Although Sierra Leone has made marked political and economic progress since the end of its civil war in 2002, worrying institutional and social ills are still untreated, foreign aid flows have dropped and the stabilizing presence of a United Nations office there is coming to an end.
There is, however, a valuable opportunity to build a national consensus and pursue a peace-building and consolidation project that could put the country back on its feet for the long term.
In the August-September 2007 elections, the opposition All People's Congress (APC) wrested leadership from the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party. The almost entirely peaceful transfer of power was a testament to the growing strength of the country's fledgling democracy and gave the government the glow of legitimacy at home and abroad.
In his first year, President Ernest Bai Koroma has given the impression he is dealing with the difficult issues head-on, but results are mixed.
To his credit he has streamlined the civil service, demanded ministers be held accountable and, albeit expensively, brought electricity to the capital, Freetown. But the public and bureaucrats alike say corruption remains a way of life. In fighting this affliction, Koroma emphasises the need for widespread "attitudinal change." This is easier said than done.
Koroma's genuine reformist intentions are also stymied by long-entrenched ways of doing things. The old system of patrons diverting state resources to their hometowns in return for loyal political support hampers cohesion in central government and fosters corruption.
More important, the people's strong feelings of regional and ethnic identity continue to split the country between the northern-aligned APC and the southern-aligned People's Party. Once in office, the president found himself under intense pressure to reward northern voters with jobs in the civil service and lucrative state-run companies. Now that he has replaced many southern staff appointed by the People's Party, calls for national reconciliation ring somewhat hollow.
Widespread poverty, rising food prices and a growing army of socially-alienated, jobless youth pose a constant problem which, left unaddressed, could prove disastrous in both social and security terms. Local elections on July 5 showed strong support for the APC and bolstered Sierra Leone's democratic credentials, but some heated contests broke out into violent clashes. Faced with these problems it is no wonder Koroma has asked the people of Sierra Leone to wait three years before judging his administration.
To win his citizens' trust Koroma needs to deliver basic services and move quickly to ensure reliable water and electricity supplies, repair roads and create more jobs for youth while pressing on with public sector reform and increasing government transparency and accountability. Despite the daunting nature of the tasks ahead, there is an opportunity to accomplish two things at once.
Koroma can boost service delivery while simultaneously smoothing potentially dangerous faultlines in society by moving away from donor-driven reconstruction and launching a nationally-owned project for which all Sierra Leoneans can feel responsibility. A sustained dialogue between state and population on government priorities is essential to build political consensus across the North-South divide. While implementing concrete projects on the ground, the government needs at the same time to nurture national cohesion.
At the same time, foreign donors still have an important role to play. The United Kingdom in particular, for a long time Sierra Leone's most reliable prop, should not desert her former colony now.
Still, bilateral partners, who usually prefer to support poverty reduction and institution-building at the technical level, may well be reluctant to fund the essentially political enterprise of national consensus-building. However, the United Nations' Peacebuilding Commission, set up in 2005 to bridge the gap between post-conflict reconstruction and new development initiatives, is well placed to take the lead in ensuring the consolidation of the country's political stability.
With the United Nations mission due to leave in September, the Peacebuilding Commission could take over as a key diplomatic broker between the government and its development partners and provide critical support for cross-regional and party consultations on the government peace-building strategy.
Sierra Leone has undoubtedly come a long way since fighting stopped six years ago, but not so far that the international community can just walk away. Given the necessary help from abroad, Sierra Leone's government now has a real opportunity to reinvigorate the country's reconstruction and at the same time boost political cohesion. It is up to President Koroma and his government to show the way.
Francois Grignon is Africa Program Director of the International Crisis Group
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From an ordinary Sierra leonean standpoint,and from a commonality of perspective with Francois Grignon,the real chance to "boost the peace" in our country is rested with the leaders of government.The leaders must not only talk,but also,show the good examples and exhibit the best ethical practices in the overall discharge of constitutional and state responsibilities even when there are no viewers.Sierra leone's backwardness then and now has been the effect of unbriddle corruption. What makes it more painful to the bearing and viewing public is the display of the loot by high level government functionaries with attitude,the remote and immediate reason for the over ten years of brutal war seem like not a lesson enough.Unless and until the uncontrolled impulse to steal state money, a condition affecting the personel of every facet of the government, is treated seriously,to make sure any one who steals from the public's purse commits a capital offence,I am afraid, the progress and development of our small republic will still be a far fetched dream
Who are the leaders of the territorial state of Sierra Leone? That is not a sixty four million dollar question for me, if a negative answer be deemed an answer.
