State Failure and Civil War in Sierra Leone

Key Insight

Sierra Leone experienced state failure culminating in a decade-long civil war (1991-2001) due to extreme extractive institutions. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, invaded from Liberia in 1991, capitalizing on the already collapsed state under Joseph Momoh's rule. The preceding All People's Congress (APC) government under Siaka Stevens had intensified colonial extractive institutions, leading to economic collapse by 1985. Public services disintegrated; national television broadcasts stopped in 1987 after the transmitter was sold, and by 1989, radio transmissions outside the capital ceased.

The RUF initially claimed to fight against state-sponsored poverty and autocratic rule. However, their 'mission' quickly devolved into widespread atrocities. Early critics within the RUF were executed, and the movement resorted to forced recruitment, particularly of children, to sustain its ranks. All factions, including the government army, utilized child soldiers. The conflict intensified with massacres, mass rapes, and amputations. In RUF-controlled areas, economic exploitation was rampant, most notably in diamond mining regions where people were press-ganged into labor. By the war's end in 2001, approximately 80000 people had died, and the country was devastated, with roads, houses, and buildings destroyed.

Sierra Leone's complete state failure in 1991 meant no central authority, law, or order, a situation worse than even centralized extractive institutions. This collapse was a direct consequence of decades of highly extractive institutions under Stevens and Momoh, which neglected basic public services and emasculated institutions like the military. Such a state of affairs, where the state effectively disappears, opens the way for unrest and civil war. The re-election of the old APC party in 2007, despite its leader having no direct association with the previous regime, illustrated how the vicious circle of extractive institutions can persist, maintaining a largely absent state and continued institutional extraction.