Blood Diamond is a 2006 action/adventure drama film co-produced and directed by

Edward Zwick, director of Glory and The Last Samurai, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio,
Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou. The title refers to blood diamonds, which are
diamonds mined in African war zones and sold to finance the conflicts and profit the
warlords and the diamond companies across the world. The film was nominated for five
Academy Awards including Best Actor (DiCaprio) and Best Supporting Actor
(Hounsou).

Intro
The Sierra Leone Civil War began in 1991, by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
under Foday Sankoh. Tens of thousands died and more than 2 million people (well over
one-third of the population) were displaced because of the 11-year conflict. Neighbouring
countries became host to significant numbers of refugees attempting to escape the civil
war. It was officially declared over on 18 January 2002.

Origins and causes

1.In 1985, Joseph Momoh, a military leader, was installed as president of Sierra Leone.
One major opposition group consisted of students including Foday Sankoh, Abu Ahmed
Kanu, and Rashid Mansaray. Many students were expelled from the country and this
group fled to Ghana and then Libya where they attended Moammar Qaddafi's secret
service military training facility. The group recruited unemployed young men and
students, but as the group grew, internal squabbles arose, and many left the group, some
students to universities in Ghana, others back to Sierra Leone. However, others
(including Kanu, Mansaray, and Sankoh) were still interested in revolution. The group
then went to Kono District and toured the diamond mines, talking with workers about
their situation, and spreading a revolutionary ideology.

2.Control of Sierra Leone's diamond industry was a primary cause of the war.
Althoughendowed with abundant natural resources, Sierra Leone was ranked as the
poorest country in the world by 1998. With the breakdown of all state structures, wide
corridors of Sierra Leonean society were opened up to the trafficking of arms and
ammunition.

3.Recreational drugs also eroded national and regional security as well as facilitated
crime within the country, precipitating illegal trade with both Liberia and Guinea.

Beginning of the civil war

The RUF launched its first campaign into eastern Kailahun (Sierra Leone) from Liberia
on March 23, 1991. In the four months following, about 107,000 refugees fled the
conflict into Guinea.
Forced recruitment of children was also an early feature of the rebel strategy. The
intellectuals in the RUF opposed the methods being used, but within the first year of the
rebellion these individuals had been eliminated as Sankoh took over the movement.
Among the victims were two of Sankoh's allies.

Chronological series of events

[edit] A series of military coups

In contested elections in March 1967 , the All Peoples Congress (APC) won a plurality of
the parliamentary seats. Accordingly, the Governor-General (representing the British
Monarch) declared Siaka Stevens—APC leader and Mayor of Freetown—as the new
Prime Minister. Within a few hours, Stevens and Margai were placed under house arrest
by Brigadier David Lansana, the Commander of the Republic of Sierra Leone Military
Forces (RSLMF), on grounds that the determination of office should await the election of
the tribal representatives to the house. Another group of officers soon staged another
coup, only to be later ousted in a third coup, the "sergeants’ revolt," and Stevens at last,
in April 1968 , assumed the office of Prime Minister under the restored constitution.
Siaka Stevens remained as head of state until 1985. Under his rule, in 1978, the
constitution was amended and all political parties, other than the ruling APC, were
banned.

In August 1985 , the APC named military commander Major-General Joseph Saidu
Momoh, Stevens' own choice, as the party candidate to succeed Stevens. Momoh was
elected President in a one-party referendum on 1 October 1985. In October 1991 Momoh
had the constitution amended once again, re-establishing a multi-party system. Under
Momoh, APC rule was increasingly marked by abuses of power.

The RUF
Main article: Revolutionary United Front

Earlier in 1991, in March, a small band of men who called themselves the Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) under the leadership of a former-corporal, Foday Sankoh, began to
attack villages in eastern Sierra Leone on the Liberian border. The RUF's signature terror
tactic was physical mutilation. An estimated 20,000 civilians suffered amputation, with
machetes and axes being used to sever arms, legs, lips, and ears. Fighting continued in
the ensuing months, with the RUF gaining control of the diamond mines in the Kono
District and pushing the Sierra Leone army back towards Freetown. RUF members would
often destroy villages and kill most of the civilians in the village except a few young
adult boys aging anywhere from 7 to around 40. They would kill any civilians that tried
to escape, and mutilate others and send them to another village as a warning. They would
sometimes take a few civilians to keep the military from attacking them. After rebels ran
out of supplies in one villiage, they would often burn it and kill the civilians.
On 29 April 1992, a group of young military officers, led by Capt. Valentine Strasser,
launched a military coup, which sent Momoh into exile in Guinea and established the
National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) as the ruling authority in Sierra Leone.

