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Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front and its Violence: Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Colonial Legacies, and Oppressive Rule

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by Edit Kruk

“The Slaughterhouse” where rebel civil war victims were butchered. Kailahun, eastern Sierra Leone, pictured on 23 April 2012 (Image credit: Reuters/Finbarr O’Reilly)

Proxy warfare and warlord politics in the African region, symptomatic of longstanding colonial legacies, play out in states that are on the brink of collapse and where the state leader, desperate to preserve a grasp on power, will privatise security in exchange for natural resources whilst neglecting other essential functions of the state. This article will argue that under the conditions of proxy warfare and warlord patronage, the Civil War that raged in Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2002 can be linked to the figure of Charles Taylor, a Liberian warlord financed by the trade of illicit blood diamonds.

In March of 1991, a group of rebels known as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) crossed the Liberian border and entered the Kailahun District in neighbouring Sierra Leone. This action initiated a civil war that lasted over a decade, displacing two million people. Its body count of 75,000 and another 20,000 mutilated renders it one of the most violent conflicts in history. As a force, the RUF specialised in the hacking of limbs and tongues, rape, and the wide use of child soldiers (with estimates of recruited children under the age of 14 being around 10,000). The faction was organised by Foday Sankoh, who met Taylor at an insurgency training camp in Libya. Both warlords shared a keen interest in Pan-Africanism—a movement that promoted a politically unified Africa and criticised the neo-colonial regime—which formed the backbone of the RUF’s ideology.

During the Sierra Leone Civil War, Sankoh received resources, arms and troops from Taylor in return for a physical extension to the Liberian Civil War (1989-96). Even though Charles Taylor was most commonly known for initiating the first Liberian Civil War in an attempt to liberate the state from the fraudulent and corrupt government of Samuel Doe, the connection between Taylor and the Sierra Leone Civil War was indisputable. The warlord’s interest in the region was as early as the 1980s as indicated by his request to Joseph Momoh (President of Sierra Leone during 1985-1992) to use Sierra Leone as a launchpad for his rebellion, but Momoh refused. Taylor’s warlordism solidified as a result of Momoh harbouring Nigerian forces (ECOMOG) that intervened in Liberia in 1990 and in so doing posed a direct challenge to Taylor’s control of the region. Therefore, through the provision of leadership and weapons to the RUF, Taylor crafted the neighbouring state’s instability to his advantage, effectively making it his proxy.

These signposts of Taylor’s influence with the RUF are due an analysis, paying special attention to the ways it shaped strategical decisions and terror tactics. Whilst Taylor was never in effective command of the RUF he was found guilty for the sponsorship of the faction and by default the abetting of the rebellion. However, between 1992-96, the RUF was forced to retreat into the bush and turn to guerrilla warfare, thereby increasing their use of terror to compensate for their lack of adequate equipment. The decline of the faction’s military sophistication came as a result of Taylor no longer sending sufficient resources, a result of a revolt in Liberia which blocked the RUF’s main feeding line. Whilst there was a sufficient link between Taylor and the RUF during the conflict, a deeper structural crisis was already harbouring further violence. This article will study this development through the analysis of the socio-political environment as a product of colonialism and an oppressive regime.

Colonial Legacies

The violent behaviour of Sierra Leone’s rebels becomes less reprehensible when perceived as a means of rebellion against years of colonial rule, rather than a tool of proxy warfare. In 1787, Sierra Leone was established as a settlement for freed slaves and by 1896 it was proclaimed a British protectorate. Creole people, upon their arrival, dominated the civil service employment sector which forced the indigenous population to the periphery of the state, creating the blueprint for a two-class society. The colonial suzerainty of the state can be criticised for embedding a weak bureaucracy and neglecting the local dynamics which divided Sierra Leone into chiefdoms, thereby decentralising the state and fuelling inter-ethnic rivalry by elevating the status of freed slaves above the Temne and Mendi people which made up sixty per cent of the local population. Unsurprisingly, the resulting two-class society and a raging welfare gap were carried into the post-independence period and, thus, an environment predisposed to patrimonialism emerged. Marginalisation and subsequent frustration amongst the youth of Sierra Leone manifested as hypo-aggressive tactics and was symptomatic of colonial legacies.

