Beyond liberal institution (re)building: conversations on peacebuilding and statebuilding in Sierra Leone

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to debates on the relationship between peacebuilding and statebuilding with its analysis of post-independence Sierra Leone. It considers the extent to which peacebuilding has returned Sierra Leonean society to post-independence statebuilding conversations and how the issues that have emanated from such conversations have interacted with settlement and post-settlement arrangements. This paper analyses original data from focus group discussions and interviews in fieldwork from January 2016. It finds that the situation in Sierra Leone heralded opportunities for peacebuilding processes to engage concerns that have been linked with historical statebuilding conversations. Yet formal statebuilding processes, which were particularly focused on liberal institution building in the post-conflict context, were not sufficiently attentive to their antecedents. Nonetheless there are suggestions of some engagement with extant statebuilding conversations particularly in relation to how ethnicity continues to colour the statebuilding project, the significance of intergroup dynamics across intergenerational exchanges and gender and the challenges of socio-economic exclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Peacebuilding
• statebuilding
• conversations
• Sierra Leone
• liberal institutionbuilding

Introduction

This paper progresses debates on the interrelationship between peacebuilding and statebuilding conceptually and in praxis with its interrogation of post-independence Sierra Leone. Its distinct contribution is in the deployment of the notion of conversations amongst entities including the state, elites and wider society as an analytical tool for comprehending statebuilding and its interlinkages with peacebuilding.¹ To this end the paper reinforces what Lemay-Hebert refers to as the legitimacy approach to statebuilding that goes beyond a focus on rebuilding institutions to prioritise socio-political cohesion as a central element of this endeavour.² The paper problematises the understanding of statebuilding as concerned primarily with rebuilding institutions in conflict-affected contexts, often with a liberal ideological underpinning and international intervention.³ Galtung and Lederach conceptualise peacebuilding as a structure that addresses conflict root causes to offer an array of processes for transformation to sustainable peaceful relationships.⁴ Call considers peacebuilding to be any action by actors to consolidate national peace with attention also to conflict prevention.⁵ Here too there has been a tendency towards a liberal ideological underpinning to dominant readings of peacebuilding.⁶ Responding to this Omeje argues that African peacebuilding must progress beyond this to serve the ‘legitimate interests and well-being’ of the broadest base of its peoples.⁷

Both statebuilding and peacebuilding are concepts that are contested heavily with much questioning about how they intersect and the impact this tension has on interventions in conflict-affected contexts across the world.⁸ Dominant ideas around the compatibility of peacebuilding and statebuilding posit a sequencing of processes that is particular to contextual realities.⁹ Although there is recognition of the interdependence of peacebuilding and statebuilding processes and indeed outcomes, they are inherently considered as being based on distinct and separate logics. But in post-conflict contexts it is reasonable to consider peacebuilding as part of the statebuilding continuum. In fact, Olonisakin et al. are clear on this in their argument that many societies that experienced violent conflict in the Post-Cold War era have done so as a result of a breakdown in statebuilding conversations.¹⁰ In considering the place of non-state security actors Podder goes further to consider governance practices in wartime on the continuum of statebuilding processes.¹¹ This is especially pertinent in post-independence and post-colonial contexts that have grappled with state formation against the background of fractious and oftentimes brutal outcomes from the colonial experience. In Sierra Leone, the experience of colonial rule influenced the trajectory of statebuilding conversations and their eventual break down into civil war as will be seen later.

The positioning of peacebuilding on the continuum of statebuilding challenges the dominant approach of prioritising liberal institution building as the most significant condition for statebuilding.¹² This is because it provides a long view of the trajectory of statebuilding and embeds it in interconnectedness across periods to comprehend the complexity of the context including the social, economic and political factors that influence institutional cultures of which the formation and emergence of institutions, particularly local formations, are a part.

Focussing on the notion of a continuum draws attention to ongoing interaction across the key entities engaged in and impacted by peacebuilding and statebuilding processes. Examining these interactions as conversations that are critical and influential to peacebuilding and statebuilding outcomes are of key concern in this paper and indeed the wider volume.¹³ This paper’s analysis takes the notion of conversation as a useful entry point for the Sierra Leone country case study in comprehending local interpretations of the relationship between peacebuilding and statebuilding vis-à-vis dominant narratives; interaction between internationally-driven and local processes; and the impact of these processes on the potential basis for continuing conflict and wider crises. Analysis of this country case makes a distinct contribution as a site that witnessed international actors mediating at global and regional levels in its peacebuilding and therein statebuilding processes with an integrated mission that was seen as pivotal to peace consolidation.¹⁴

Against this background this paper considers two key factors. First is the extent to which peacebuilding has returned Sierra Leonean society to the original statebuilding conversations. Second is to consider the identity issues that have emanated from such statebuilding conversations and how these have interacted with settlement and post-settlement arrangements. This is especially pertinent given the significance of these concerns in statebuilding conversations from colonial to post-colonial periods in Sierra Leone. On this identity theme, the paper is especially attentive to gender regimes, focusing on women, and how these have fared in the post-settlement period.

Following this introduction, the second part of the paper considers debates on peacebuilding and statebuilding in Sierra Leone. The third part of the paper presents the historical trajectory of statebuilding conversations in Sierra Leone. This is followed by the fourth section, which examines the extent to which an externally brokered settlement allowed for a peacebuilding process that returned to pre-war statebuilding conversations. The fifth section analyses original data from focus group discussions (FGD) and interviews in fieldwork that was conducted in January 2016. In doing so it presents emerging narratives from Sierra Leonean society, elites and occupants of the state apparatus in the post-settlement era and how these may or may not be interlinked with longstanding statebuilding conversations that predate the conflict. The final section concludes the paper.

