British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War

The United Kingdom began a military intervention in Sierra Leone on 7 May 2000 under the codename Operation Palliser. Although small numbers of British personnel had been deployed previously, Palliser was the first large-scale intervention by British forces in the Sierra Leone Civil War. In early May 2000, the Revolutionary United Front —one of the main parties to the civil war—advanced on the country's capital, Freetown, prompting the British government to dispatch an "Operational Reconnaissance and Liaison Team" to prepare to evacuate foreign citizens. On 6 May, the RUF blocked the road connecting Freetown to the country's main airport, Lungi. The next day, British soldiers began to secure the airport and other areas essential to an evacuation. The majority of those who wished to leave were evacuated within the first two days of the operation, but many chose to stay following the arrival of British forces.
After the effective completion of the evacuation, the mandate of the British forces began to expand. They assisted with the evacuation of besieged peacekeepers—including several British ceasefire observers—and began to assist the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leone Army. Despite the mission expansion, it was not until 17 May that British soldiers came into direct contact with the RUF. The rebels attacked a British position near Lungi airport, but were forced to retreat after a series of firefights. On the same day, the RUF's leader, Foday Sankoh, was captured by Sierra Leonean forces, leaving the RUF in disarray. After deciding that the RUF would not disarm voluntarily, the British began training the SLA for a confrontation. During the training mission, a patrol returning from a visit to Jordanian peacekeepers was taken captive by a militia group known as the West Side Boys. Negotiations achieved the release of five of the eleven soldiers, and three weeks into the crisis, British special forces launched a mission codenamed Operation Barras, freeing the remaining six. The success of Operation Barras restored confidence in the British mission; one academic suggested that its failure would have forced the British government to withdraw all its forces from Sierra Leone.
The overall British operation was mostly completed by September 2000. The RUF began to disarm after political pressure and economic sanctions were exerted on Liberia—which had supported the RUF in exchange for conflict diamonds smuggled out of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leonean government eventually signed a ceasefire with the RUF that obliged the latter to enter the Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration process. By September 2001, when the British training teams were replaced by an international force, the DDR process was almost complete. British forces continued to be involved in Sierra Leone by providing the largest contribution of personnel to the international training team and advising on a restructuring of Sierra Leone's armed forces. A small force was deployed to the area in 2003 to ensure stability while several indictments and arrests were made by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The success of British operations in Sierra Leone vindicated several concepts, including the retention of high-readiness forces. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was keen to see Western interventions in other conflicts, and—along with France—supported the creation of several European Union Battlegroups for the purpose. As it happened, political opposition and later British commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq prevented further British operations in Africa.

Background

Sierra Leone

is a country in West Africa, close to the equator, with an area of 71,740 square kilometres —similar in size to South Carolina or Scotland. It shares land borders with Guinea and Liberia and is bordered to the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The country became a British colony in 1808, though British influence began in the late 18th century when former slaves were settled in the area that became known as Freetown, now the capital city. Freetown lies on a peninsula, and is separated from the country's main airport, Lungi, by the estuary of the Sierra Leone River, which is several miles wide. The colony was granted independence from the United Kingdom in 1961 and Sir Milton Margai was appointed its first prime minister. He was replaced in 1962 by his brother, Albert, who was defeated by Siaka Stevens in the 1967 general election. Stevens was overthrown within hours by the commander of the army, but was later reinstated after the commander was himself overthrown. Sierra Leone became a republic in 1971, and Stevens was installed as its first president.
In 1978, Sierra Leone formally became a one-party state and the All People's Congress became the only legal political party. Stevens retired in 1985 and appointed Joseph Momoh as his successor. Momoh was accused of corruption and abuse of power, and the Revolutionary United Front was formed later in the decade with the aim of overthrowing him. Sponsored by Liberia, the RUF began attacking settlements along the border in 1991 and quickly took control of the diamond mines, whose products they smuggled through Liberia and traded for weapons. The following years saw a series of coups and interventions by private military companies, Nigeria, the Economic Community of West African States, and the United Nations, while a bloody civil war devastated the country.
On 7 July 1999, the Lomé Peace Accord was signed. Among other provisions, the agreement mandated an immediate ceasefire between the main parties to the civil war and the disarmament of the Sierra Leone Army and the RUF. It also gave the RUF status as a legitimate political party, a role in the Sierra Leone Government, and four of the twenty-two seats in the cabinet. Foday Sankoh, leader of the RUF, was given responsibility for the diamond mines—an appointment much criticised by observers and the international media given the RUF's history of diamond smuggling. However, Peter Hain, Minister of State for Africa, suggested that the British government had no choice but to endorse the Lomé agreement given the RUF's dominance, and that the only alternative was continued civil war. A military intervention by the United Kingdom in 1999 was ruled out as the British government had received no request for military assistance and felt it lacked the backing of the international community for a unilateral intervention. An intervention was also deemed to be politically and militarily impractical given the British military's involvement with NATO operations in Yugoslavia.