The feeling of hopelessness that accompanied the youth living in the harsh environment of Sierra Leone was tactically encouraged to manifest as acts of aggression by the RUF leadership. Indeed, the youths’ ideological barrenness when coupled with RUF leaders taking advantage of their lack of knowledge, through the spread of disinformation, was able to fuel drug use, removing their ability to consent, and, ultimately, dehumanising them. Moreover, the extreme violence deployed by the RUF was, in fact, a reflection of a deeper structural crisis of youth and modernity which were facilitated by the removal of Cold War constraints. Subsequently, whilst Taylor’s link to RUF attributes for some of the violent behaviour, colonial grievances set the conditions for the successful appropriation of long-standing local frustrations by warlords, to fulfil their agenda, and thereby create proxies. The Sierra Leonean rebel faction was able to augment considerable support from areas that failed to be emancipated from domestic slavery, itself remnants from the project of decolonisation. However, whilst historical grievances enabled mobilisation, they also proved unsustainable as the violence grew more acute and made the faction an unpopular one.

Oppressive Rule

Siaka Probyn Stevens, leading Sierre Leone from 1967 to 1985, oversaw a regime of aggressive policing that propelled frustration amongst the marginalised population and consequent outbursts of violence. By 1978, Stevens and his All People’s Congress (APC) were able to consolidate one-party rule, that resembled a dictatorship characterised by brutality and totalitarianism. In particular, Stevens closed railway networks that connected the North and the South East of the country in an attempt to prevent civilians from voting against the APC and passed the Killer Bill in 1980 which removed all media outlets other than those that were state-owned. These draconian measures granted Stevens control of the political discourse. Due to the historical context, patrimonialism thrived and Stevens’ rule was defined by a disparity in the dissemination of scarce resources, nepotism, and the subsequent rise of a shadow state.

Resentment towards the oppressive government quickly resulted in the formation of an insurgent people’s army, which exponentially garnered support through its critique of the neo-colonial regime, promising a coup, and the subsequent return to a multiparty democracy. Whilst this argument is convincing in its attribution of the violence committed by the RUF, as a response to the oppressive rule, the same rationale does not account for 9 to 10-year-old children being victims of revenge. For this reason, it is essential to view colonial history, the political context, and potential actors as inseparable and as enabling each other, when attempting to analyse the roots of violence in the Sierra Leonean conflict. Nonetheless, an oppressive regime was a trigger for civilians and radical students to initiate a rebellion in which violence was treated as a vehicle of change. Means of terror have been commonly known to be a response to the collapse of patrimonialism, and symptomatic of new barbarism, both key features of an insurgent movement.

To conclude, Charles Taylor successfully instrumentalised the neighbouring conflict into proxy warfare, thereby perpetuating the Sierra Leonean conflict, while physically extending the Liberian domain. Taylor did not intend to carry the RUF to victory, as the cessation of a stronger connection in 1992 proves. Meanwhile, the violence did not discontinue. Colonial grievances ensured widespread fragmentation and a sense of hopelessness while oppression fostered a desire for change and revenge which ultimately came to fruition in the form of terror, a means of achieving the rebel’s goals. Sierra Leone resembled a microcosm of the conflict that pervaded the rest of the continent, indicating a need to draw stronger parallels between African states for a better understanding of eruptions of violence in the region.

Edit Kruk is a final year (BA) War Studies student with a keen interest in modern slavery and the African region. Narratives through art and the history of early modern Imperial Spain, have been life-long areas of fascination.

