Sierra Leone’s civil war (1991-2002) was brutal. Reports of ‘savagery’ were not simply displays of rhetoric.[i] Alongside an estimated 75,000 casualties, thousands were subjected to amputations, mutilations, and sexual violence.[ii] Atrocities were committed by all sides, but the amputations carried out by the rebel group Revolutionary United Front (RUF) became emblematic of the suffering inflicted on civilians.

In some cases, the violence of the war was so extreme it seemed to defy reason, but there was one explanation that captured the attention, and the imagination, of the international community: diamonds. A mindless lust for wealth could explain acts of ‘bewildering cruelty’, but a desire for diamonds could also be explained by a ‘rational’ need to finance the war.[iii] The popular link between diamonds and violence is neatly summed up in the 2006 film Blood Diamond, when Jennifer Connelly’s character says, ‘the people back home wouldn’t buy a ring if they knew it cost someone else their hand.’ The reality is, of course, more complex.

Greedy criminals

Given the seemingly inexplicable brutality of the conflict, a prominent school of thought sought to explain the violence by arguing that civil wars were a breakdown of the normal order. As the war began, social, moral, psychological, and political constraints were removed, and, in a ‘vortex of anarchy and lawlessness’, individuals used violence ‘in the service of gratifying their innate human lust for power and material wealth’.[iv] Perpetrators of extreme violence were written off as greedy criminals, who wanted only one thing: wealth. This argument has now been widely discredited. One issue is that it assumes that all those committing violence were inherently greedy, and, as Dr Yusuf Bangura observed, it is also ‘deeply flawed’ to assume ‘rational actions cannot be barbaric’.[v]

If a desire for diamonds motivated acts of atrocity, this could instead be explained by the argument that violence was used strategically as part of a wider campaign of terror to gain, and protect, access to the country’s diamond mining fields. Human Rights Watch reported numerous instances where civilians were abducted and subjected to forced labour in diamond mines, while accounts from the conflict tell of the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) torturing civilians who impeded their access to diamonds.[vi]

Brutality beyond greed

But if greed or economic gain were the cause of the violence, then why were acts committed that went beyond achieving these goals? Some instances of violence were so shocking that it seems unlikely they were motivated solely by a desire to extract the stones.[vii] Even if these fed into a wider strategy of terror, it is hard to believe, as Dr Kieran Mitton argues in his book on the atrocities of the civil war, that this was the main cause of the brutality, rather than ‘the consummatory rewards of violence itself’.[viii]

Status and shame

Feelings of shame amongst the perpetrators could explain why some committed extreme violence. The origins of the civil war have been linked to grievances around uneven development, and a lack of access to education, employment, and resources. Many who joined the RUF, whether voluntarily or by force, were from communities who had been increasingly marginalised. A desire to reverse the status-quo could therefore explain acts of violence committed by teenage fighters against local ‘big men’ and those in positions of power.[ix] Status could also be gained in committing sexual violence; ex-combatants reported that ‘those who participated in rape … were seen to be more courageous, valiant, and brave than their peers’.[x]

Atrocities may also have helped to redress feelings of shame that rebel recruits experienced upon capture when they were subjected to violence and humiliation.[xi] Carrying out dehumanising and degrading acts against others could have been a way for rebels to transfer their own feelings onto their victims. One woman, for example, recounted an experience she and her son endured at the hands of rebels which seemed to serve no purpose other than to humiliate.[xii]

Professor David Keen also argues that extreme violence seems to have been used to eliminate ‘the threat of shame’ in any civilians seen to be embodying it.[xiii] For example, if victims begged for mercy, this could lead to feelings of shame and guilt in the perpetrators. When fighters were faced with pleas for compassion, therefore, this could explain why they responded with further violence, as if they wanted to extinguish the moral judgement they perceived in the cries of their victims. This argument would also explain times onlookers were forced to laugh and clap as atrocities were carried out, as if the perpetrators were compelling approval of their actions.[xiv]

Dehumanisation and disgust

Violence that aimed to reverse or remove feelings of shame could also have been shaped by the emotion of disgust. The RUF claimed from the outset that it was fighting to cleanse society of its ‘rotten’ and corrupt elements, and instances of brutality may have been provoked by a belief among the rebels that their enemies were disgusting and sub-human. Similarly, a belief among the RUF’s enemies that the rebels were beasts and bush devils in turn could explain the use of extreme violence against them.[xv]

But, in the eyes of the perpetrators, the use of gratuitous violence could not only be justified against those seen to be inhuman, it could also be used to render victims sub-human. Amputations and ‘messy’ mutilations, for example, turned victims into ‘the disgusting beings they were supposed to be’.[xvi] There is an argument in the psychology literature that dehumanisation plays more of a role in ‘instrumental’ violence, where the violence is a means to an end, and less in ‘moral’ violence, where the violence can be justified as punishment or retribution.[xvii] By denying victims their humanity, extreme violence was instrumental in two ways. The perpetrators could reinforce the need for violence, and so justify their cause. At the same time, they could also rid themselves of the shame associated with carrying out this violence. Disgust was both a driver and an outcome of atrocities.

