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Sierra Leone Gained Independence from Great Britain
After Sierra Leone gained Independence from Great Britain, illegal diamond mining became a real issue. Siaka Stevens became prime minister and made a diamond compony called National Diamond Mining Compony and had control over diamond mines. The diamond company also worked with another company called De Beers. -
Joseph Momoh took control of Sierra Leone
Joseph Momoh became president of Sierra Leone in 1985. He had barely any leadership or political skills and even more illegal diamond mining started. A corrupt government started and Sierra Leone became a vulnerable country. -
When the war started
On march 23, around 100 members of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NFPL) invaded into Sierra Leone in attempt to overthrow the government and the president, Joseph Momoh. -
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Sierra Leone Civil War
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Armed Forces Revolutionary Council took hostages
The AFRC was irritated that they were not involved in the Lome Peace Accord and wanted more power. As a result, they took journalists, Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group troops (ECOMOG), aid workers, and United Nations (UN) military observers as hostages. -
Signing the Lome Peace Accord
The Lome peace accord was an agreement between the RUF and the Sierra Leone government. The RUF was able to have some of the power from the government if they gave up their forces. -
The RUF's attack on Freetown
After six months of the Lome peace accord was in action, it stopped. Even though the RUF said they would take away their forces, they didn't. The RUF started fighting at Sierra Leone again and the diamond minds were in the center of the action. Because of this, Sierra Leone was not allowed to have nongovernmental diamonds, which was issued by the U.N. -
Ending of the Civil War
The Sierra Leone government defeated the RUF with help from the United Nations forces, British troops, and Guinean air support. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah said the war was over on January 18, 2002. -
Election of 2002
Ahmed Tejan Kabbah won the election in 2002. He wanted to reunite everyone together and wanted to recover the economy. -
The bauxite and rutile mines open back up
To attempt to fix the economy after the civil war, Sierra Rutile Ltd reopened the bauxite and rutile mines. Sierra Leone also had to use debt relief to repair economy.