Contemporary debates on statebuilding and peacebuilding in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone has had a portion of challenges that are not commensurate with its population or geographical size. Military coups, dictatorship, acrimonious intergroup relations and bitter civil wars have underlined the affairs of the former British colony. It is on this account that it holds a pivotal space in contemporary debates on peacebuilding and especially post-conflict statebuilding in Africa. This is largely as a result of its brutal civil war (1991–2002) that has also defined the post-Cold war era of conflict in Africa. Analyses of the conflict have engendered a range of thematic concerns including the interrelationship between natural resources and conflict, discourses on youth and violent conflict and regional organisations and peacekeeping interventions.¹⁵ Reflections on this and other violent conflicts in West Africa were also deployed as empirical rooting for advancing expanded notions of security, notably human security.¹⁶

On peacebuilding and statebuilding, examination of Sierra Leone has been pivotal. It was the first integrated peace mission that was also considered core to the agenda of peace consolidation.¹⁷ It was thus a theatre for testing out new ideas and lessons learning. It is in this regard that Sierra Leone was selected as one of the pilot country cases for the consideration of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (UN PBC) established in 2005. The prioritisation of youth empowerment and employment, consolidation of democracy and good governance, justice and security, capacity building of public administration as well as energy sector development by the UN PBC consolidated the formal recognition of these themes as core to the peacebuilding agenda.¹⁸ These accompanied statebuilding processes that ignored colonial legacies and prioritised institutional rebuilding that abstracts from structural concerns and can be unaccountable to popular needs and contextual realities.¹⁹

Debates on statebuilding in Sierra Leone have fit into the sequencing pattern that situates it as part of post-conflict recovery and therein a medium-term element of the post-conflict peacebuilding agenda.²⁰ This interpretation evidences the prevalence of the liberal institution building approach to statebuilding. The shortcomings of this approach are well documented with arguments that include failures in coordination of resources and strategy, disharmony between donors and local realities as well as the risk of dependence of statebuilding processes, in conflict-affected contexts, on international actors.²¹

Yet this liberal institution building approach prevails because of a wider ideological dominance of liberalisation in the mainstream across intellectual discourse and praxis. Kurz has argued correctly that the basis of mainstream statebuilding debates in the methodological individualistic foundations of economic and political liberalisation serves to limit its usefulness in analyses of Sierra Leone.²² In particular, a pertinent argument emanates in the ahistoricism of this approach as well as its neglect of the ongoing longer term agenda of state formation. In line with this logic, this study evidences a deeper interaction between peacebuilding and statebuilding with the use of a historical lens and the privileged position for socio-political cohesion vis-à-vis institution building.

In spite of the critiques of dominant contemporary approaches to peacebuilding and statebuilding there are realities that have served to reinforce their dominance. In Sierra Leone, qualified ‘success’ of peacebuilding and statebuilding can be attributed to certain outcomes including: the return to a fairly stable electoral democracy, new institutional frameworks addressing the management of economic resources, such as the accession to the Kimberley process and domestic accountability initiatives, rebuilding of security and justice institutions, including the military, as well as vast nominal improvements in civil-military relations. Yet some concerns with conventional statebuilding approaches come to the fore. The reconstituted institutions remain extensively reliant on development assistance as is the case with the military apparatus. Rebuilt institutional frameworks do not seem to meet the intended standardised Weberian ideals of coercive functions such as legitimate monopoly of the means of violence and fiscal capacity through taxation and non-coercive functions including administrative capabilities alongside a limited reach beyond urban centres across governance, security, economic and justice contexts.²³ Even by the criteria of liberal institution building that engages little with questions of legitimacy, there remain disappointing human development indicators with high poverty that remains largely rural, the highest maternal mortality rates globally and one of the highest infant mortality rates globally.²⁴ Country Policy and Institutional Assessment ratings have hovered at 2.5–3.5 but have been in decline in most categories, save governance and property rights.²⁵ From the field study, a level of satisfaction with justice and security institutions is reported in the post-settlement period yet challenges remain in their poor efficiency due to political interference.

On peacebuilding and reconstruction, economic liberalism has been prioritised with reduced size of government to enable private sector activity to minimise the ‘crowding out’ effect; fiscal prudence in spite of pressures for greater expenditure; reduced inflation; flexible exchange rates; open trade; prudent social infrastructure spending on health and education with a focus on primary education vis-a-vis secondary education.²⁶ In fact, the 2014 Ebola virus disease crisis in West Africa has been seen as emblematic of long-standing failures to enable public investment in social infrastructure, such as health in post-conflict settings of Liberia and Sierra Leone as a result of market fundamentalist policies.²⁷ Furthermore, caps on government spending have diminished capacity for efficient expansion of social services, which is significant for any long-term development agenda.²⁸ Young people have also been especially affected by the development challenges that the country continues to face. It is significant that youth remain marginalised, vulnerable and underserved by progress in Sierra Leone with high youth unemployment rates in spite of the place of this demographic in the civil war.²⁹

It is against this background that this paper challenges dominant short-termist interpretations of statebuilding solely as an element of post-conflict peacebuilding.³⁰ It does so by considering pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict periods as a fractious continuum in a broader interpretation of statebuilding that is informed by various factors across time such as management of natural resources, regional dynamics, economic and political corruption, military rule and ethnically-motivated politics. It is important to note that although the focus is on the domestic context, statebuilding in Sierra Leone has been influenced also by global dynamics such as the end of the Cold War and the rise of economic and political liberalism. Indeed, these contexts are dynamic and impinge upon one another to produce complex processes and outcomes across time and spatial contexts in Sierra Leone. In this regard peacebuilding is more influenced intrinsically and connected intricately with ongoing statebuilding processes.

Historical trajectory of statebuilding: identity, economic resources and political governance

As with most of the African continent, Sierra Leone’s statebuilding trajectory has been influenced extensively by colonialism. Beyond the building of liberal institutions, the impact of colonialism has especially reverberated against the construction of a state apparatus that might have been able to provide socio-political cohesion across the Sierra Leonean territory. This impact has been apparent in the deployment of ethnicity as a basis for political contestation for access to as well as control of the state. In addition to this, the colonial state has endured as a tool for enabling political elites’ private accumulation of public resources for maintaining control of the state. Over time, these contestations have been effected through unconstitutional evolutions in civil-military relations at the highest levels with military participation in political governance that resulted eventually in civil war.

The British colonial administration governed Sierra Leone within a dualised system established in 1924, of the Crown Colony and the Protectorate, with distinct political institutional structures. This framework formalised a social stratification of the colonised populations along spatial and ethnic lines that has underscored statebuilding conversations in the post-colonial period that ruptured eventually into violence. The bifurcated system fostered territorial divisions that resulted in the unequal development of the Protectorate, mainly inhabited by the indigenous populations, in comparison to the Colony, largely populated by the Krios.³¹ As a consequence, the Krios were highly educated and occupied most of the professional positions in the colonial administration at the expense of the indigenous populations.³² This subsequently reinforced a degree of a stance of superiority of the Krios in relation to other groups. These prejudicial distinctions however underlined and structured the legal, administrative, political and social relations between and within the Colony and Protectorate.³³ The main underlying point of tension at the heart of this identity conversation was the contestation over political equality and control of the state.³⁴

With increased political mobilisation of the Krios against colonial rule, the British established legal policies that increased political and public participation of the indigenous populations in the governance process.³⁵ Yet with the arrival of Lebanese migrants in 1907, the British realigned their economic and trade relations with the Krios.³⁶ This further widened the ethnic rift between the rural-based groups and the Krios. As independence approached, the contestations between the numerically larger ‘Protectorate’ populations and the minority Krios centred on the control and domination of the post-independence political project. These divisions, particularly those among the former ‘Protectorate’ populations have and continue to be definitive to statebuilding processes in Sierra Leone.

