Abdullah, Ibrahim. "Bush Path to Destruction: The Origin and Character of the Revolutionary United Front/Sierra Leone". The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.36, No.2 (1998): 203-235.

Abdullah, Ibrahim. "Bush Path to Destruction: The Origin and Character of the Revolutionary United Front/Sierra Leone". The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.36, No.2 (1998): 203-235.

• The Revolutionary United Front/Sierra Leone (RUF/SL) first entered Sierra Leone from Liberia on 23 March 1991 and attacked a garrison in Kailahun. Domestic and international media blamed the event on a spillover of the civil war in Liberia. The situation rapidly escalated when, in March 1992, a popular military junta seized power as the National Provisional Ruling Council, leading to a bloody civil war and successive violent changes of government (203-204).
• Sierra Leone has a long history of labor militancy, one which became increasingly radical following the abolition of Isaac Wallace-Johnson's Youth League by British colonial authorities in 1939. British colonial authorities and nationalist leaders working to exclude radicals from politics, leaving radical labor activists more isolated despite several successful strikes. The government of Sierra Leone upon independence emerged as deeply conservative and pro-West (204-206).
• After the 1968 elections, the ruling All People's Congress [APC] began to consolidate dictatorial power, rigging elections with the consent of a corrupt judiciary to deny seats to the Sierra Leone People's Party [SLPP]. In 1970, there was an attempt within the military to overthrow the APC government, but it was suppressed and its ringleaders, including the future head of the United Front, were arrested (206).
• The APC used a full array of coercive measures to destroy the organization and support of the opposition during elections in the 1970s. When an official one-party state was declared in 1978, the SLPP and other opposition groups had already been destroyed through the arrest of most of their leadership (206).
• Youth and students were not deeply involved in politics during the immediate post-independence period, as they were denied major roles in the machine politics of the APC and SLPP. Youth wings were created, but their roles were limited to carrying out political violence on behalf of the party (207).
• These youths were recruited by political parties from populations previously subject to extreme social exclusion, usually relegated to poor areas, unemployed or involved in criminal activities, and with propensities towards substance abuse and violence. Upon recruitment into politics in the 1970s, these youth mingled with more educated peers and began to organize their own political culture within the thuggish youth wings of parties (208-209).
• The first major youth movement was a major protest in 1977 at Fourah Bay College organized by youth wing members against the consolidation of APC rule, resulting in minor concessions. Youth political organization and ideology developed in separate social circles and geographic areas that other political life, confined to poor, violent youth housing at the outskirts of cities (209-210).
• Politics, especially youth and student politics, radicalized during the 1980s as an economic recession resulted in less support for education and social services, and large public sector layoffs in a situation of high unemployment where the state was the largest employer. Dialogue became revolutionary, and universities adopted new security and policing measures (211).
• Libya continually made inroads into Sierra Leonean civil society and politics during the 1970s, supporting pan-Africanist outfits at universities and Muslim religious institutions. In 1985, radical student leaders fled arrest and were smuggled into Ghana by Libyan agents. In 1987, these student activists recruited other youths to come to Libya for training (213-216).
• The actually student activists sponsored by the Libyans were absolutely disorganized and without any contacts in Sierra Leone outside of youth groups and the universities. They did not have any comprehensive ideology (215-216).
• The only ideological document produced by the student opposition was a pamphlet criticizing the corrupt and despotic, 'neo-colonial' rule of the APC government, as well as the economic domination of the Lebanese. It called for revolution, but did not provide a framework or goals for that process (217).
• The organized opposition in Sierra Leone had considered radical and revolutionary options, supported by Libya, during the 1980s, but rejected them as too risky. For this reason, no major politicians left to train in Libya. Almost all recruits were young and unemployed, most without any military experience (216-217).
• The training program in Libya, which included between 30 and 50 men total, was considered a failure. The few uneducated or military recruits, including Foday Sankoh, did not adopt Libyan ideology and a revolutionary movement failed to coalesce among the recruits, who remained disorganized upon returning to Sierra Leone (219).
• At some point during the late 1980s, Foday Sankoh came into contact with Charles Taylor, head of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia and they had agreed by 1989 that they would aid the Patriotic Front fighting in Liberia, who would then help Mr. Sankoh start a revolution in Sierra Leone (220).
• The guerrilla forces of the United Front, which began operating in Sierra Leone in early 1991, were drawn from a combination of youths trained in Libya, members of marginalized youth communities in Sierra Leone, and a core of hardened Liberian fighters on loan from the Patriotic Front. Most members were young Sierra Leoneans with criminal backgrounds (221).
• The Liberian fighters were commanded separately by their own officers, only vague fitting into the rest of the United Front structure. They were recalled in 1993 to fight in Liberia (225).
• The Revolutionary United Front is particular for being nominally 'revolutionary' without any actual ideology, the cohesive force of ideology instead being replaced with violence and substance abuse, replicating social dynamics found among violent and marginalized youth communities in Liberia and Sierra Leone (222-224).
• The strongest evidence that the United Front did not actually articulate an ideology, and did not understand the ideologies of the leftist and nationalist figures it quoted, is that the United Front never established any connection to the peasantry. Rather than liberating areas, the United Front terrorize huge swaths of territory through looting, kidnapping, murder, torture, and rape (224).
• By 1992, the United Front had come under the complete control of Foday Sankoh. The other two prominent leaders, Abu Kanu and Rashid Mansaray, were executed for alleged dereliction of duty and failure in battle. Abu Kanu was the most competent commander in the United Front and the only one to avoid violence against civilians, so his death allowed to the movement to become considerably more violent (226).
• The United Front decided to continue its war against the government after the armed forces coup in 1996 because the National Provisional Council refused to consider peace terms with the United Front. Some elements of the RUF considered joining peace talks, but the majority of the soldiers were unwilling to relinquish the military approach (227-228).
• The United Front did sign a ceasefire agreement in May 1996, but most local units were not committed to the agreement, and violations were not punished. Eventually the United Front did sign full peace accords in November, largely due to the mounting military advantage of the government forces (228).
• These peace overtures were organized by a clique within the RUF which attempted to remove Foday Sankoh from power. The accords were only signed after his arrest by Nigerian authorities in Lagos. The rank-and-file of the United Front were loyal to Mr. Sankoh, however, and refuse to follow the pro-peace leadership (229).
• During the ceasefire, soldiers and United Front rebels came into contact and formed friendships, as many came from similar social backgrounds. This led to cooperation and joint looting by rebels and soldiers, forming the connections that would allow parts of the military to join the United Front to take over Freetown in 1997 (230-231).
• The horrific atrocities committed by the RUF and elements of the military following the capture of Freetown, whose violence was encouraged by the behavior of their peers in the United Front, led to the beginning of an intervention by ECOWAS. Wealthier citizens and foreign nationals fled Freetown, while ECOWAS forces surrounded the city. The United Front didn't institute any order in the city or create a government, and Freetown remained in a state of siege (232-233).