The NPRC proved to be nearly as ineffectual as the Momoh government in repelling the
RUF. More and more of the country fell to RUF fighters, so that by 1995 they held much
of the countryside and were on the doorsteps of Freetown. To rectify the situation, the
NPRC hired several hundred mercenaries from the private firm Executive Outcomes.
Within a month they had driven RUF fighters back to enclaves along Sierra Leone’s
borders.

Return of Civilian Government

As a result of popular demand and mounting international pressure, the NPRC agreed to
hand over power to a civilian government via presidential and parliamentary elections,
which were held in April 1996. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, a diplomat who had worked at the
UN for more than 20 years, won the presidential election. Because of the prevailing war
conditions, parliamentary elections were conducted, for the first time, under the system of
proportional representation. Thirteen political parties participated, with the SLPP winning
27 seats, UNPP 17, PDP 12, APC 5 and DCP 3. Two months later, discussions began
between the SLPP and the RUF in the town of Yamoussoukro, which led eventually to
the signing of the Abidjan Peace Accord in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire on 30 November 1996.
The agreement quickly broke down as the RUF could not agree on disarmament and the
creation of a monitoring force.

The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma,
overthrew President Kabbah on 25 May 1997, and invited the RUF to join the
government. After 10 months in office, the junta was ousted by the Nigerian-led
Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group ECOMOG forces, and
the democratically elected government of President Kabbah was reinstated in March
1998. On 6 January 1999, the RUF launched another attempt to overthrow the
government, beginning the Siege of Freetown. Fighting reached parts of Freetown,
leaving thousands dead and wounded. ECOMOG forces drove back the RUF attack
several weeks later.

With the assistance of the international community, President Kabbah and RUF leader
Sankoh negotiated the Lomé Peace Accord, which was signed on 7 July 1999. The accord
made Sankoh Vice President and gave other RUF members positions in the government,
and called for an international peacekeeping force which would initially be under both
ECOMOG and the United Nations. The UN Security Council established the United
Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) in 1999, with an initial force of 6,000.
ECOMOG forces departed in April 2000. Almost immediately, however, the RUF began
to violate the agreement, most notably by holding hundreds of UNAMSIL personnel
hostage and capturing their arms and ammunition in the first half of 2000. On 8 May
2000, members of the RUF shot and killed as many as 20 people demonstrating against
the RUF violations outside Sankoh's house in Freetown. As a result, Sankoh and other
senior members of the RUF were arrested and the group was stripped of its positions in
government.

In May 2000, the situation in the country deteriorated to such an extent that British troops
were deployed in Operation Palliser to evacuate foreign nationals and establish order.
They stabilized the situation, and were the catalyst for a ceasefire and ending of the civil
war.

End of the Civil War

After the events of May 2000, a new cease-fire was necessary to reinvigorate the peace
process. This agreement was signed November of that year in Abuja. However,
Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration did not resume, and fighting continued.
In late 2000, Guinean forces entered Sierra Leone to attack RUF bases from which
attacks had been launched against Liberian dissidents in Guinea. A second Abuja
Agreement, in May 2001, set the stage for a resumption of DDR on a wide scale and a
significant reduction in hostilities. As disarmament progressed, the government began to
reassert its authority in formerly rebel-held areas. By early 2002 , some 72,000 ex-
combatants had been disarmed and demobilized, although many still awaited re-
integration assistance (Cooper 2004, 110, Bell 2005). On 18 January 2002 President
Kabbah declared the civil war officially over.

Post Civil War

In May 2002 President Kabbah and his party, the SLPP, won landslide victories in the
presidential and legislative elections. Kabbah was re-elected for a five year term. The
RUF political wing, the RUFP, failed to win a single seat in parliament. The elections
were marked by irregularities and allegations of fraud, but not to a degree to significantly
affect the outcome.