Fear

Threading throughout motivations of shame and disgust is the presence of fear: fear of contamination, fear of shame, and fear of moral judgement. Given that so many RUF combatants were forcibly recruited, it is logical to assume fear could in some part explain the cause of atrocities. Testimonies from ex-combatants highlight the role this played in motivating acts of violence.[xviii] Although such accounts could have been given in an attempt to minimise personal responsibility, most RUF combatants did not join voluntarily, and, given the brutalisation process which the group subjected its recruits to, it is clear that violent behaviours were something that had to be taught and enforced.[xix] One boy who was abducted by the RUF aged 15 said ‘when you are captured, you have to change or you become a dead man’.[xx]

Despite the popular link, diamonds on their own do not give a clear-cut explanation for the extreme violence carried out during Sierra Leone’s civil war. Feelings of revenge, fear, disgust, shame, and pride all undoubtedly played a role, while other factors, such as drug use and brutalisation, also deserve attention. To try to explain the atrocities of the civil war is not to try to justify them, but, if we can increase our understanding of what drives people to commit extreme violence, practitioners and policymakers will be better equipped to prevent and address such acts in the future.

[i] Dowden, R. (1995, January 31). Sierra Leone savagery rips nation apart. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/sierra-leone-savagery-rips-nation-apart-1570525.html 

[ii] Hoffman, D. (2004). The Civilian Target in Sierra Leone and Liberia: Political Power, Military Strategy, and Humanitarian Intervention. African Affairs, 103(411), 211-226. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adh025

[iii] Gberie, L. (2005). A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone. Hurst & Company.

[iv] Mitton, K. (2015). Rebels in a Rotten State. Oxford University Press.

[v] Bangura, Y. (2004). The Political and Cultural Dynamics of the Sierra Leone War: A Critique of Paul Richards. In I. Abdullah (Ed.), Between Democracy and Terror: The Sierra Leone Civil War (pp. 13-40). Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa.

[vi] Human Rights Watch. (2001). World Report 2001: Sierra Leone. Accessed at: https://www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k1/africa/sierraleone.html; Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Sierra Leone (TRC). (2004). Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Volume 3B). Accessed at: https://www.sierraleonetrc.org/

[vii] Human Rights Watch. (2003, January 16). “We’ll Kill You If You Cry”: Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict. Human Rights Watch report 15(1) (A). https://www.hrw.org/report/2003/01/16/well-kill-you-if-you-cry/sexual-violence-sierra-leone-conflict

[viii] Mitton, K. (2015). Rebels in a Rotten State. Oxford University Press.

[ix] Keen, D. (1998). The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars (Special Issue). Adelphi Papers, 38(320), 1-89.

[x] Cohen, D. K. (2013). Female Combatants and the Perpetration of Violence: Wartime Rape in the Sierra Leone Civil War. World Politics, 65(3), 383–415. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887113000105

[xi] Mitton, K. (2015). Rebels in a Rotten State. Oxford University Press.

[xii] Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Sierra Leone (TRC). (2004). Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Volume 3B). Accessed at: https://www.sierraleonetrc.org/

[xiii] Keen, D. (2005). Conflict & Collusion in Sierra Leone. James Currey.

[xiv] Human Rights Watch. (1999, July). Getting Away with Murder, Mutilation, Rape: New Testimony from Sierra Leone. Human Rights Watch report 11(3) (A). https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/sierra/index.htm

[xv] Mitton, K. (2015). Rebels in a Rotten State. Oxford University Press.

[xvi] Mitton, K. (2015). Rebels in a Rotten State. Oxford University Press.

[xvii] Brudholm, T., & Lang, J. (2021). On hatred and dehumanization. In M. Kronfeldner (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of dehumanization (pp. 341–354). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429492464-chapter22

[xviii] Coulter, C. (2008). Female Fighters in the Sierra Leone War: Challenging the Assumptions? Feminist Review, 88(1), 54–73. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400385; Denov, M. S. (2010). Child soldiers: Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front. Cambridge University Press; Gberie, L. (2005). A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone. Hurst & Company.

[xix] Humphreys, M., & Weinstein, J. M. (2004, July). What the Fighters Say: A Survey of Ex-Combatants in Sierra Leone June-August 2003. Accessed at: http://www.columbia.edu/~mh2245/Report1_BW.pdf; Mitton, K. (2015). Rebels in a Rotten State. Oxford University Press.

[xx] Keen, D. (2005). Conflict & Collusion in Sierra Leone. James Currey.