The UN Security Council lifted economic sanctions oil embargo against the government on March 16, President Kabbah declared a state-of-emergency on March 18, The UN Security Council lifted military sanctions arms embargo against the government on June 5, EU foreign ministers imposed military sanctions arms embargo against the rebels on June 5, On June 29, , the Council of the EU imposed economic sanctions travel ban against members of the former military junta and leaders of the RUF. Joshi of India.
On October 12, , a military court condemned 34 military personnel to death for involvement in the military coup. On October 19, , the government executed 24 rebel soldiers near Freetown for their involvement in the May military rebellion. On October 19, , HRW condemned the government for the executions.
Government troops clashed with RUF rebels north of Freetown on December 6, , resulting in the deaths of at least 51 rebels.
More than 30, individuals were killed in political violence from December to December , and some , individuals fled as refugees to Liberia and Guinea. Some 6, individuals were killed during violence in Freetown.
An ICRC mission consisting of some 12 international personnel and 50 local personnel resumed emergency humanitarian assistance to individuals displaced by the conflict on May 17, Some 10, individuals were killed, and some , individuals were displaced during the conflict. On October 22, , the UN Security Council established the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone UNAMSIL to assist the government of Sierra Leone in the implementation of the disarmament and demobilization of RUF rebels; to monitor the terms of the ceasefire agreement; to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance; and to provide security at key locations, government buildings, and major airports.
The civilian police component of UNAMSIL, which was responsible for assisting local police in maintaining law and order, consisted of some 87 civilian police personnel from 28 countries commanded by Commissioner Joseph Dankwa of Ghana. The U. Twenty individuals were killed in political violence in Freetown on May 8, President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah requested military assistance from the British government, and some 1, British troops were deployed in support of the government Operation Palliser on May 7, British troops killed three rebels during clashes in Lungi Lo on May 17, Four government soldiers and two civilians were killed in a rebel ambush near Rogbere on May 24, Government troops and RUF rebels clashed in the Rogbere area on May 27, , resulting in the deaths of 29 rebels and 12 government soldiers.
British combat troops withdrew from the country on June 15, President Charles Taylor of Liberia appealed for a ceasefire on November 3, UN and government representatives signed an agreement on January 17, , which provided for the establishment of a war crimes tribunal. President Kabbah lifted the state-of-emergency on March 1, President Kabbah was re-elected with 70 percent of the vote on May 14, , and he was inaugurated for a second term on May 19, The CON sent six observers and five staff personnel headed by Lloyd Axworthy of Canada to monitor the presidential and legislative elections from May 6 to May 16, The Carter Center sent 25 observers to monitor the presidential and legislative elections from May 5 to May 15, The EU sent six election experts, 20 long-term observers, and 64 short-term observers headed by Johan Van Hecke to monitor the elections from April 15 to May 15, Local government elections were held on May 22, The CON sent four observers and three staff members to monitor the local elections from May 17 to May 27, Some UNAMSIL personnel, including peacekeeping troops, two military observers, and one civilian police personnel, were killed during the mission.
UNIOSIL, which was mandated with assisting the government with the consolidation of peace, security, and the rule of law in the country, included fourteen military observers, 21 civilian police personnel, and 75 international civilian staff personnel headed by UN Executive Representative Victor da Silva Angelo of Portugal.
Legislative elections were held on August 11, , and the APC won 59 out of seats in the House of Representatives. On September 8, , Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC was elected with 55 percent of the vote in the second round of presidential elections. The EU sent 88 observers from 25 countries led by Marie Anne Isler Begiun of France to monitor the presidential and legislative elections from July 6 to September 24, I was delighted to hear what the noble Earl said about a new Constitution for Sierra Leone.
It certainly sounds as though it was extremely well drafted, and I think everyone will welcome the inclusion of the Bill of Rights and the entrenchment of certain provisions basic to the Parliamentary system of government and for preservation of freedom of the individual citizen. These things are taken for granted in this country, but they are not so easily retained in Africa, and it certainly shows wisdom and prevision to entrench provisions of this kind and to make them difficult to alter.