Tony Blair and the British Armed Forces

The intervention in Sierra Leone was the fourth expeditionary operation and the second significant deployment undertaken by Her Majesty's Armed Forces under Tony Blair, who was elected as Prime Minister in 1997. The first two were relatively minor operations: a series of air strikes against Iraq in 1998 codenamed Operation Desert Fox, and a deployment of a company of Gurkhas and special forces on peacekeeping operations in East Timor in 1999. The third operation, the first major deployment under Blair, was in Kosovo in 1999, where British forces led a NATO intervention in the Kosovo War.
During the British operations in Kosovo, Blair delivered a speech in Chicago, in which he outlined his "Doctrine of the International Community". Blair advocated a greater use of humanitarian intervention—the use of armed force to protect a civilian population, rather than exclusively to protect national interests. Kosovo did not diminish Blair's belief in the use of military force for humanitarian purposes "where a strong moral case could be made", and he outlined a set of criteria for intervention. The intervention in Sierra Leone, according to Andrew M. Dorman of King's College London, "appears to embody much of the ethos contained within ".

Previous British deployments

The intervention in May 2000 was the first major deployment of British forces to Sierra Leone during the civil war, but was not the first time British personnel had served there. In May 1997, a two-man training team from the British Army was sent to train SLA officers but discovered that the SLA's strength was much lower than it had reported. The government was overthrown in a coup before any training could take place. Following the restoration of the elected government by the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group in February 1998, HMS Cornwall sailed to Freetown with food and medical supplies. Her crew assisted with infrastructure repairs and her helicopter was used to move people and supplies around Sierra Leone until she left in mid-April. As the security situation in Sierra Leone deteriorated later in the year, the Royal Air Force conducted a non-combatant evacuation operation under the codename Operation Spartic over Christmas 1998. Approximately 80 people—predominantly British citizens, many of them staff or dependants from the British High Commission—were evacuated over two days.
In January 1999, the RUF attacked Freetown. They were pushed back to the eastern edges of the city by ECOMOG, after which HMS Norfolk was sent to offer assistance. On arrival, a team from the Department for International Development was based on board the ship to assist the crew's efforts. Peter Penfold, the British High Commissioner—who had been evacuated to Guinea—temporarily lived on the ship before it was deemed safe for him to return to his residence in Freetown. He flew ashore on the Norfolks helicopter for daily meetings, with a detachment of Royal Marines ensuring security. HMS Norfolk was replaced by HMS Westminster, shortly after which Penfold moved back to his residence and the Royal Marines took over security of the compound temporarily.
The fighting was eventually ended by the Lomé Peace Accord, which was signed in July 1999. The United Nations Observer Mission to Sierra Leone was replaced with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, which included a force of 260 military observers. The observers were unarmed and tasked with monitoring the ceasefire mandated by the Lomé Agreement. The observer force, like UNAMSIL itself, was primarily made up of personnel from other African nations, but the United Kingdom contributed a small number of officers from the British Army and Royal Marines. In addition to the observers in Sierra Leone, personnel from the Royal Logistic Corps were serving in New York, assisting UNAMSIL with organising air-lifts to bring the mission up to its authorised strength.