Identity dynamics in statebuilding shifted from contentions between Krios and indigenous populations to reflect political contestations predominantly among key groups including the Mende, Temne and the Limba elites over the control of the state and its resources. This resulted in the instrumentalisation of ethnic identities by elites for their narrow interests. Political factions operationalised through political organisations in the country were formed and have historically and contemporaneously mirrored ethnic identities. For instance, the post-independence political party, The Sierra Leone’s People Party (SLPP), attracted support from the Mendes and was viewed predominantly as an ethnicity-based party as a result.³⁷ Similarly, the Temnes, alongside other groups, were noted constituents of the All People’s Congress (APC).³⁸

The emergence and development of ethno-political identities have played a significant political and developmental role through class formation and domination in statebuilding conversations.³⁹ After the conflict, ethnicity became more prominent in the understanding of national politics. Essentially political elites have deployed ethnicity to operationalise contestations for access to and control of the state apparatus thus introducing zero-sum tendencies to national politics on this basis. This challenged the emergence and development of a collective sense of national identity linked to the state.

Sustaining and resourcing the state apparatus has required the harnessing of the country’s rich natural mineral resource base. Mineral resources constituted 90 per cent of export revenue and the government accrued 11 per cent of its revenue from resource exports rents in 2011.⁴⁰ These resources have long been a pivotal motivation in the struggles for access to and control of the state along factional ethno-political lines. There is a historical antecedence to the reliance on rents for sustaining the state. In the pre-independence era, because the non-indigenes including the colonial government and the Krios that dominated the Crown Colony could not statutorily own land these relied necessarily on fiscal extraction from landowning peasants and usury by comprador settler communities thus forming the foundations of an extractive political economy.⁴¹

Macroeconomic policies intended to strengthen the state’s developmental pursuits for the economy were deployed as tools to enable the private accumulation of public resources. The overvalued Leone fuelled by mineral resource trade and shadow transactions, that could have enabled capital imports for structural transformation served instead to finance a Nurksian elite consumption through the 1970s.⁴² In addition widespread agricultural investments privileged a minority of large-scale producers that were at times occupants of the state apparatus, to the exclusion of the more significant small-scale rural-based producer constituency.⁴³ These dynamics undermined state capacity for engendering socio-political cohesion as its apparatus was employed as a means for devising, implementing and sustaining inequitable developmental outcomes.

These contestations and subsequent private accumulation of public resources by the political elite has served to entrench deep-seated inequalities across spatial locales. In this regard access to economic resources has been a pivotal element of statebuilding conversations around socio-political cohesion across entities of state and society. In 2004, 56 per cent of those working in public administration, security, health, transport, professional and domestic services as well as foreign owned organisations lived in the capital district, which is home to approximately 15.5 per cent of the national population.⁴⁴ This pattern is reinforced in the level of disparity in poverty across the rural and urban locales. In 2017 rural poverty stood at 86.3 per cent as against urban poverty at 37.6 per cent.⁴⁵ This resulting urban-rural divide is linked also to the colonial legacy. The bustling urban centre of Western Area is located at the geographical base of the Crown Colony of Sierra Leone that enjoyed earlier prosperity as a trade centre.⁴⁶

Political governance emerges as a cross-cutting and perhaps the most influential factor in the statebuilding trajectory in Sierra Leone. The dynamics of political elites’ interaction with governance and power has challenged socio-political cohesion in the statebuilding enterprise especially due to the private accumulation of public resources and the foray of the military into the political arena. These patterns have relied upon ethno-political and social fragmentation as well as unproductive economic extraction as the vehicle for employing the state to undermine socio-political cohesion and consensus.

In the post-independence period divisive party politics largely between the SLPP and APC grounded in ethnic and regional alliances and weak support bases fragmented the political system in Sierra Leone and with it hopes of a collective national identity. This political system relied upon extensive patronage that effectively undermined all the principal institutions including the parliament, police, armed forces and civil service across the political spectrum.⁴⁷ Extant ethno-political tensions intensified patterns of patronage to consolidate nepotism and cronyism in state institutions.⁴⁸ The institutionalisation of private accumulation utilised economic policy and redistributive mechanisms including control over access to mineral resources, distortions in commodity, financial and forex markets as well as the allocation of scarce basic commodities.⁴⁹

The place of violence in political governance led to the worst possible outcomes in Sierra Leone of the decade long civil war. The role of the military was very significant as it irretrievably changed the landscape for political contestations. Albert Magai’s loss of election in 1967 to Siaka Stevens precipitated three military coups within the space of one-year.⁵⁰ This period fostered a great degree of violence in Sierra Leonean politics. Military coups unmasked political contestations among the elites and had redoubtable impacts on statebuilding conversations. In March 1971 soldiers loyal to Joseph Bangura organised another military coup. One of those arrested and jailed for this coup was Foday Sankoh, a name that was to become the most infamous in the history of Sierra Leone as the head of the Revolutionary United Forces (RUF). In fact this turn of events posits the potential impact of discontent with the political elite by excluded groups. It also impacts on the statebuilding process as Sankoh sought to re-engage this in some way through the civil war. From here the links between political governance and the antecedents of violent conflict are well established.

The basis for negotiating access to and control of the state apparatus driven by political contestations overlain with private accumulation (of state resources) suggest the emergence of a zero-sum game with very high stakes that led to violent outcomes. Across economic and political governance, ethnicity has been a core element of the historical trajectory of emergence of the state apparatus and this has influenced the dynamics and characterised the very nature of statebuilding in Sierra Leone. It has also placed identity as a pivotal element of statebuilding conversations across pre-conflict periods in Sierra Leone.

Negotiating peace through political settlements: international peacebuilding interventions and a return to statebuilding conversations?

The Sierra Leone civil war was undoubtedly one of the most important landmarks in the history of the country. The causes of the war are diverse, but they centred around four main themes: the mismanagement of the country’s natural resources; disappointments with attempts at electoral democratic governance; relative neglect across spatial-rural-contexts and demographic contexts- marginalised groups including youth; and the regional dynamic in the contagion of the civil conflict Liberia. For the most part, these factors are linked intrinsically to statebuilding conversations in the pre-conflict period discussed in the previous section. In this section we consider how the mutually reinforcing subjects of peacebuilding and statebuilding come into the equation of socio-political transitions. Crucial to the interactions between these themes is the nature and extent to which the management of the outbreak of conflict facilitates a society to revisit the central issues in its statebuilding conversations. Considering these dynamics allows for the location of peacebuilding as an interlude in a continuum in the statebuilding process that has transitioned into violence.