EBK is not the leader of the proto fascist state of Sierra Leone. That is the negative answer.
The relationship between political power and money is nothing new: it is as old as any any poitical entity, whether it be a republic, an empire, a Kingdom or a nation state or, in the case of Sierra Leone, a territorial state. I shall not revisit here my thesis that Sierra Leone is NOT a nation state. The arguments in favor of the thesis can be found elsewhere.
The interesting issue that arises out the current consciousness that the financial contributors to the "one soup" parties are active within the structures of the societal state power in the territorial state of Sierra Leone is misplaced.
As I have maintained elswhere, the one soup parties are proxies of socio-ideological principals behind the scenes. The last thing a man or woman with money connected with the ample opportunities of illegal enrichment seeded in a territorial state is DIRECT INVOLVEMENT in the machinery of a governing party.
Accordingly, the theory that financial contributors are visible in the governing structure is patently false.
The theory that the soupist parties are proxies is supported by the empirical fact that the monied interests in pre-independent Sierra Leone are still there: monied and secure.
One of these elements was Jamil. Naive, he bucked the heuristic of political anonymity: his fate proves that the money bags who front monies to the 'contributing politicians' have corroborated their modus operandus: fund the proxies, let them duke it out, and laughing all the way to the bank, they go, invisible to the peoples of Sierra Leone.
My friends, I should think that the locution "our leaders" is now a "governa gate" ambiguity, or you think not?
My friend, Mr. imunu, having studied your postings, I have concluded that you care about the destiny of Sierra Leone. Accordingly, please accept my comments infra in a spirit of problem solving.
As I have stated in several postings, the leaders of the demo/fascist state occupying the territory of Sierra Leone are not autonomous: they are proxies of hidden principalities of dirty money. Respectfully---qccordingly---the expectation that such soupist leaders, the current one inclusive, are not choreographed by the structural conditions of existence of an occupying territorial state is, at best, naive.
It is not EBK who mandates violence, but the territorially grounded state power, which, as we know, is, even in national states, a depository of societal violence that is distributed among the military, the police, the judiciary and sanctioning administrative instrumentalities.
The solution to the problem is obvious: no element of of the captured populace attached to the soupists parties, their supporting tails, en facon parler, inclusive can stem the violence.
Truth be told, both soupist parties are experts in the PRODUCTION of violence.
Accordingly, only that part of the captured population devoid of soupist sentiments can stop the violence systematically and strategically produced by the soupist parties and their tails cum thugs.
Francois Grignon's summary and commentary August 7, 2008 based on the recent report on Sierra Leone by the International Crisis Group is certainly worth consideration. The report itself is available in pdf format at http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/africa/west_africa/143_sierra_ leone___a_new_era_of_reform.pdf. It comes not long after another report by Suliman Baldo of the International Center for Transitional Justice. Both are focused on political efforts needed at the top, which are important. Creative efforts at the grass roots are also important. For example, the work of a grass roots organization known as Fambul Tok (family talk) is helping villages revive traditional reconciliation/cleansing ceremonies. Their work was recently featured in The Christian Science Monitor (www.csmonitor.com).
Press Inquiries Press Releases ICTJ in the News Publications Features Newsletter Annual Reports Events Audio and Video Files Features June 3, 2008
Sierra Leone: A Way Forward
While the government of Sierra Leone has taken strides toward peacebuilding since a 1999 peace agreement ended a brutal civil war, it is still struggling to secure human rights and a lasting peace, in part because of a lack of government expertise and resources.
Sierra Leone is ranked at the bottom of the UN's Human Development Index. Because of prolonged conflict and a history of bad governance, the country is by almost any measure a degraded state.
