ABSTRACT
Sierra Leone was ravaged by civil war from 1991 until 2002. During the war an estimated 50,000 people were killed, over one million were displaced from their homes, and thousands more fell victim to brutal amputations, rapes, and assaults. 1 The chief victims of violence were civilians, not combatants. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels fomented political and institutional instability by committing massacres, burning of schools and courthouses, scattering the civilian population, and most insidiously of all, specifically targeting the chiefs—the traditional rulers in rural areas. Young RUF recruits often were deliberately sent to attack their own home villages, thereby leaving deep scars within their families and communities (Keen 2005: 60).