A key element of peacebuilding processes is the character of settlements as a means for brokering an end to violence and eventual peace. For Sierra Leone, this was formally organised around its brokered peace agreements. Three main agreements were signed in an attempt to end the civil war the most critical of which was the Lome Peace Agreement, signed in July 1999 between President Kabbah and the RUF and remained among the most controversial agreements ever signed in the West African sub-region.⁵¹

The notoriety of the agreement was due to the extent to which it sought to appease the main protagonist in order to end the conflict and at the expense of addressing the structural underlying causes of the conflict that lay at the core of statebuilding conversations. Nonetheless, the Lome agreement was the basis of an ensuing peace process with strong participation from international actors. It granted significant and controversial concessions in its proffered settlements. It legitimised the RUF and its brutal actions by granting the rebel group access to public office. Article V especially dismayed Sierra Leoneans, for it specifically allocated cabinet appointments to members of the rebel force.⁵² Articles III to IV also allowed for power sharing with the government through the transformation of RUF into a political party and the formation of a broad-based government of national unity. The agreement ensured the disarming of the RUF but it did so by controversially pardoning Foday Sonkah for treason and granting him the position of Vice President and chairman of the commission that oversaw Sierra Leone’s diamond mines and therefore unreserved control of Sierra Leone’s strategic natural resources.⁵³ The Lome Agreement is also distinct in the extent to which it individualised the peace agreement around the person of Foday Sankoh. This and the lack of a credible sanctions regime to deal with non-compliance with the agreements gave Foday Sonkah and the rebel group room to manoeuvre and therefore opportunity to delay the peace process.⁵⁴

The agreement excluded key actors in the conflict including local militias, Kamajors, and remnants of Sierra Leone Army from the negotiation and implementation of the agreement.⁵⁵ Article IX of the agreement also controversially granted RUF ‘absolute and free pardon’ up to the time of the signing of the Lome agreement thus denying justice to the victims of RUF atrocities.⁵⁶ This element of the settlement, i.e. the blanket amnesty resulted in internal and external backlash against the UN and other external parties to the negotiation. The accord however provided for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and then after the RUF reneged on the Agreement, the UN re-evaluated the amnesty provision and facilitated the set-up of the Special Court.⁵⁷ Essentially the agreement was defined by its attention to order and stability in Sierra Leone at the expense of justice and a seeming compromise towards ’unjust peace’.⁵⁸

The nature of the political settlement that ensued after the Lome Agreement failed to engage statebuilding conversations that broke down thus resulting in the conflict. This was because ending the violence through power sharing was seen as the main priority.⁵⁹ This draws attention to the limits and dangers of externally imposed peace at the expense of a domestically driven sustainable peace process. The international response to the conflict was concerned with short-term objectives and less so with addressing justice fallouts and grievances.⁶⁰ This is attributable to the fact that the unfolding crisis in Sierra Leone represented minimal economic and strategic importance to the West.⁶¹ Indeed, the initial experience of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) demonstrates instructively the inadequate and uncoordinated international response to the civil war.⁶²

Faced with low troop numbers, a weakened mandate and conflicting contingents, hundreds of UNAMSIL peacekeepers in May 2000 would find themselves hostage to the obstinate RUF rebels. This led eventually to the collapse of the Lome agreement. These events demonstrated the lack of contingency planning on the part of the Force, the overreliance and erroneous assumption that the peace agreement would work and the single-minded focus on the demobilisation and disarmament tasks.⁶³ Additionally, the uncoordinated and inadequate deployment of 6000 troops to UNAMSIL reflected the unwillingness of the UN member states to offer any logistical and technical support to UNAMSIL.⁶⁴ This apathy sums up the UN’s reluctance and inaction to respond decisively throughout the civil war until the events of May 2000.

Chantal de Jonge Oudraat argues that ‘Sierra Leone showed that the political and operational lessons from failed UN missions in Rwanda, Bosnia and Somalia had not been learned’.⁶⁵ UNAMSIL’s initial experience highlighted the mismatch between mission mandates and the lack of resources and support from UN member states of the UNSC that continued to plague UN peacekeeping operations. As the Brahimi report articulated, UNAMSIL represents the problems of international peacekeeping including lack of greater cohesion and direction, better rules of engagement, resources, well-structured command and control, adequate equipment and political will and support from UN member states.⁶⁶

Despite the shortcomings highlighted in the skewed and unsuccessful political settlements and the uncoordinated international intervention, the agreement and ensuing process yielded some potential space for statebuilding conversations. These emerged in the promotion of transitional justice through national reconciliation and healing and the prosecution of those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean law since 30 November 1996. These two agendas were enshrined in the Sierra Leone TRC and the Special Court, respectively, and are byproducts of the Lome Agreement.⁶⁷

Notwithstanding the funding and operational challenges that marred the two processes,⁶⁸ there were questions regarding the extent to which both institutions achieved their main objectives and therefore set Sierra Leone back to its statebuilding conversations. First are the tensions regarding the overlapping mandates of the two institutions. In particular, the work of the Special Court was undermined by the reluctance of perpetrators to appear before the TRC for fear that their testimonies would be used against them in the Special Court.⁶⁹

Second, among Sierra Leoneans confidence in the Special Court was weakened by its failure to try perpetrators who bore the greatest responsibility for the war. With the exception of the trials of Charles Taylor, Issa Sessay and others, the death of key perpetrators of the war without trial including Foday Sankoh, Sam Hinga Norman, Sam Bockarie and Johnny Paul Koroma undermined the mission of the Special Court.

Third, by seeking to try persons who bore the greatest responsibility the Court failed to prosecute the actual perpetrators of the atrocities who carried out the orders of their commanders. These have been linked to a range of factors including cost-saving by international actors, limited temporal jurisdiction, the complexities of attributing culpability regarding child soldiers and institutions that at times offered limited access to the broadest sections of society.⁷⁰ The Final Report of the TRC also highlighted the lack of focus on the plight of the victims noting that meaningful truth telling cannot occur without adequate reparations for victims of conflict.⁷¹

Finally, and most critically, the mandated timelines for the two institutions raise questions regarding the extent to which the processes revisited the historical statebuilding conversations that lay at the roots of the conflict. The Special Court was only mandated to deal with atrocities committed after 30 November 1996. This however fails to capture most of the structural factors that drove interactions that broke down ending eventually in conflict. Additionally, section 6 of the TRC Act of 2000 tasked the TRC with the objective of creating a historical record of the violations of human rights from the beginning of the conflict in 1991 until the signing of the Lome Peace agreement.⁷² These timelines limit consideration of the critical historical period in Sierra Leonean statebuilding conversations. These temporal limitations constrain the meaningfulness and efficacy of the national reconciliation and rebuilding process as a comprehensive reengagement with the complex underlying factors that led to conflict.