But there also are opportunities, including draft legislation that would strengthen the country's anti-corruption commisison, the prospect of enacting legislation to pay reparations to victims of the violence and holding orderly, peaceful elections on July 5. Suliman Baldo, director of the ICTJ's Africa Program, spoke about conditions there to the UN Peacebuilding Commission.
The full text of the speach follows. To download the speech in PDF, click here.
To learn more about the ICTJ's work in Sierra Leone, click here.
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Sierra Leone:
A Way Forward
United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, May 2008
Remarks by Suliman Baldo
For Sierra Leone, the Lomé peace agreement of 1999 was the most critical step towards ending a devastating 11-year war, and committing the country to a number of accountability measures, including a truth and reconciliation commission. When rebels later attacked, killed and abducted UN troops, the reestablished democratic leadership requested help from the United Nations to create a Special Court to try those most responsible for the war.
The ICTJ began work in Sierra Leone in 2001 and aided the truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) from the commission's first days to the end of its work. The TRC had a mandate to address impunity, break cycles of violence, provide a forum for both the victims and perpetrators of human rights violations to tell their story, and prevent future conflict. The ICTJ helped it devise an approach to reparations and provided advice on the relationship with the Special Court for Sierra Leone. More recently the ICTJ has worked closely with national partners in Sierra Leone to use the opportunity of the Peacebuilding Commissions' engagement in the country to re-energize efforts to implement the commission's recommendations.
The TRC Report, released in 2004, is strikingly comprehensive, identifying the conflict's underlying causes as "bad governance, endemic corruption and the denial of basic human rights." The report not only provides a detailed history of the conflict and Sierra Leone's decline but also lists the names and fates of many of the victims, and identifies many of the high level perpetrators-and offers a vision for the future of Sierra Leone.
It is, in fact, a blueprint for peacebuilding, including 236 recommendations, ranked by their priority.
The Truth and Reconciliation Act signed by the Government of Sierra Leone in 2000 requires the Government to carry out the recommendations directed to state bodies, and to encourage other parts of society to take other recommended steps.
The Present
While progress has been slow, the government is to be applauded for moving forward on a number of the TRC recommendations: A Human Rights Commission was established in 2006; critical legislation on gender equality, including bills on inheritance, child rights, matrimonial rights of women, and land access, were passed in 2007; legislation on child rights in Sierra Leone came into force; and advances have been made in security sector review and reform and in the management of mineral resources.
As the Officer in Charge of the United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone said in May, "Almost everything we are doing in this country is related to the TRC recommendations." The international community, most notably the United Kingdom, the US, and the UN, has been instrumental in supporting and facilitating these relief and recovery efforts in Sierra Leone.
The engagement of the Peacebuilding Commission in Sierra Leone since 2006 has been a galvanizing force for redirecting international attention to Sierra Leone. By working with the government to develop a framework for peace building priorities and actively advocating with donor countries to support the framework, the Peacebuilding Commission has taken critical steps towards fulfilling its mandate.
The $35 million committed to Sierra Leone by the Peacebuilding Fund is meant to be a catalyst for further funding as well as a demonstration of the commitment of the international community. For example, the commission - thanks to the Peacekeeping Fund - is credited for helping to turning on the lights in Freetown. After an initial lack of enthusiasm, the PBC recognized that the government's inability to provide electricity was a peacebuilding and national security issue.
But the situation remains dire: Sierra Leone is at the bottom of the Human Development Index. It has the highest child mortality rates in the world. Capacity in critical areas of governance is extremely low-in the justice sector, for example, there are 11 prosecutors for the entire country of approximately 4.9 million.
There are also new threats to security in Sierra Leone, including regional threats exemplified by the country's complicated relationship with Guinea, and the growing threats of food and fuel insecurity. In December, a bag of rice cost about 68,000 Sierra Leonean leones ($23 dollars U.S.) in Freetown; today it costs about 120,000 Sierra Leonean dollars ($41 U.S. dollars) - almost a 100% increase.
Challenges
Important steps have been taken, but how will these steps transform from commitments to actions that have positive effects?
