985) from All People’s Congress (APC) party; he undertook the country to weaken institutions and the economy in order to concentrate all the power and wealth in his own. He declared Sierra Leone a one party state in 1977, while corruption, nepotism and violence became his emblem (Hirsch, 2001). His successor, General Joseph Momoh, inherited a country weakened by years of bad governance and corruption, so he could not reverse the tendency and avoid the failure of the state. Under this reality in 1991, a rebel movement: RUF launched attacks at the border with Liberia, driving Sierra Leone into a civil war (Ducasse, 2004).
One of the main causes of Sierra Leone’s conflict is the growing weakness of the state during 1970s to 1990s, year in which the country collapsed. The failure of Sierra Leonean state is due to the monopolization of economic resources leading to political and security vacuums (Francis, 1999). Siaka Stevens was one of the main responsible of this failure because through corruption he took control of all economic and important resources and means of this country; however, under Siaka’s administration, security issue was by far the most heavily affected since he destabilized the army and the rule of law. In fact, when the first acts of RUF took place, the state’s army was so weak and ill-equipped, that they could not respond to rebel’s attacks and neither prevent future attacks (Ducasse, 2004). Also, he encouraged the development of disorder within the country, which allowed him to stay in control of Sierra Leone and its resources; in fact, Siaka sponsored the emergence of militias and private security groups, which contributed to the development of a culture of heavy violence, especially in the diamond zones (Hirsch, 2001). Siaka Stevens took advantage of this chaos and began with the misappropriation of state resources, dominating the whole spectrum of the economy and specially all revenues gained by the sale of diamonds; it means that he reduced state participation in the economy and began to privatize, to his own profit, a lot of state-owned diamond’s businesses (Ducasse, 2004).
Siaka Stevens brought to Sierra Leone its failure with consequences in the society, in which citizens were rundown of economic opportunities and social assistance. In 1990s citizens were no longer receiving any salary, so they began to stole and sell their free-of-charge services (Francis, 1999). Also, thousands of people got no job opportunities since corruption and nepotism ruled the country. In this context, the other governments which tried to restore Sierra Leone, failed since the state was already collapsed. In fact, after 1998, General Joseph Momoh’s government lacked an official army who could guarantee the security of the state, so peacekeepers and local militias were the ones in charge of the county’s security and the state had no authority through the territory (Utas, 2008). In this context, for the rebels was easy to take control of the country, since they could take advantage of the political and security vacuum to conquer the territory and make huge economic profits selling Sierra Leonean diamonds (Francis, 1999).
In this context, on March 1991, a rebel attack was launched by the RUF claiming that they want to free Sierra Leone from APC rule, specifically from the rule of General Momoh. This government was unable to answer to those attacks and the RUF began to gain some power against General Momoh’s administration (Hudson, 2014). In 1992, with a coup, Momoh’s was overthrown from the power and a new regime was stablished under the administration of Valentine Strasser, however, nothing changed for the RUF and they continued to fight against the new government and they started to make huge military gains and took control of important diamonds regions (Ducasse, 2004). RFU tried to take control of Freetown, Sierra Leona’s capital, but Strasser contracted South African private security firm, Executive Outcomes (EO) in order to train state’s army and defeat the RFU. In 1995, the Executive Outcomes began to work with the local Civil Defense Forces (CDF) and together they managed to overthrow the RFU from Freetown and retake some of the diamonds territories (Hudson, 2014).