Wider processes have led to some efforts to address challenges around mineral resource management with another institutional initiative – Diamond Areas Community Development Fund (DACDF). Its objective is to encourage expending a proportion of earnings on the local producing community. The initiative was designed to redress the balance tipped against diamond producing communities. However, it has enjoyed limited success because of the exploitative nature of interactions across entities that dates back to the pre-war era. This is characterised by the absence of articulated mutual interests between extracting elites and producing communities from the post-independence period.⁷³ This evidences the impact of dislocating institution building from enhancing social cohesion and consensus.

In the end statebuilding in Sierra Leone took the path of delinking from the crucial historical context and focusing on a liberal institution building agenda as an element of a broader peacebuilding process. This was informed also by the dominant liberal underpinning of global development policy and peacebuilding agenda. This institutional statebuilding approach in Sierra Leone with its emphasis on institutional efficiency and technocratic support, microeconomic stability and consolidation of state authority is articulated in the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (I-PRSP) of June 2001 and Sierra Leone National Recovery Strategy of 2002.⁷⁴

There have been successive democratic elections alongside reenergised resource management initiatives and the restructuring of the military.⁷⁵ Yet, donor driven analytical and policy prescriptions influenced by economic liberalism and its methodological basis in individualism and functionalist liberal institutions ignore the historical and sociological process in the Sierra Leone state formation process.⁷⁶ This neglects the socio-political cohesion and consensus element of statebuilding. Indeed Hanlon has argued that the liberal peacebuilding approach fails to address underlying structural factors such as recycling of political elites, continued unequal access to education and healthcare as well as neglect of marginalised constituencies notably rural agricultural producers and young men.⁷⁷ In the next section we reprioritise this broader context by considering how emerging narratives from various entities in Sierra Leone provide insights to the condition of longstanding statebuilding conversations in the post-settlement era.

Pursuing peace as statebuilding: identity and gendered realities in the thereafter

It is important to consider the emerging narratives and how these are underscored by longstanding statebuilding conversations in the post-settlement era. Because of the gruesome experience of violent conflict, statebuilding in Sierra Leone is necessarily intertwined with peacebuilding. Essentially statebuilding discussions in the post-settlement period are also centred on sustaining peace. This section offers a thematic analysis of qualitative data from the field study with a focus group discussion including key constituencies of men, women and youth as well as interviews with academics, politicians and government officials including members of parliament in January 2016 in Sierra Leone.⁷⁸ From these discussions crucial factors come to the fore as worthy of examination in the evolution of intergroup relations across ethnic, intergenerational and gender lines. Certain themes are thrown up as encompassing statebuilding conversations for these constituencies in political participation and governance as well as access to and employment of social and economic resources.

These are also in sync with pre-conflict themes in statebuilding conversations around ethnicity, resource management and political governance that were discussed earlier. Given the significance of identity across Sierra Leone’s colonial and post-colonial history this is a necessary consideration, especially along ethnicity and gender lines, in the examination of statebuilding conversations in the post-settlement context. There is a level of congruity between pre-conflict and post-settlement periods in spite of the shortcomings of the settlement process. Essentially these shortcomings reflect the need to recentre extant statebuilding conversations in recognition of how essential these are to institutional formations, policy outcomes and notions of legitimacy.⁷⁹ Notably, peacebuilding processes that followed the settlement have contributed to a return to some level of normalcy thus providing a context for revisiting these conversations after they broke down previously in conflict.

There has been an evident return to ethnicity-based transactions in political spaces. The November 2012 elections contested largely between Ernest Koroma of the APC and Maada Bio of the SLPP re-invoked old rivalries between the two political parties. It has further underlined the role of ethnicity in national politics with the Mendes supporting the SLPP and Temnes supporting Koroma. Ethnic and sectional fault lines have also galvanised post-election tension and violence. The fiercely contested 2007 elections saw on the one hand the APC garner 36 of 39 seats in the North and on the other hand the SLPP and the People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), receive 24 of 25 seats in the South.⁸⁰ From FGD the point is made that divisive ethnic and party politics also reflect and shape regional divisions and underline disparities in regional development and associated discrimination in the allocation of national development resources. Regional divisions have therefore acquired a saliency in the post-conflict statebuilding conversations in Sierra Leone and are intertwined intricately with ethnic divisions and representative of the historical and contemporaneous party divisions between SLPP and APC.

In particular, institution (re)building has fed into ethnicity-based dynamics. The chieftain system has been reinstated with limited critical reflection on its historical antecedence and allegations of its subterfuge of the statebuilding process including ethnicity-based alliances.⁸¹ Olonisakin et al suggest that such reinstatement cedes this constituency a role in the ‘statebuilding and peacebuilding enterprise’.⁸² The system has longstanding significance for political governance in the countryside and therein maintains a degree of popular support.⁸³ Yet there are concerns about its vulnerabilities to repressive governance that are reinforced by local and international attempts at reform.⁸⁴ FGD highlighted the failure of the peace settlement to address the zero-sum game nature of interactions among political elites and political parties especially along established regional and ethnic divides. This approach to electoral politics has an impact on the wider political space as constituencies take their cues from this pattern to maintain ethnic loyalties in voting patterns.⁸⁵ The contagion effect of such narratives is clear as politicians across West Africa have tended to co-opt youth, especially young men, to deploy violence to effect particular outcomes in electoral processes. It is in this form that ethnicity re-emerges in statebuilding conversations in the post-settlement era and continues to be politicised and deployed to undermine the development of a collective national identity. It is therein an indictment of the peace settlement to address such issues.

Outside of electoral politics FGD suggest that across wider constituencies of youth and women’s groups ethnic differences are not deployed as a means of divisiveness. In fact, spatial disparities in access to opportunities emerge as a more contentious issue harking back to earlier statebuilding conversations related to a rural-urban divide. There is greater commitment to coalition across ethnic lines particularly in peri-urban settings and contexts. This is an outcome in line with recent debates on the subject. Ethnic diversity is presented as not having any negative impact on provision of public goods and collective action at a local level but rather having a positive impact on healthcare provision.⁸⁶ In essence horizontal stratification along ethnic lines does not appear to be a negative element of statebuilding conversations.