I am sure we would all join with what the noble Earl said in wishing the people of Sierra Leone the utmost success in this great adventure in freedom. My Lords, I should like to associate my Party and myself with the welcome which the two noble Earls who have spoken have given to this Bill, and also, of course, to the new member of the Commonwealth who will take her place with the others on April As the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said, we in this country have had a long association with Sierra Leone, the longest of any with the West African Territories.
As your Lordships know, our first association with West Africa was in the reign of the first Elizabeth, when we went there for the purpose of slave trading. Although it is quite true that we put down slave trading, it is equally true that we started it. It was started in the reign of the first Elizabeth, and I am happy to-day that in the reign of the second Elizabeth we have been making amends to the people of the West Coast for the activities of our forbears.
As the noble Earl has said, this is the fourth I think he said the third; but it is the fourth, for there are the Cameroons Territory on the West Coast which will no longer be under our guidance and supervision.
In the course of the last few years, these vast Territories, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Cameroons have become, or will shortly become, independent, leaving us only with Gambia, which stretches along the Gambia River, a distance of some miles, 10 miles in width, as our sole 32 remaining Colonial Territory.
Not only is Sierra Leone the oldest Territory, but it also happens that this Colony was created in an intimate and curious way, so far as this country was concerned. It really arose out of the great and historic judgment of the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield—not the present one, of course, but his ancestor—who was Chief Justice in the eighteenth century. Lord Mansfield made the celebrated and historic judgment that everyone who arrives at these shores and lays his foot on the soil becomes free.
As your Lordships can imagine, a great number of people tried to do that —a very estimable thing to do. So much so that in the course of time, with the activities of the Royal Navy, which was also scouring the seas to stop the slave trade, a large number of former slaves arrived in this country, and with a combination of shrewd judgment and philanthropy it was possible to establish the Colony, a philanthropic Colony and a religious Colony to some extent, on the shores of West Africa.
Anybody who may think we have had difficulties in our time with colonial development might read the experiences of those early colonial developers headed by the Reverend Zachary Macaulay, who was the father of Thomas Babington Macaulay, the historian.
Not only did they meet great hostility, as can be imagined, from the people already there, but they also ran into a sort of backwash of the French Revolution. Shortly after the Colony had been established, a cruiser squadron of revolutionary Frenchmen arrived, and proceeded, in the way in which revolutionary armies and navies are inclined to, to wreck the Colony; so much so that they destroyed poor Mr.
Macaulay's chickens, cut the throats of his pigs, took away the grain and left him and the Colony in very poor shape. But of course the Colony survived; and from that day to this it has had a particularly strong and intimate association with our country and with the religious life of this country. Your Lordships will remember the missionary college at Fourah Bay. This College long supplied educated people right down West Africa. If a clerk or a station master or some officer of that kind was wanted in other parts of West Africa, one generally went to Sierra Leone to get him.
I hope to have the honour of being present on April 27 in Freetown, when His Royal Highness The Duke of Kent is to perform the ceremony of Independence, and it will be for me a great joy to be there on that occasion. There are just one or two points that I should like to ask the noble Earl. The first concerns the Privy Council. I take it that the Privy Council will be the ultimate, authority, so far as appeals from Sierra Leone are concerned. As your Lordships know, many of us in this House have regretted from time to time that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has net felt inclined to be a little more mobile, so far as these Territories are concerned.
Some of the members, I am quite sure, would be more mobile if their colleagues would allow them. I feel that if they are not prepared to travel and hold Count occasionally in West Africa, particularly, and maybe in East Africa too, we shall lose that very important link that we have with them; and, far more important, they will lose the benefit of this most eminent Court, one of the most eminent Courts in the world, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to supervise their legal life.
The noble Earl, Lord Perth, has said that there will be in the Constitution entrenched clauses relating to these matters of humanity. This point is never very clear to United Kingdom people, because we, not having a Written Constitution, and not having a Supreme Court, as there is in the United States, do not see the need for it.