Generation Terrorists: The Politics of Youth and the Gangs of Freetown

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By Dr Kieran Mitton 

A poster in Susan’s Bay calls on Sierra Leone’s youth to be peaceful during elections (Credit Image: Kieran Mitton)

Youth at Risk – Youth as Risk

On the evening of the 15th February, six leading presidential candidates for the Sierra Leone presidential elections took to the stage. Over three hours of a live broadcasted debate, each answered questions about their plans for the country. Seen by some as a milestone in Sierra Leone’s post-war political development, the following morning the capital Freetown was abuzz with talk about who had acquitted themselves, who had failed to impress, and what – if anything – this might mean for the election result on the 7thMarch. In the offices of a youth development organisation, staff enthusiastically discussed the event.

In an adjoining room, I met with their colleague Mohamed*, a man with decades of experience working in the city’s poorest informal communities. What did you think of the debate? I asked. Was it a sign that Sierra Leone’s political scene is moving towards serious discussion of policies, or as one report put it, ‘growing up’?

Mohamed smiled. Pointing to his colleagues next door, he replied: ‘Each person there is arguing about why their preferred candidate won the debate. What the candidate actually said, how they performed – it doesn’t matter.’ He went on to make a familiar point; voters put party, tribe and personal loyalties ahead of policies. Whilst certainly not new or unique to Sierra Leone, this he contended, meant such debates had little bearing on the electoral outcome. The promise of some candidates to provide free education, surely a positive development for the country’s youth, was just rhetoric, he concluded. In fact, ‘politicians keep the youth uninformed and uneducated so they can use them to their own advantage.’

In Sierra Leone’s post-conflict era, great stress has been placed on engaging young people, providing solutions to severe unemployment and lack of educational opportunities to ensure the country never again experiences civil war. The idea that it was a ‘youth crisis’ that precipitated conflict dominates academic analysis and was a key conclusion of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This emphasis has entrenched a peacebuilding discourse that presents youth as both an at risk population – vulnerable to chronic poverty and exploitation of their grievances – as well as a risk – a potential source of violence, instability, or even renewed conflict. In its crudest form, this latter discourse is found in frequent characterisations of ‘idle’ and criminal youth in local media, where their economic hardship and violence is explained not so much by their circumstances as by their ‘bad’ character. Election campaigns, through rhetoric aimed at youth and through violence involving youth, have reinforced both. Mohamed’s scepticism towards political promises, and belief that politicians seek to exploit young people, is born of experience.

Recycled Rhetoric and Remobilisation

Successive elections since 2002 have promised much but delivered little tangible change for many young people.  Initial optimism that a new administration might bring transformation, or that political patrons’ offers of jobs in exchange for support would be honoured, has invariably given way to disillusionment and deepened cynicism. A bitter sense of betrayal pervades the stories of those who describe their past enlistment by ‘big men’. The ability to register this frustration at the ballot box is certainly valued – an important and too often overlooked contrast to pre-war Sierra Leone – but it underlines a fundamental problem of the country’s political landscape. Both major parties – the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) and the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) – are seen as offering little deviation from politics as usual. The same old familiar faces of the establishment continue to dominate political life. And so, many of Sierra Leone’s youth believe they can change governments, but they cannot make governments change.

Violent clashes of past elections have done much to reinforce the ‘youth as risk’ discourse, reinvigorating tired tropes of idle youth and dangerous ex-combatants.  During 2007 elections, fighting between supporters of rival parties took place across the country, leading then SLPP President Tejan Kabbah to declare a state of emergency. Yet these incidents were not simply the boiling-over of pent-up frustration nor the wanton criminality of unemployed youth. In another sign of negative political continuity, parties and political patrons had actively courted – and importantly, been courted by – groups of youth and ex-combatants to act as security ‘taskforces.’ Incentives ranged from gifts of drink and cash to promises of jobs and education. Providing ‘security’ often equated to intimidating political opponents and interrupting rival rallies. In the years following, a small number of senior ex-combatants on the winning APC side had reaped the rewards of this bargain, but most others missed out.