The gendered nature of intergroup interactions is an important consideration for identity in post-settlement statebuilding conversations. Within this context, there are clear dichotomies between the institution building and socio-political cohesion elements of the statebuilding discourse. For instance, there has been some progress on policy reforms concerning gender-based discriminations across issues in the public and private spheres such as gender-based violence, marriage, inheritance and political representation by women.⁸⁷ But in practice, public spaces that are inhabited by key power brokers are highly masculinised across the state apparatus in government and chieftains with overtones of violence in expressions of power.⁸⁸ From FGD cultural limitations including the exclusion, by and large, of female participation in chieftaincy and the violence associated with elections are cited as particular obstacles to the participation of women in politics.

Within the political system, post-settlement institutional reform has led to particular outcomes. From the field study, the replacement of the proportional representation electoral system with the first past-the-post system is presented as reinforcing the dominant members of the political elite that are largely male. Discussions with a member of parliament (MP) highlight that the current electoral system undermines female participation thus challenging efforts to restructure gendered dynamics that have historically seen women maligned in national politics.

Yet in the FGD there was clarity that women continue to play important roles in grassroots engagement continuing patterns from the immediate post-conflict period that have been driven by UN policies.⁸⁹ There were also FGD about the challenges faced by women seeking higher political office in receiving support from the electorate at large but especially from womenfolk that would be compelled instead to support their male spouses or established political affiliations. This reinforces feminist conceptions of statebuilding and nationbuilding as patriarchal enterprises that have exploited difference to deploy women as reproducers of systems and structures particularly in the private space of their biological function as well as the social space of preserving cultures and customs.⁹⁰ There is a sense in which the space that was created by the disruption of conflict for challenging established gendered dynamics is in decline in the return to ‘normalcy’. FGD highlighted the loss of ground and pattern of reversal regarding women’s visibility and participation in political spaces. Hence, as noted by an MP in an interview, statebuilding conversations appear to be returning to pre-war gendered norms.

Stratification along socio-economic lines emerged as a key element of discussion with focus group participants calling for initiatives to share the commonwealth more equitably. It is notable that comprehensions of improved equity are primarily in the intergenerational sense as opposed to considerations of gendered realities. As such gender equity is subsumed within other contestations in a hierarchy of identity affiliations. This is in line with feminist discourses on the complexities of the various social divisions that women can face.⁹¹ The patterns of economic distribution are significant to statebuilding conversations as these influence the functioning of the state and the ordering of the interests of various constituencies that it serves. From the FGD, youth participants are clear on the significance of their improved access to resources from the state. This neglect of a gendered consideration is especially pertinent given the complexities around the conditions for access to social and economic resources for some women in Sierra Leone.⁹²

Conversations among these wider constituencies reveal that entrenching the socio-economic sustenance of the state in exclusion, particularly of more disadvantaged groups risks undermining the statebuilding and indeed peacebuilding project in a return to violence. On this, FGD raised the historical issue of the coalescing of interests of a comprador elite, notably elements of the Lebanese settler community and political elites (as a whole) in controlling the extractive base of the state. This was considered as a basis for economically dispossessing local mining communities of their stake in the statebuilding project and thereby increasing vulnerability to conflict. This makes a clear link to statebuilding conversations around the resourcing and sustenance of the state with the mineral base that has been exclusionary and motivated violent struggles for control of, and access to, the state.

The notion of exclusion re-presents itself in discussions around the state’s management of the Ebola virus. FGD highlighted poor healthcare provision as a means of socially excluding segments of Sierra Leonean society. This is a logic that postulates social infrastructure as a means of building a cohesive society far beyond an institutional challenge. In a different vein, there was expression of disaffection with the measures to address economic mismanagement that harks back to the pre-conflict era but this was not referenced as a risk to the statebuilding project. This is an evolution from the pre-conflict era. From the FGD this outcome is grounded in a level of contentment with the establishment of institutional capacity to address the challenge alongside a level of commitment from political elites and a wider willingness across society to embrace peace. This underscores the logic of statebuilding as encompassing socio-political cohesion and indeed institutional reform.

Stratification along intergenerational lines emerged also as an important basis for revisiting statebuilding conversations. The place of the youth, particularly young men, in redirecting statebuilding dynamics in the prosecution of the civil war was recognised as a critical basis for reconsidering their place in state-society relations. From FGD, a point was made on the need for space for the voice of youth to challenge dominant constituencies and exercise agency through participation, beyond violence. The silence about young women in this discourse represents another element of the gendering of statebuilding conversations. The scope for pushing back and challenging dominant voices does not appear to extend beyond mainstream hypermasculine constituencies especially with the juxtaposition of their capacities for violence as reasoning for opening up space for their participation.

Yet, there is an unspoken factor in the seeming reticence to violence in spite of the neglect of this constituency given the background to the conflict. This has to do with the coping strategies adopted by young people to re-engage spheres from which they have been excluded across licit and illicit activities primarily in the non-enumerated sphere across political, economic and social spaces with gendered expressions.⁹³

Examination of the emergent narratives from the field study challenges the erstwhile preoccupation with a liberal institutional approach to statebuilding. While institutional transitions that have accompanied the peace settlement and associated peacebuilding endeavours may support transformation, they are by no means sufficient. These transitions need to be grounded in movement towards socio-political cohesion and consensus that actually informs the construct of such institutions particularly in the aftermath of conflict. The gaps in such connections are evident in rebuilding as with chieftains and legal provisions, that see a continuation of ethnicity-based political contestations and the gendered exclusion of women, particularly young women. Beyond this, the field study highlights a level of congruence between the post-settlement and the pre-conflict eras. Within the latter the roles of chiefs and the exploitation and marginalisation of young women are clearly referenced as contributing factors to the civil war.⁹⁴ This reinforces the importance of historicising the statebuilding discourse in order to understand this multifaceted context.

Conclusion

This paper has considered the extent to which peacebuilding after the brutal civil war provided a conduit for a return to longstanding statebuilding conversations in Sierra Leone. In doing so it challenges the treatment of statebuilding as a short-term element of post-conflict peacebuilding. It has done so through comprehensive reflection on pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict Sierra Leone as phases of a longer view of the statebuilding trajectory using the notion of conversations. Turner and Pugh have suggested that dominant ideas around statebuilding, with an inherent commitment to the liberal institution building enterprise, prioritise these ‘empty shells’ that are institutions at the expense of the citizens that they should serve.⁹⁵ Indeed this logic resonates here given that statebuilding necessitates commitment to socio-political cohesion and consensus that impinges on the necessary complement of institution building.

The paper finds that certain factors have dominated pre-conflict statebuilding conversations. These are that deploying ethnicity has been a core element of the historical trajectory of emergence of the state apparatus and this has influenced the dynamics of statebuilding; the state has been sustained as a construct that interacts with political elites’ accumulation for maintaining control; and that violence effected through unconstitutional evolutions in civil-military relations has featured as a significant issue.

