Word: sierras
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...Sierra Leone, admitted a top U.N. official last week, "is a perfect model for everything that can go wrong in a peacekeeping operation." It began when the merciless rebel leader Foday Sankoh adopted a singularly ruthless strategy: if you terrorize enough civilians--raping girls, mutilating children, burning houses--the world will eventually give you just about anything to stop the atrocities. By July 1999 the beastly killing spree had spurred Washington and London into brokering a flawed peace-at-any-price, handing Sankoh and his Revolutionary United Front amnesty, four seats in the government and control over the country...
...looting. Operation No Living Thing saw mass executions and the mutilation of anyone within reach. His 15,000 to 45,000 soldiers follow him as if he were a god. And Sankoh believes he is divinely inspired. Says he: "God chose me to lead the revolution that will save Sierra Leone...
Despite their obedience, none of his soldiers appear all too happy to be part of the revolution. In Sierra Leone there is very little choice: once in the R.U.F., there is nowhere to go, particularly with the horrors the R.U.F. is accused of. During the war, Sankoh's troops--some as young as 10 and many drugged with narcotics--amputated arms and legs, gouged out eyes, sliced open pregnant women and stewed bodies for food. Says a U.N. official: "He gives an order, and his boys implement it. No questions...
Born 63 years ago in the southern town of Bo, the ambitious Sankoh was too poor to attend secondary school and instead joined the army, then run by Britain, Sierra Leone's colonial master till 1961. However, he reached only the rank of corporal and was assigned to radio duty. He was further embittered by serving as part of a U.N. peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a civil war that saw the assassination of that country's leader, Patrice Lumumba, whom Sankoh admired. After a brief and unhappy stint as a cameraman in Britain, Sankoh supported...
Global politics is growing more complex. States will remain the principal actors in global politics. But they are being joined by many other actors, including failed states such as Sierra Leone, suprastate organizations like the European Union, interstate organizations like the International Monetary Fund and INGOs (international nongovernment organizations) such as Greenpeace...