In 2012, the situation was markedly different. In the run up, grave concerns were expressed as incidents of violence between rival party taskforces and youth groups continued to occur across the country. Much analysis warned of turmoil on a par with 2007, if not worse. Yet in the end the re-election of the APC’s President Ernest Bai Koroma was largely peaceful. Of encouragement was the role of civil society, including youth organisations, in actively campaigning against electoral violence. My interviews with ex-combatants also found a pronounced determination among some not to be ‘fooled’ again and drawn to violence on the back of false promises. That said, opportunities for their recruitment were comparatively scarce. The SLPP was wracked by splits and Koroma enjoyed strong support, winning over the 55 percent mark required to avoid a run-off vote. It is that second round that is associated with heightened violence, with the contest close and votes of minor parties up-for-grabs.

An APC poster in central Freetown thanks departing President Koroma on behalf of the young (Credit Image: Kieran Mitton)

2018 Elections and the Gangs of Freetown

In the years since 2012, the same challenges blighting youth mobility in Sierra Leone have not diminished. Official UN figures put youth unemployment and underemployment at 70%. A sense of weariness is detectable among many who held great optimism during Koroma’s first term. Whilst there has been visible infrastructural development, the poorest have felt little benefit. Hopes that mining profits might lead to economic transformation for the benefit of all have dissipated, and the response to the Ebola outbreak of 2014, no small challenge for any government, highlighted endemic problems of corruption and fraud against which Koroma had vowed to fight in 2007.

The vote on March 7th will see Koroma stand-down after serving the maximum two terms. For this reason alone, it will be significantly different to the 2012 ballot. But in a welcome shake-up, two new political parties have entered the fray. Former Vice-President Samuel Sam-Sumana leads the Coalition for Change (C4C). Sumana made international headlinesin March 2015 after seeking asylum in the US embassy following a fall-out with Koroma and the APC. He was subsequently sacked, a move which in November 2017 was ruled illegal by the ECOWAS Court of Justice. Sumana’s support-base is in Kono, a key swing district that could prove decisive.

Another new player is the National Grand Coalition (NDC) led by Kandeh Yumkella, a former UN Under-Secretary General. Having split from the SLPP, he remains firmly opposed to the APC and could also take votes from both major parties. The entry of these parties raises the prospect of a much closer contest than the last, and the common view among Sierra Leonean and international observers is that the election will go to a second round.

With the expectation of a run-off vote, fears arise of a repeat of past election violence. But here there is also an important change from previous campaigns. In the immediate post-war years, attention was firmly fixed on ex-combatants and the potentially devastating consequences of their mobilisation. As that generation has grown older, and judging from the last election, moved away from direct engagement in violence, a new generation of young marginal Sierra Leoneans has taken their place in the discourse of dangerous youth: gangs.

Referred to as cliques, gangs and youth street associations have a long history in Sierra Leone. However, police, youth activists, researchers, local communities and gangs themselves agree that they have grown in size and significance in recent years, and are becoming institutionalised.** As mention of ex-combatants and party taskforces wanes in media reporting, discussion of the ‘clique problem’ has increased.  In 2015, news of fatal gang-related stabbings and public discussion of crime and violence led the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to describe gang activity in Freetown as ‘domestic terrorism’ , demanding immediate attention by the security sector. That attention saw police offer rewards for information on gang leaders, and in 2017, the Minister of Defence took to the airwaves to advocate his personal view that the solution to rising gang violence was to implement the death penalty. As the elections have drawn closer, general fears over gangs have narrowed to one specific concern: that they may be used by politicians to attack opponents and intimidate voters.