But if you have entrenched clauses, if you have human rights clauses entrenched in your Constitution, it is very important to have the most eminent Court, if necessary, to interpret them arid enforce them. That is another reason why, especially in a comparatively small Territory like Sierra Leone, it is very important that anyone aggrieved should have the opportunity of carrying his case to the Privy Council. I do not think that the Privy Council will be able to sustain these links with 34 Nigeria and Sierra Leone—the links have gone, unhappily, with Ghana—unless occasionally the Privy Council goes there.
He took part in an interesting innovation there, because he sat in a Peer's robes. That was, I think, an interesting circumstance, because, of course, members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and the Law Lords of this House, have no robes as such.
The only robes they can wear are Peers' robes. That is one way, I believe, in which we can overcome this difficulty of robes. Of course, if the Privy Council does sit in these Territories, the members will have to sit robed; they cannot sit, as they do here, in lounge suits.
With that one query and one hope, may I most warmly support this Bill, and say that I hope the Territory of Sierra Leone, the new independent member State of Sierra Leone, will have every possible good fortune in the future.
My Lords, last Thursday in this Chamber we had rather a sad debate, but to-day it is a happy one. I would rise from these Benches just to welcome the Bill and the fact that Sierra Leone next month will become a fully independent member of the Commonwealth. I hope he is now well on the way to complete recovery. I must say that I feel that if the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, went in for television competitions on the matter of history, he would be sure to make a great deal of money. He has really a great knowledge of it.
I am glad that Her Majesty's Government are going to give all the help they can. As to defence, I am glad that the defence solution is going to be made after the date of her independence, because, as has already been said, she can then make it as a fully fledged member of the Commonwealth. I congratulate all the people of the country 35 itself, and the Government and all the helpers behind the scenes who have made this independence possible at this time. My great hope is that Sierra Leone will enjoy being a member of the Commonwealth as much as we shall enjoy having her as one.
My Lords, as an old Colonial Secretary and as a Resident Minister who spent many days in Sierra Leone during the last war, I should like—and I know my noble friend, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, who succeeded me, would wish to be associated with this—to extend our best congratulations and the warmest welcome to Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone played an important, indeed an indispensable, part in the last war in winning victory for us. Of all the ports in the world Freetown was perhaps the most important. Certainly, without Freetown it would have been almost impossible to carry on the war. It was the assembly point on which converged all the convoys coming from the South and North. All the independent tankers and food ships coming across the Atlantic concentrated in the port of Freetown which, happily, remained to them a free port all through the war.
I well recall four or five critical days when I happened to be in Sierra Leone, when we had 70 or more ships at risk coming from all over, and little to defend them with. The little M. Ls, which were meant really for river traffic, were going far out to sea, and there were, for certain, as we saw on the chart in the War Room, fifteen enemy submarines—there may have been more.
Many attacks were made. Three certainly, four probably, of those submarines were sunk. One was sunk by a Wellington bomber with a young New Zealand pilot in charge. I well recall this because it was a Commonwealth episode in every sense of the word. The plane was lost. There was a little rubber dinghy afloat and we hoped that this contained some of the airmen, but it did not; it turned out to have aboard the German commander of the submarine which the aircraft had sunk.
When he came ashore he told the story of how his submarine had been sunk. His was one of the largest new 36 German submarines. It was surfaced, and he said that this aeroplane came over and dropped a stick of bombs but missed him.
He "opened up" at it with everything that he had got—and he had quite a number of guns. He said that the aeroplane was not only badly hit but was blazing from stem to stern. Known as Krios, the repatriated settlers of Freetown today live in a multi-ethnic country. Though English is the official language, Krio is widely spoken throughout the country allowing different tribal groups a common language.
Sierra Leone gained independence on the 27th of April and the Republican status on the l9th April Since independence there have been many changes in the socio- political, and economic spheres. The outbreak of the war in Sierra Leone caused set back to many areas in the country. The conflict in Sierra Leone started in March when fighters of the Revolutionary United Front RUF launched a war from the east of the country near the border with Liberia to overthrow the government.
The RUF continued its attacks. Source : Sierra Leone Visitor Information. State House. Sierra Leone Web. Sierra Leone National Tourist Board. Search Search.
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