In May, ICTJ and the Sierra Leone Court Monitoring Programme, together with the Human Rights Committee of the Sierra Leonean Parliament and Civil Society Peacebuilding Engagement Committee organized meetings that gave members of parliament an opportunity to comment on the plans and progress in the key peacebuilding areas.
From these meetings, and together with members of parliaments and civil society representatives, we have identified three broad challenges. These challenges very much support those identified by Ambassador Frank Majoor of The Netherlands on the occasion of his recent trip to Sierra Leone.
Lack of strategies and government capacity
In most priority areas, ministries have not outlined a national strategy. Even where a strategy has been developed, for example for Youth Capacity Building and Employment, and in Justice and Security Sector Reform, there is no-one considering how these strategies may overlap or be in tension with each other. The new government has yet to unveil a coherent approach showing how it intends to coordinate these strategies, although there are discussions of an oversight body attached to the Office of the Vice President that would play this role.
Capacity to absorb international assistance is also a problem. Projects funded by the Peacebuilding Fund are meant to last 12 months. But various projects have take 12 to 18 months between the approval of projects to the actual disimbursement. UNDP is ultimately responsible for the slow disbursement, but the program is overextended in Sierra Leone and requires dedicated staff and additional resources to keep things moving.
The inability of the government to provide a coherent vision is exacerbated by the lack of coordination within the international community. The government is required to meet the benchmarks of a dozen or more donors and international organizations-all with different systems of reporting. Given the low capacity of the state, members of the international community working in Sierra Leone must work together to find ways to lessen the burden of meeting the various donor requirements.
Finally, the delay in the appointing an Executive Representative of the Secretary General to lead the international community's effort in the implementation of the Peacebuilding Fund on the ground leaves a vacuum at the top.
Reconciliation
Peacebuilding does not only depend only on rebuilding the institutions of governance; it also involves building bridges across societies and communities that have been divided by hatred as a result of violent conflict and marginalization. The post-conflict peacebuilding regime cannot forget the victims.
It is over five years since the war was declared over and the disarmament, demobilization and re-integration process declared complete. Victims of the atrocities, however, often compare their situation with that of the ex-combatants. While the victims' needs remain unaddressed by the government, the perpetrators have benefited from well financed programs.
The TRC offers a strategy for reparations that is acceptable to most victims. As suggested by the TRC, part of the program's cost could be defrayed by Sierra Leone's mineral wealth. Last year, Sierra Leone exported $140 million worth of fine gems, but with an export tax of only 3 per cent. Since diamond sales helped fund the war, they could, at the least, be made to bear some of the costs of reparation to its victims.
Furthermore, recent elections left many communities divided. The government has an opportunity now to take the lead in reconciling communities by offering public programs and political appointments that transcend ethnic and regional lines.
Another potential contribution for reconciliation is the legacy of the Special Court. The international community is spending millions of dollars each year to try nine defendants. At the least, the Special Court should contribute to a national justice system that respects human rights and delivers justice to all instead of a few Sierra Leoneans. There is still time to make sure that proposals for the transfer of the Special Court's facilities to the government are carried out in a way that increases a sense of ownership over its resources and facilities.
Accountability
In order for peacebuilding efforts in Sierra Leone to take firm root, all stakeholders in the peacebuilding processes and especially those handling financial and other programmatic issues should offer transparency and accountability to partners and beneficiaries of the programs.
Our recent seminars for parliament and civil society helped identify a large number of problems in this area. Members of parliament acknowledged a lack of understanding about the workings of the Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacekeeping Fund. They are not aware of the content of the various programs and projects being supported by the fund.
Given that they have oversight responsibility on government programs and in order for them to effectively perform that function, it is important that they are fully informed and kept with program development. Members of Parliament stated their interest in being part of the process, not merely rubberstamping the final bill.
An indispensable and indefatigable partner of the peacebuilding process is civil society. While civil society in Sierra Leone is poorly organized, it has shown willingness to come together over particular issues and for capacity building opportunities, and in the past, demonstrated a strong commitment to democracy and good governance. We must continue to invest in a vibrant civil society that can enhance legitimacy and local ownership of the peacebuilding process.