A ‘Member of Blood’ gangster proudly displays his tattoo (Credit Image: Kieran Mitton)

To what extent are the gangs truly a threat in upcoming elections? My research has sought to better understand Sierra Leone’s cliques and their violence, focussing on Freetown though gangs are to be found across much of country. There is not space here for in-depth detail of gang organisation and activity, or the responses to it. Here I wish to briefly explore the specific issue of election violence drawing on recent interviews and time spent with three factions: the red-wearing Bloods or M.O.B. (Members of Blood); the blue-wearing Cent Coast Crips (CCC); and the black-wearing So-So Black. In Freetown, Bloods dominate the west, Crips the centre, and Black the east, though boundaries are fluid and sub-cliques diffuse. Based primarily (but not exclusively) in informal settlements or slums, members are identified by bandanas – locally ‘mufflers’ – in their respective colours. They hang-out in ghettos and street-corners, listening to music, drinking, smoking and dealing marijuana. They range from young teens to those in their mid-thirties. Contrary to some portrayals, they are not significantly connected to ex-combatant networks, and in many neighbourhoods there are no ex-combatants among them. This is unsurprising considering some were born after the war.

When it comes to violence, a main driver is inter-gang disputes – ‘beefs’ over colour. One gang-member I interviewed had recently been released from a year-long prison sentence for stabbing a rival who had ‘provoked’ him by walking into his territory wearing a red muffler. Other larger-scale incidents have taken place during music concerts and football matches where rival groups come face-to-face. Running ‘rampages’ of vandalism and scuffles have accompanied the movement of east side gangs through enemy territory in the west and centre.

A sign outside a popular gang hangout in Susan’s Bay prohibits wearing gang colours (Credit Image: Kieran Mitton)

Personal disputes, often over women, also lead to vendettas and cycles of revenge. Opportunistic robbery, particularly at night, is a source of income alongside dealing marijuana. The latter is a subsistence game and there does not appear to be substantial conflict over the trade or dealing spots. But the elections, perhaps, offer new opportunities.

In the last couple of years, gang members have described one faction or another as siding with a political party. They recount stories of large payments being paid to gangs by intermediaries of parties, with the implicit (and sometimes explicit) expectation they would in turn give their support and cause ‘trouble’ for their opponents. Individual political patrons are alleged to have used gifts of alcohol, cash and job opportunities – the old familiar promises offered to ex-combatants in the past – to bring them to their side. Substantiating these claims remains difficult, but they are stories repeated across Freetown and regularly hinted at in news articles. They came to the fore on 26th January in the middle of the city, during a rally linked to the nomination ceremony of the ruling APC party. Fights broke out between youth wielding machetes and knives, and at least one individual was fatally stabbed. Pro-SLPP and APC outlets accused each other of being behind the violence, before police announced that the perpetrators were in fact gang members.

Fifty-five gangsters were subsequently arrested, including an individual who had previously been described in interviews as an intermediary between the government and cliques. In discussing the incident, members of various factions told a similar story, though again it could not be substantiated. The intermediary, they claimed, acted as a go-between with the government to tackle gang violence, often dispersing large amounts of money to gang leaders from the safety of a central police station. Several gangsters expressed the view that in reality, these were political payments to secure support, rather than investments in peace. On the specific occasion of the rally, they claimed, one clique suspected this individual of withholding funds for himself and began remonstrating. The dispute escalated to violence when another gang came to his defence, leading to the killing. Following the arrests, a Freetown judge sentenced the fifty-five to either three months imprisonment or payment of a Le1000,000 fine (roughly $130USD). Rumours quickly circulated that the fine was paid, and according to one confidential informant, that the money came from the ruling party.

The details of the above incident remain disputed and unverified. Beyond the usual challenge of rumour substantiating for fact, in the charged political environment of the election campaign there are clear reasons for parties to implicate each other in abuses. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that some gang members are seeking to profit as hired muscle, and political patrons have likewise courted them to this end. These stories mirror the mobilisation of ex-combatants and youth in past elections. Now, it seems, a new generation is becoming part of this old problem. Solo, a gang captain in his early twenties, commented:

‘At this election time we see them [the politicians]. After this time, we won’t see them. When they need us, they are our friends. They come with rum, cider, they offer small money. They want us to vote for them, go to the rally, to fight their rivals. All the parties come to us.’