The end to conflict in Sierra Leone heralded opportunities for peacebuilding processes to engage underlying causes of conflict that have been linked for the most part with historical statebuilding conversations. This is especially since national reconciliation was intended to drive reflections on how diverse constituents would live peaceably with one another. The Special Court was intended to mete out justice to those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean law committed since 30 November 1996.

The Special Court’s successes have been highlighted in the prosecution of actors that bore the greatest responsibility in the war, with more limited outcomes in middle- and low-ranking cadres and challenges with temporal and issue coverage.⁹⁶ These limitations have been linked to the consideration of shorter time periods, lack of clarity on complex issues including child soldiering, overlapping mandates of the TRC and the Special Court and questions of external funding.⁹⁷ Ultimately this also limited the extent to which it was possible to incorporate the historical foundations of the conflict, which were articulated in the TRC report.⁹⁸

Deepened engagement with root causes requires broader based involvement to enable the necessary reach and coverage in a more collective endeavour.⁹⁹ This may provide space for centring the conversations that cut across conflict periods, intergroup relations, political participation and governance as well as access to and employment of social and economic resources within statebuilding processes to reprioritise socio-political cohesion. Wider processes have led to some efforts to address elements of statebuilding conversations such as those around resourcing and sustaining the state through mineral resource management. Yet the formal statebuilding process in the post-conflict context has not been attentive to its antecedents in spite of the continuities with pre-war realities. Rather this took the conventional path and was delinked from the crucial historical context and focused on a liberal institution building agenda as an element of the peacebuilding process.

From the field study the superficiality of formal statebuilding does not wholly engage the realities of Sierra Leonean society. But there are emergent narratives that suggest some interaction with extant statebuilding conversations to refine the most pressing concerns of the day. The conflict has indeed led to transitions in statebuilding conversations that both reflect the pre-conflict era as well as underscore the evolutionary impact of the conflict. On the one hand, ethnicity continues to colour the statebuilding project but primarily among political elites. On the other hand, intergroup dynamics come to the fore as especially important across realms of intergenerational exchanges and gender.

Exclusion emerges as a troubling factor in statebuilding conversations across socio-economic contexts. But there is a resilience in marginalised groups, especially youth, that appears to be linked to the gruesome experience of conflict that has encouraged the noted constituencies to seek succour in wide ranging activities with gendered expressions alongside the pursuit of engagement with statebuilding conversations.

In spite of challenges, the settlement and ensuing peacebuilding processes have contributed to enabling a context within which emerging narratives hark back to pre-conflict statebuilding conversations. This returns us to the inevitability of understanding peacebuilding as part of statebuilding within this study. The peacebuilding process has been influenced overtly and covertly by statebuilding conversations that reflect the colonial era including ethnicity-based contestations for control and access to the state. Institution building is highlighted as a relevant and important element of latter-day statebuilding conversations. However, its value is linked intrinsically to social cohesion and consensus as complementary factors in a comprehensive statebuilding narrative. Finally, the broader sense of statebuilding conversations is reinforced by the significance of historicisation as this illuminates the importance of continuities and discontinuities across space, time and issue. By understanding the exchanges that have underpinned the journey so far, there are greater possibilities of charting statebuilding paths that speak intimately to the range of complex dynamics, actors and interests and rightly situate the significance of process alongside outcomes.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Professor Ismail Rashid, Professor Jonathan Fisher, anonymous reviewers and the editors for very valuable comments on earlier versions of the paper. We are grateful to the International Development Research Centre for funding in support of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eka Ikpe

Dr Eka Ikpe is a Senior Lecturer in Development Economics in Africa and Deputy Director of the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London.

Abiodun Alao

Dr Abiodun Alao is a Professor of African Studies and Director of the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London.

Kamau Nyokabi

Kamau Nyokabi is a PhD candidate at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London.

Notes

1. Olonisakin et al., ‘Shifting Ideas of Sustainable’.

2. Lemay-Hébert, Statebuilding without Nation-building?

3. Ibid.

4. Galtung, ‘Three Approaches To Peace’; Lederach, ‘Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies’,20.

5. Call and Cook, ‘On Democratization and Peacebuilding’; Call, ‘Building states to build Peace’?

6. Ikpe, ‘Developmental Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Postindependence Nigeria’

7. Omeje, ‘Introduction: Peacebuilding in Contemporary Africa’, 10.

8. Call, ‘Building States to build Peace?’; Rocha,‘Statebuilding for Peace; Richmond, ‘Failed Statebuilding versus Peaceformation’.

9. Call, ‘Building States to build Peace’; Francis, ‘Timing and sequencing of Post-conflict Reconstruction’.

10. Olonisakin et al., ‘Shifting Ideas of Sustainable Peace’.

11. Podder, ‘Mainstreaming the Non-State in Bottom-Up State-Building’, 214.

12. Richmond, ‘A Post-Liberal Peace’.

13. Olonisakin et al., ‘Shifting Ideas of Sustainable Peace’.

14. Olonisakin, ‘Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone’, 14–15

15. See Alao, ‘Natural Resources and Conflict In Africa’.; Le Billon, ‘The Political Ecology Of War’; Alao and Olonisakin, ‘Economic Fragility And Political Fluidity’; Richards, ‘Fighting For The Rain Forest’.; Abdullah et al., ‘Lumpen Youth Culture and Political Violence’; Olonisakin, ‘African” Homemade” Peacekeeping Initiatives’.

16. Ikpe, ‘ECOWAS, Women and Security’.

17. Olonisakin, ‘Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone’, 14–15.

18. UN Peacebuilding Commission, ‘Sierra Leone Peacebuilding Cooperation Framework’.

19. Kurz, ‘What you see is what you get’; Richards et al., ‘Social Capital and Survival’.

20. Paris and Sisk, ‘Introduction’.

21. Paris and Sisk, ‘Introduction’; Roberts, ‘Hybrid Polities and Indigenous Pluralities’.

22. Kurz, ‘What you see is what you get’.

23. Kurz, ‘What you see is what you get’; Lemay-Hébert, ‘Statebuilding without Nation-building?’; Olonisakin et al., ‘Shifting Ideas of Sustainable Peace’.

24. UNICEF, ‘Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health’.

25. World Bank, ‘CPIA Database’.

26. World Bank, ‘Sierra Leone – Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper’.

27. Rowden, ‘West Africa’s Financial Immune Deficiency’.

28. UN Security Council, ‘Third Report of the Secretary-General’.; Hanlon, ‘Is the International Community’.

29. World Bank, ‘Sierra Leone Overview’; Bangura, ‘We Can’t Eat Peace’.

30. Paris and Sisk, ‘Introduction’.

31. Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ‘Chapter one: The Mandate’, 5–6.

