Sierra Leone History

Sierra Leone - national flag

Sierra Leone - National Flag, The flag was officially adopted in 1961. At independence, the country adopted a state coat of arms, the main colors of which were used in the national flag, which was adopted the same year after a competition. The green line represents the mountains as well as arable land and the country's natural resources. White stands for peace and justice, blue for the natural harbor of the capital Freetown, ie. for the great importance of the sea to the land.

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Sierra Leone - history

Sierra Leone history In the 1460's, the Portuguese began exploring the coastal area inhabited by limba, temne and sherbro people, and in 1482 a fortress was built near the present. Freetown. Sierra Leone stayed in the 1600's. a center for English, French and Dutch slave trade; in 1787, however, British abolitionists founded Freetown as a colony for freed and runaway slaves, and after the British ban on slave trading in 1807, Freetown was used as a naval base for slave trader operations.

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The coastal area became a British colony in 1808. Developments in the 1800's. was dominated by the Creoles, viz. the former slaves and their descendants, which included a wide variety of diverse peoples. The British tried to create a coherent Christian community by to educate them in mission schools. Thus, the Creoles came to form an elite, gaining prominent positions in the colony administration. Sierra Leone became a British protectorate in 1896, also covering the interior and thus a large indigenous population.

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Among other things. against this background, the protectorate in 1951 obtained a constitution which diminished the dominance of the creoles; the same year the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) was formed, which received support from the country's indigenous people. The party's leader, Milton Margai, became prime minister in 1958, leading the country to full independence in 1961. At the 1967 parliamentary elections, the All People's Congress (APC) prevailed. However, military coup prevented party leader Siaka Stevens, in taking over power. The military regime was ousted by rebels in 1968, after which Stevens formed a civilian government. However, it did not create stability in Sierra Leone, and in 1978 Stevens made Sierra Leone, which had become a republic in 1971, a one-party state. Due. economic hardship, corruption and widespread political turmoil in 1985 gave Stevens power to Joseph Saidu Momoh (b. 1937), whose reform policy was initially successful. But new unrest soon set in; to the still unresolved internal problems came the strain of large refugee flows from civil war affected Liberia. Momoh agreed to reinstate democracy, but in 1992 was deposed by a coup, led by Captain Valentine Strasser (b. C. 1965). Strasser's dictatorship was at the outset behind serious human rights violations and executions by a number of political opponents. Strasser was ousted in 1996 by the ruling military council vice-president, Julius Maada Bio, who, however, complied with Strasser's pledge to hold elections. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah (1932-2014) from SLPP became new president that year.

With the Revolutionary United Front's (RUF) armed uprising, a bloody civil war began in the early 1990's during which a large number of civilians have been killed, hundreds of thousands have fled and massive human rights abuses have taken place. With military support from Nigeria and Guinea managed to pull back the RUF; In 1996, a peace agreement came into being, but in 1997 the government was overthrown by the military. Violence and looting followed in the wake of the coup condemned by the international community. The joint West African military force ECOMOG managed to expel the military, and in 1998 Kabbah was reinstated, but the fighting with the RUF continued with renewed vigor.

The brutal civil war between the government and the Revolutionary United Front, RUF, included many child soldiers, continued; one of the bloody features of the war was the widespread dismantling of civilian limbs by the RUF soldiers. In January 1999, RUF forces captured Freetown, and approximately 150,000 were fleeing. Troops from ECOMOGrecaptured the city after fierce fighting and a violent bombing, in which thousands perished. After international mediation and negotiations in Lomé, RUF leader Foday Sankoh (1932-2003) became vice president and head of the country's diamond production. The appointment was criticized by human rights organizations, largely held responsible for the bloody war. The UN sent peacekeeping troops, but the peace deal proved particularly fragile. It came to fighting between government forces and the RUF, and British troops were deployed to evacuate foreigners from Freetown. In May 2000, Sankoh was arrested, charged with murder. During 2001, the UN, which had a major peacekeeping force in the country, and British forces succeeded in disarming some of the rebels, but fighting continued in parts of the country. Early in 2002, the war was declared over; in a May election, President Kabbah won an overwhelming victory. In 2005, international troops left the country, securing peace and democracy has been taken over by a UN mission.

In 2004, war crimes lawsuits commenced during the Civil War. In 2006, former Liberian President Charles Taylor was prosecuted for his role in the civil war in Sierra Leone and was convicted of war crimes by a war crimes tribunal in The Hague in 2012.

At the 2007 presidential election, Ernest Bai Koroma (b. 1953) won. At the parliamentary elections later this year, his party, the All People Congress, defeated the APC.

Sierra Leone was hit by the West African outbreak of Ebola in 2041. Nearly 3,000 perished out of the approximately 10,000 infected. The outbreak led to a serious humanitarian crisis and a weakened economy.