This returns us to the opening concern. Has Sierra Leone’s political system, and specifically its relationship with marginalised youth, changed significantly? From the perspective of gang members, it has not. Elections still represent to some a brief window of opportunity for personal advancement, but at the risk of committing violence that only deepens fears of dangerous youth and perpetuates a political relationship built on mutual exploitation and distrust. Sierra Leone’s past shows that violence in such a context may become not simply a mercenary act, but expressive rebellion and defiance against those who seek to prosper from it. Whilst so much focus has been given by peacebuilders to the DDR generation and the supposed dangers of unemployed ex-combatants, a younger generation born after the war faces the same hardships of chronic poverty, limited educational opportunities, and a destructive relationship with political leaders. The feared growing ‘gang problem’ in Freetown and across Sierra Leone cannot be understood or addressed in isolation from these hardships.

To end on a positive note, anti-violence campaigning from civil society groups and the determination of Sierra Leoneans to maintain peace remains unwavering. Despite popular concerns, to date gangs do not appear to have been mobilised to the same extent as taskforces and youth groups in the past. This offers hope that elections will pass peacefully, though few will be surprised if they do not. Whoever emerges victorious, they will have an opportunity to inject renewed energy into tackling the root causes of youth marginalisation. This is an endeavour that by definition must be sustained long after the campaign posters have been taken down. It is a matter first and foremost not of a youth crisis, nor even a gang problem. It is about changing the very practice of politics and governing itself. A major but critical challenge that begins at the very top.

*Some names have been changed to preserve anonymity.

** For this observation and insights into the nationwide activity of gangs I am grateful to Professor Ibrahim Abdullah.

 

This article has been republished on Strife Blog with the author’s permission. It was originally published on Mats Utas Blog http://bit.ly/2FfefyA

 

Dr. Kieran Mitton is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Research Director of the Conflict, Security & Development Research Group, and co-Chair of the Africa Research Group, at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is developing a comparative research project – Youth at Risk/Youth as Risk: Global Responses to Urban Violence – that examines gang dynamics and interventions in Cape Town, Freetown, London, and Rio de Janeiro. He is the author of Rebels in a Rotten State: Understanding Atrocity in the Sierra Leonean Civil War . You can follow him on Twitter @kieranmitton

Images Source: all photos were taken by the author

Interview – Dylan Hendrickson on security sector reform

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By Isobel Petersen:

Dylan Hendrickson speaking at a Conference in Kenya, June, 2014. Photo: APN/ Dagan Rossini (CC 2.0)
Dylan Hendrickson speaking at a Conference in Kenya, June 2014. Photo: APN/Dagan Rossini (CC 2.0)

Dylan Hendrickson is a Senior Fellow at King’s College Department of War Studies. He first joined King’s College in 1999 as Senior Research Fellow of the Conflict, Security & Development Group (CSDG) specialising in the study and practice of Security Sector Reform (SSR). He is currently a member of CSDG’s sister group, the Conflict, Security & Development Research Group (CSDRG) and acts as Senior Editor of the CSD Journal.

Security Sector Reform is a holistic approach to the transformation of security processes and organisations in conflict-affected countries. Dylan is a leading figure in developing this policy agenda, initially under the UK Department for International Development (DFID) but since for the UN, EU and donor-recipient bilateral partnerships on SSR programmes. His work has taken him across Africa and Asia, and he is currently doing major work monitoring the evolving situation in Burma.

Peace-keeping in post-conflict countries and regions is now a standard aspect of international relations and the globalised world. SSR endeavours to break down the barriers between security forces and human development in order to create long-lasting human security in fragile states. Dylan’s expertise in this field are unrivalled and here he provides insight and explanation that is applicable to the multitude of conflicts and peace-keeping operations going on today.

***

Your career path is a diverse and varied one, working from Cambodia, to the Congo to right here in London. It seems that you bridge the worlds of academia and policy-making smoothly and successfully. Looking back, has this been a challenge to bring the two together in practical terms?