32. Davies, ‘War Poverty and Growth in Africa’.

33. Kandeh, ‘Politicization of Ethnic Identities in Sierra Leone’, 83.

34. Ibid.

35. Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ‘Chapter one: Historical Antecedents’, 9–10.

36. Lansana, ‘War and Peace in Sierra Leone’, 10.

37. Kandeh, ‘Transition without Rupture’, 92.

38. Davies, ‘War Poverty and Growth in Africa’.

39. Kandeh, ‘Politicization of Ethnic Identities in Sierra Leone’.

40. Bermudez-Lugo, ‘The Minerals Industry of Sierra Leone’; Natural Resource Watch, ‘Report on Sierra Leone’; Fanthorpe and Gabelle, ‘Political Economy of Extractives’.

41. Fanthorpe and Gabelle, ‘Political Economy of Extractives’.

42. Davies, ‘War Poverty and Growth in Africa’; Nurkse, ‘International Trade Theory and Development Policy’.

43. Riddell, ‘Beyond the Geography of Modernisation’.

44. Fanthorpe and Gabelle, ‘Political Economy of Extractives’.

45. Sierra Leone Multidimensional Poverty Index 2019

46. Fanthorpe and Gabelle, ‘Political Economy of Extractives’.

47. Kandeh, ‘Transition without Rupture’, 107.

48. Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ‘Chapter one: Historical Antecedents’, 20.

49. Davies, ‘War Poverty and Growth in Africa’.

50. The first, led by David Lansana, a Brigadier in the army and a close friend of Albert Magai, who overthrew Stevens a few hours after assuming office in April 1967. Another coup led by Andrew Juxton-Smith later removed Lansana in March 1968. This regime too was overthrown the following month by Brigadier John Bangura, who reinstated the constitution and brought in Siaka Stevens as Prime Minister.

51. President Kabbah did not want to sign any further agreement with the RUF, but domestic and external pressure forced him to capitulate. Domestically, the rebels controlled the main diamond mines, which meant that some form of agreement had to be reached with them on this. External pressures came from Britain and Nigeria. Britain needed a face-saving agreement after the controversial Sandline Affair, which saw the British Labour government, accused of contravening a UN arms embargo by allowing a private military company to supply arms to the Sierra Leone government and ECOMOG forces. Nigeria on the other hand was finding the human and financial cost of regional peacekeeping difficult to sustain.

52. Alao and Ero, ‘Cut Short for Taking Short Cuts’, 123.

53. Alao and Ero, ‘Cut Short for Taking Short Cuts’. See Article VIII of the Lomé Peace Agreement and for more discussion on the Lomé Peace Agreement.

54. Alao and Ero, ‘Cut Short for Taking Short Cuts’,122–123;127.

55. Ibid., 122–123.

56. Government of Sierra Leone, ‘The Lome Accord’.; Alao and Ero, ‘Cut Short for Taking Short Cuts,’124.

57. United Nations, ‘Fifth Report of the Secretary General’, para. 9; Alao and Ero, ‘Cut Short for Taking Short Cuts’, 118.

58. Francis, ‘Torturous Path to Peace’, 366.

59. Francis, ‘Torturous Path to Peace’.

60. Ibid.

61. Olonisakin, ‘Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone’, 10.

62. Ibid., 10.

63. Alao and Ero, ‘Cut Short for Taking Short Cuts’.

64. Olonisakin, ‘Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone.’

65. De Jonge Oudraat, ‘Humanitarian Intervention’, 420.

66. United Nations, ‘Report of the Panel.’

67. See article 1 of the statute of the Special Court

68. See, International Crisis Group, ‘Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’.

69. See, Gberie, ‘The Special Court of Sierra Leone’, Sesay et al.,War Regimes and State Reconstruction,65.; International Crisis Group, ‘Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’,4.

70. Sivakumaran, ‘War crimes before the Special Court for Sierra Leone’; Howarth, ‘The Special Court for Sierra Leone’;Jalloh, ‘Special Court for Sierra Leone’; Jackson, ‘Whose Justice in Sierra Leone?’

71. Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ‘Witness to Truth’.

72. See Article XXVI of the Lomé Agreement; Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ‘Chapter one: The Mandate’, 23–25.

73. Maconachie, ‘The Diamond Area Community Development Fund’, 261–269.

74. Government of Sierra Leone, ‘Sierra Leone Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper’; Government of Sierra Leone and European Community, ‘Country Strategy Paper and National Indicative Programme.’

75. Kurz, ‘What you see is what you get’, 207.

76. Ibid.

77. Hanlon, ‘Is the International Community’.

78. Braun, Clarke, ‘Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology’.

79. Olonisakin et al., ‘Shifting Ideas of Sustainable’.

80. Casey et al., ‘Healing the Wounds’, 6–8.

81. Hanlon, ‘Is the International Community’, 461.

82. Olonisakin et al., ‘Shifting Ideas of Sustainable peace’,11.

83. Fanthorpe, ‘On the Limits of Liberal Peace’.

84. Labonte, ‘From Patronage to Peacebuilding?’; Conteh, ‘Chiefs, NGOs and Alternative Conflict Resolution Mechanisms’; Sawyer, ‘Remove or Reform?’

85. Casey et al., ‘Healing the Wounds’, 6–8.

86. Ibid.

87. Kurz, ‘What you see is what you get’.

88. Bagayoko et al., ‘Hybrid Security Governance in Africa’, 14.

89. A member of the parliament interviewed during the field trip noted that UNSCR1325 has driven change in gender dynamics especially in collective action.

90. Yuval‐Davis,’ Gender and Nation’; Kandiyoti,’ Identity and its Discontents’, 45.

91. Yuval-Davis, ‘Intersectionality and Feminist Politics’.

92. Solomon, ‘The Role of Women in Economic Transformation’.

93. Rashid et al., ‘Youth Vulnerability and Exclusion (YOVEX)’, 10–11.

94. Richards et al., ‘Social Capital and Survival’, 29–30,48, i; Richards, ‘To fight or to farm?’

95. Turner and Pugh, ‘Towards a New Agenda’, 473.

96. Howarth, ‘The Special Court for Sierra Leone’; Mahony, ’Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone: Theory, History and Evaluation‘

97. Howarth, ‘The Special Court for Sierra Leone’; Jalloh, ‘Special Court for Sierra Leone’.

98. See Volume 3.

99. Jackson, ‘Whose Justice in Sierra Leone?’