On 28 July 2002 the British withdrew a 200-man military contingent that had been in
country since the summer of 2000, leaving behind a 140-strong military training team to
work to professionalize the Sierra Leone army or Navy.

In November 2002, UNAMSIL began a gradual reduction from a peak level of 17,800
personnel (Bell 2005). Under pressure from the British, the withdrawal slowed, so that by
October 2003 the UNAMSIL contingent still stood at 12,000 men. As peaceful conditions
continued through 2004, however, UNAMSIL drew down its forces to slightly over 4,100
by December 2004 . The UN Security Council extended UNAMSIL’s mandate until June
2005 and again until December 2005. UNAMSIL completed the withdrawal of all troops
1 January 2006.

The Lome Accord called for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission
to provide a forum for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations during the
conflict to tell their stories and facilitate genuine reconciliation. Subsequently, the Sierra
Leonean government asked the UN to help set up a Special Court for Sierra Leone, which
would try those who "bear the greatest responsibility for the commission of crimes
against humanity, war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law, as
well as crimes under relevant Sierra Leonean law within the territory of Sierra Leone
since November 31, 1999." Both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the
Special Court began operating in the summer of 2002.

Results

A school in Koindu destroyed by RUF rebel forces, in total 1,270 primary schools were
destroyed in the War.[2]

1.Nine years of civil war, atrocities, and ineffectual intervention by ECOMOG—which

became just another faction in the war—crippled Sierra Leone.

2.While RUF rebels controlled the diamond trade, the people remained among the
poorest on Earth.

3.The 1999 Lomé Agreement failed to bring peace as it effectively institutionalized

rebel control of the diamond trade by putting rebel chief Foday Sankoh in charge of
mineral resources.

4.Civil war resumed as UN forces sought to wrest control of the diamond fields, but
found themselves instead being held hostage by the rebels.

5.With a rebel take-over of the capital imminent, British forces unilaterally intervened in
May 2000 to evacuate British subjects and safeguard the Freetown airport for UN use.
Within days "mission creep" found the British taking effective control of the government
and organizing an offensive against the rebels. The rebel leader was captured, the peace
process resumed, and the British left a training team to reconstruct the armed forces into
an instrument of reliable state security. Within a year of British intervention, UN forces
were in full control of the country, and gradually began handing over control to the
reconstituted and retrained Sierra Leone armed forces.
[edit] Whereabouts

On 13 January 2003 a small group of armed men tried unsuccessfully to break into an
armory in Freetown. Former AFRC-junta leader Koroma, after being linked to the raid,
went into hiding. In March the Special Court for Sierra Leone issued its first indictments
for war crimes during the civil war. Foday Sankoh, already in custody, was indicted,
along with notorious RUF field commander Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie, Koroma, the
Minister of Interior and former head of the Civil Defense Force, Samuel Hinga Norman,
and several others. Norman was arrested when the indictments were announced, while
Bockarie and Koroma remained at large (presumably in Liberia). On 5 May 2003
Bockarie was killed in Liberia, probably on orders from President Charles G. Taylor, who
expected to be indicted by the Special Court and feared Bockarie’s testimony[3]. Several
weeks later, word filtered out of Liberia that Koroma had been killed as well, although
his death remains unconfirmed. In June the Special Court announced Taylor’s indictment.
Sankoh died in prison in Freetown 29 July 2003 from a heart attack. He had been ailing
for some time.

In August 2003 President Kabbah testified before the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission on his role during the civil war.

On 1 December 2003 Major General Brigadier Tom Carew, who had been the Chief of
Defence Staff for the Government of Sierra Leone and an important figure in the Sierra
Leonean army, was reassigned to civilian duties.the war continued for a year after it was
declared over

In June 2007, the Special Court found three of the eleven people indicted – Alex Tamba
Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu – guilty of war crimes, including
acts of terrorism, collective punishments, extermination, murder, rape, outrages upon
personal dignity, conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed
forces, enslavement and pillage.[4]

Diamond revenues in Sierra Leone have increased more than tenfold since the end of the
conflict, from $10 million in 2000 to about $130 million in 2004, although according to
the UNAMSIL surveys of mining sites, "more than 50 per cent of diamond mining still
remains unlicensed and reportedly considerable illegal smuggling of diamonds
continues".[5]