It’s always a challenge. To be honest, I don’t really consider myself an academic. I edit an academic journal (Conflict, Security & Development), publish occasionally and I do a little bit of teaching. But what I really focus on is policy research and advice which is intended to inform the development assistance activities of the British government, the European Union and other donor actors. So in that sense, most of what I do is practically-orientated as opposed to academic.

Have you seen, with your own work, the two worlds as mutually dependent for issues such as foreign policy? Is the academic world more influential behind the scenes than we would see in politician’s speeches or press releases?

Yes I think it is, and I think that’s part of the reason why I’m still at King’s. The Conflict, Security and Development Group (CSDG), of which I was a member from 1999-2014, was set up with a grant from the British government, precisely because they wanted a policy unit that was based in an academic institution. The whole point was to bridge academic thinking and real world policy-making and operational activity. The UK government wanted to benefit from the thinking that was taking place amongst academics. So yes, establishing the bridge was very important, and certainly the work that CSDG did at the time, along with similar units in other UK universities, has had a huge impact in the way that the UK government delivers development and security assistance in conflict-affected regions.

Security sector reform (SSR) is an example of this and is at the heart of your own research. Could you explain a little about the concept of SSR and its place over the past 15 years or so in British foreign policy?

Until the late 1990s development actors were not very involved in delivering assistance to security institutions. Instead, this was largely seen as as the responsibility of defence ministries and other security actors. This was partly a legacy of the Cold War where security assistance was very militaristic in orientation. Following the Cold War and the outbreak of conflicts in many different countries in the so-called developing world, there was a recognition that we needed to rethink the way that we provide security assistance. We needed a much more integrated and holistic approach to rebuilding the security sectors in countries that had been affected by conflict. So the basic idea of SSR is the need for an integrated international approach that brings together security and development thinking and policy.

Is there a particular case study that you have worked on that illustrates this need for a new way of thinking and that has seen success?

A good example is Uganda, though I would not qualify it as a pure success. I worked in Uganda as a King’s advisor between 2002 and 2004 on a UK government-supported defence review process. The purpose of this defence review was to get the Ugandan MoD to analyse their security problems in a more holistic way, to recognise that the country faced a broad range of both military and non-military threats. As a result they needed to develop a more integrated government response to these security challenges which involved other security instruments besides the military. This was an international assistance programme that brought together the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office. I was brought on as a governance advisor, with a developmental background, rather than as a military adviser.

During the 1990s international conflict manifested as complex, lengthy intra-state wars which resulted in varying degrees of military, political and aid intervention. To what extent do you think that intervention has become a guarantee in international relations?

I think it depends very much on the country and region. Quite clearly the international community takes more interest in certain countries than in others. That was plainly the case of Africa in the 1990s, which was afflicted by a whole range of conflicts that were largely ignored by outside actors. As a consequence, the engagement in Sierra Leone by the UK government in the late 1990s was in part spurred by a frustration on the part of many people that the UK and other Western governments had invested so heavily in addressing the crisis in Kosovo, which is a tiny territory, but had largely ignored what was happening in West Africa. The UK government felt that they needed to do more in Sierra Leone, with which it had strong historical ties. This is an illustration of how strategic interests shape the engagement of Western countries in the developing world.

Do you think that’s a lesson to be learnt? Should there be a new way of approaching intervention? Do you think that if it’s going to keep happening, is there a way that it could be conducted more successfully?

Certainly lessons have been learnt. I think a key lesson that was learnt in the case of Sierra Leone is about the importance of addressing SSR early on. Clearly many of the underlying issues were ignored in earlier international interventions and there was no integrated, comprehensive approach to dealing with the country’s security apparatus. That’s why there were cycles of violence in Sierra Leone as well as neighbouring Liberia. This spurred DFID to think much more holistically about how to rebuild the security apparatus because for too long the UK and other donors had focused on simply demobilising soldiers.