Conclusion
These challenges can be met only with government commitment, government leadership, investment, and transparent, accountable processes. Upcoming opportunities for the government to move this agenda forward and demonstrate its commitment to its people include these:
A draft bill focused on the Anti-Corruption Commission, seeking to strengthen the commission's independence and its effectiveness. The legislation would give the commission prosecutorial powers; allow it to prosecute without approval form the attorney general and minister of justice, guarantee the commissioner tenure in the post; and require public officials to declare their assets. President Ernest Bai Koroma renewed his commitment to the revised National Anti-Corruption Bill Parliament will soon get a chance to reaffirm its own commitment to anti-corruption.
Making a commitment to enact legislation on reparations as a matter of urgency.
Holding orderly, peaceful local elections on July 5. Local government elections that increase local participation in governance will both strengthen the decentralization process and enhance peacebuilding.
These measures are important, but Sierra Leone still presents special challenges to the international community. Due to prolonged conflict and history of bad governance, Sierra Leone remains a degraded state. Sustained commitment by the international community is necessary for these measures to be transformed into practical efforts that make a serious difference in the lives of Sierra Leone's people. And only those efforts will guarantee sustained peace and a commitment to human rights and dignity. Back to overview Printer Friendly Enlarge Text Smaller Text PDF
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"PROGRESS TO WHAT?
The ideology or prejudice of "progress" was hatched by the propandists of the so-called 'European' Englightenment, whose singular task was to debunk any and all traditions in in any and all social sites that could not be "ratified" in the "court" of "reason." The political correlate was the development of republican forms of goverment in the 'autonomous' cities by burghers of a Europe then fully anchored in the hegemony of Kingdoms and the Catholic Church.
Hence, progress discourse is historically situated in a site that refused to plant the same discourse and its institutional 'images' in African territories conquered by European Imperialism; in the case of the territory of Sierra Leone, BRITISH IMPERIALISM.
It is a safe bet that despite philosophical claptrap about "post-modernism" by Euro-American eggheads that Euro-American institutions, including the UN and other institutions inhabiting the same genre, are intoxicated with the bourgeois prejudice of progress.
Accordingly, suspicion is authorized by averments and deeds of the heirs of the PRIMI AUTORES of the prejudice of progress, heirs individual or institutional. Africans, and I care not about their 'leaders,' should always view the discourse of progress from the perspective of presumptive falsehood, at best, and presumptive hypocrisy, at worst.
That said, within the Euro-American horizon, a legitimate question can be raised about the narrative of progress, namely "progress to what?" The fathers of the Englightenment's answer was VIA NEGATIVA: AWAY WITH ALL TRADITIONS UNAUTHORIZED BY "REASON." Historically, of course, "reason" has a history, and that history reveals different shades of "reason."
Nobody living in what the ideologues of the Englightenment imagined was the 'age' of "traditionally founded authority," thought that the zone in which life was lived, in which life was 'spent,' was suckled by unreason.
Although the Englightenment piggybacked on Italian humanistic textual-critical based critique of tradition, neither movements were truly historically informed in the sense the self-conscious, fully fledged historical-philological historical consciousness of 19th century European historians. Hence, both ideational structures were unhistorical, and this is attested by the projections they tendered for "progess."
The Italian humanists were guided by the "return to 'pagan' sources of knowledge," while the Englightenment pushers urged a "return to pure reason," by which they meant "reason" expurged of the falsifications of layers and layers of traditions of what they wrongheadly called "the dark ages" of European humanity, a notion that makes sense if and only if a conscious negation of the continuity of the Roman Empire ecclesiastically and secularly is asserted. Compare the Protestants' battle cry of the "return to the CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST (even though there is no historically reliable record that Jesus founded a church) and the apostles, a cry hurled at the allegedly corrupt traditions of the Roman Catholic Church.
The point?
The heirs of the ideology of progress have not transcended the blinders of their benefactors: their definition of progress is STILL WRAPPED IN THE CLOTH OF THE VIA NEGATIVA: absence of poverty, disease, bla, bla, bla.
We need an answer to the question of the purpose of the beloved and glorified ABSENCES.
I have not found an answer among the 'experts' of progess, which is now cloaked in the lexeme 'development.'
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