Revolutionary United Front

The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), an infamously brutal guerrilla unit in Sierra Leone, sought to create instability in the region and overthrow the government. Formed in 1990, the group later financed itself through control of the country's diamond resources, and for 11 years carried out extremely violent attacks on civilians that are said to have claimed about 50,000 lives. The group was especially notorious for recruiting children into its ranks and its practice of raping women and girls and dismembering its victims. As of 2002, U.N. military efforts had disabled the group and restored peace in Sierra Leone.

RUF's roots date back to the early 1990s. Foday Sankoh was a former student activist who in the 1970s had spent time in exile in Libya, where he came under the philosophical influence of Muammar el-Qaddafi. While in Liberia in 1991, Sankoh aligned himself with a Liberian guerrilla unit, the National Patriotic Front for Liberia (NPFL), and their leader, Charles Taylor. Taylor, who later would become president of Liberia following an eight-year terror campaign, had tried a few months earlier to invade Sierra Leone. He and Sankoh founded the RUF to carry out attacks on towns along Sierra Leone's eastern border. At that time, the Sierra Leone government and military were quite weak, and within a month, the RUF had not only taken control of a sizable region of the east but were on track to overtake the government.

The nation's economy was in shambles by 1992, and a small military group unconnected to the RUF staged a coup. The RUF continued its campaign against this new military junta, murdering and dismembering unarmed civilians. The atrocities rippled throughout the country, and thousands fled to neighboring Guinea.

By 1994, the RUF had systematically eliminated many rural workers in the country's diamond mine [Page 317]areas, and by year-end, thousands had been murdered and half of the country's nearly 5 million people displaced. The strength of the government's army was dwindling, and the RUF successfully continued to exploit many of the diamond mines.

By early 1995, the RUF had commandeered nearly all of the country's economic resources and had kidnapped, drugged, and enlisted hundreds of young men against their will. The RUF had some 4,000 members in its ranks, and moved within several miles of Freetown, the capitol. At this time, no one really understood the RUF's mission, what they stood for, or who Foday Sankoh was. The RUF announcement, “Footpaths to Democracy: Toward a New Sierra Leone,” gave people their first vague idea of the groups goals.

The government enlisted the help of Executive Outcomes (EO), a South African security firm that had once assisted the Angolan government in its fight with UNITA rebels. The EO troops first arrived in May 1995 and, within days, had beaten back RUF forces from Freetown. They regained control of the diamond mines shortly thereafter.

EO troops continued their assault on the RUF, and by 1996, the RUF was weakening and called for a cease-fire. Peace talks began in Abidjan and went on for nearly a year, during which time RUF attacks continued. The RUF asked the newly elected president, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, to expel the EO from the country in exchange for a peace agreement, and both sides accepted. But in May 1997, soldiers attacked a jail in Freetown and released some 600 criminals and former coup organizers, and Kabbah fled the country.

Some of those freed from the prison then formed the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), and this group invited the RUF to join it against the government. In the period that followed, the country fell into complete chaos—banks and other government institutions closed down, while rape, murder, and general lawlessness brought the economy to a standstill. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sent its military arm, ECOMOG—a force comprised of thousands of soldiers from Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, and Gambia—to combat the AFRC and the RUF stronghold on Freetown. The ECOMOG offensive pushed the AFRC/RUF front out of Freetown in a bloody battle that left many civilians dead. President Kabbah came back to Freetown and again took control of the country while ECOMOG forces pursued AFRC/RUF groups around the country.

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