You’ve advocated that military involvement can’t be treated in isolation from socio-political events. I was just wondering if you had any particular experience of this happening and causing problems, you’ve already mentioned Sierra Leone.

We see countries like Afghanistan and Iraq which admittedly are to some extent anomalies because they were serious conflicts that were directly impacted by American and European strategic interests. We didn’t really see SSR being promoted there; the focus was much shorter-term in nature – trying to win the war – which involved security assistance activities that were not very integrated in nature and certainly not long-term enough to make a substantive contribution to creating the new security institutions Afganistan and Iraq require. The activities involved working, for instance, with militia groups that were often part of the security problem for local populations. From an SSR point of view there were many contradictions in the way that the international community engaged in these countries, which of course in part reflected US and European domestic political factors.

Have you seen a real growth in post-conflict ideas such as civil society funding, transitional justice and civic education appearing separately to the grand concepts of security assistance?

Yes, those are certainly growth areas. In recent years there has been greater interest in the role of civil society, for instance, in security reform processes. But in many countries this has been an externally-driven agenda. That’s not to say that there is no foundation in developing societies for civil society to play a useful role, but I think one has to be realistic about how quickly localised non-governmental organisations or groups can have an impact on security reform processes in Africa and Asia, which are usually government-driven.

What role do you think that aid can play?

I don’t think that the solution is necessarily more aid; I think it’s about smarter aid. There’s always the assumption that with more aid we can change more things, but delivering aid effectively is not easy to do and sometimes countries need to resolve problems on their own. In my view we need to focus more on creating the space for countries to find their own solutions rather than always seeking to provide them with a solution. Just by doubling aid does not mean that we find a solution twice as quick. On the contrary, aid is often part of a problem. We often propose short-term solutions to countries which are not appropriate instead of letting them figure out what works best themselves. Conflict-affected countries need to chart a path to resolving their own problems.

The term ‘militarised development’ is floated around as a negative connotation of security assistance and development aid becoming too closely integrated. Have you experienced this? How do you propose tackling this problem?

Yes, I think that it’s a difficult balance to strike. Security is important in order for development and reconstruction to occur. The emphasis of the international community has often been on restoring stability predominantly through military means. This often leads to the strengthening of military actors to the exclusion of other security actors, including the civilian policy sectors. This can make it difficult to develop a more balanced, long-term approach to reforming the security sector. So yes, these are matters of concern.

Demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) is a concept frequently associated with SSR. Has SSR evolved beyond DDR or are they still mutually reinforcing in post-conflict situations?

DDR should ideally be seen as an element of a wider SSR process. The problem is that DDR has often been approached as a means of reducing the size of armies and other armed groups without thinking about what we are going to provide as replacement. In such contexts, SSR looks at how we can create new security institutions that are better geared towards peace-time security needs. This may mean, for instance, strengthening the police and a whole raft of other civil security mechanisms in order to provide security that benefits the population and prevent a relapse of violence.

Finally, SSR has a mission to try and prevent the kind of recurring conflicts that we saw in the late-1990s and early-2000s. Are localised movements and contributions to the post-conflict environment a positive route to take in order to succeed in this mission?

Any time you have a conflict affecting society there are many different actors and interests involved. To end a conflict, all these groups – both at local and national levels – have to reach some kind of agreement. It has to be in their interest to cooperate and collaborate. But if they’re doing it primarily because they’re under huge pressure from the international community to sign a peace agreement,then ultimately the agreement will break down. Lasting political settlements cannot be imposed from the outside and so the question for me is: how do we create space for these groups to reach agreement amongst themselves? I think that’s one of the key challenges for external actors working in a post-conflict context, to create the space for local solutions to emerge without seeking to fill that space. It’s a difficult balance to strike.

Isobel Petersen studied International Relations at the University of Exeter and is currently reading for an MA in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London. Her particular interest is post-conflict resolution with a specific focus on the Arab-Israeli crisis. Other distractions from her course are current affairs, aspirations of travel and writing. Isobel is a Guest Editor for Strife Blog.