However, EO’s involvement in Sierra Leone’s war wasn’t free, they always had diamond-related interests, for example, one of their first actions was to push away the RUF from Kono’s diamonds field (Williams, 2001). Military foreign firm’s interventions in civil wars as an alternative for international security, showed the world that they provide national security for Sierra Leone, but in reality they only accentuated their international exploitation and marginalization. In fact, Sierra Leone’s government respond to EO’s interests paying them with cash arrangements and diamonds mining concessions (Penfold, 2012). This show how Sierra Leone’s civil war created a market opportunity for military firm’s intervention and once they operated in the country, they’ve gotten strategic impact on political and security environment (Francis, 1999). EO took advantage of Sierra Leone’s chaos, specially Eeben Barlow, the firm’s president, who lead the initial EO’s operation in Feetown and in 1997 left the company but maintained closed links with Sierra Leone’s government, Sandline (another private military company) and its affiliated mining house, DiamondWorks, in which Barlow has shares (Penfold, 2012).
It is true that EO’s intervention helped 300 000 refugees return home and Sierra Leonean citizens trusted the military company more than they trusted their own army to keep order (Hirsch, 2001); however, the government owed millions of dollars to EO and it was entirely dependent upon them to stay in power (Hudson, 2014). In fact, EO contract with Kabbah government showed that the company was charging US$1.8 million per month for services of less than a hundred personnel, 17 helicopters and logistics; in this way, some Sierra Leone an politicians claimed that the military company was exacerbating the civil conflict, but also they complain that EO’s executives were engaged in illegal diamond exports (Rubin, 2011). Therefore, EO’s arrival in Sierra Leone had led the rapid expansion of the Branch Energy’s activities in the mining sector; this company in Kabbah’s government had a 30% stake but due to all government’s debts with EO, Kabbah ended selling a 100% stake to the South African company, DiamondWorks (Utas, 2008).
On the other side, it’s important to mention that while Sierra Leone’s civil war was taking place, around the world, there was a believe that state and non-state actors were important and useful in the resolution of a conflict (Reinalda, W.D.). In this way, the EO’s intervention in Sierra Leone’s was approved by western countries because they supposedly made Africa more safe, and its intervention was an alternative for international security (Woods, 2008). Also, EO’s intevention got the approval under the global believe about the “rule of law”, which is embedded in the Charter of the United Nations and aims to “maintain international peace and security… and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace” (UNITED NATIONS RULE OF LAW, W.D., pág. 1) However, as it was showed before, EO took advantage of Sierra Leone’s instability to reach their own interests and influence in the country’s politics, becoming foreign shareholders the real basis of sovereignty, instead of the country’s citizens (Francis, 1999).
Also, the EO’s intervention in Sierra Leone shows clearly how military firms in search of strategic minerals represents the “new face” of neocolonialism, operating under the liberal market policies (Francis, 1999). In fact, according to Adam Smith, in a country there should exist a limited government with the unique role of protecting private property and settle disputes (Smith, 1776); it was applied with Sierra Leone’s government, which was forced to sell the public company Brach Energy to the South African private company DiamondWorks, having as a result a country in which private companies have more power than the government (Francis, 1999).
In conclusion, since the administration of Siaka Stevens, in Sierra Leone had existed vacuums in politics and security because Stevens in order to maintain his power and domain over the country’s resources, violated the rule of law and all citizen’s rights (Williams, 2001). In this way, the country collapsed and the rebel movement, RFU, wanted to take control over Sierra Leone through a civil war at the expense of thousands of dead and millions of displaced people (Rubin, 2011). However, the administration of Valentine Strasser preferred to fight against the rebels rather than give them the country for free (Hudson, 2014). However, this fight had an expensive cost for Sierra Leone, the country not only lost lives, but also its resources were sold to private military companies which took advantage of the fragility of the state and the vacuums in politics and security to pursuit their own interests (Penfold, 2012). Also, Sierra Leone is the clear example of how liberal globalization had forced the country to provide market opportunities for military companies to privatize the security and offer viable foreign policy alternatives for western governments in the pursuit of their national interests (Francis, 1999). Finally, it’s important to mention that the lack of Sierra Leonean foreign policy and the lack of institutions allowed foreign companies control its resources and finance the civil war with their own resources, mainly with diamonds (Ducasse, 2004). These diamonds which are the wealth of the country, but at the same they are its curse.
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