Sierra Leone

 Assessments 3 and 4:
 3.     Explain if the conflict or situation has included more variables, such as the political or military participation of non-African or Asian countries, the economic pressure of other states, or any other conditions which might have caused a turn in the conflict (demand of resources, desire to control them, ethnic or racial ‘cleansing’, etc.)

The diamond conflict inSierra Leone has included more variables like the fact that this country has had to seek help or be pressured by other countries thanks to the fact that Sierra Leones’ government is a weak on and that its army is a corrupt one (corrupt army refers to its soldiers that are commonly called "Sobels" referring to: at day are rebels and soldiers at night) had to ask for help from the armiesof countries like Britain, Nigeria and South Africa to fight the RUF. Also, we see this conflict has led to countries like the U.S. and very important political organizations such as the UN make pressure to find peace to Sierra Leone. This was in July 1999 when Ahmad Tejan Kabbah (President of Sierra Leone) and Foday Sakoh(RUF leader) signed Lome Peace Accord in which it is agreed that if RUF stopped theirmilitary activity, he and his leaders could have positions in the government of Sierra Leone, this was demonstrated when Sakoh’s charges were dropped  and  a position in which he could control diamond exports from Sierra Leone was given to him. By 2000, the RUF again revive its military activity and this makes the need of another peace agreement that will be called the Abuja PeaceAgreement which set out a demobilization of the armed group even though was not as effective. Then came the army of Guinea to Sierra Leone to attack RUF and so brought the second Abuja Agreement in 2001, this agreement increase the amount of demobilizations and brought peace to Sierra Leone so that Kabbah could declare in 2002 the civil war was over. Finally, in June 2007 a Special Court was settled in Sierra Leoneas an agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone which had the function of judging the people that had committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes that went against Sierra Leones’ politics and many more. This court judged 12 leaders from groups such as: AFRC (Armed Forces Revolutionary Council), CDF (Civil Defense Forces) and RUF (Revolutionary United Forces).(Lauren Thompson)(U.S Department of State)

   Have the actors or countries involved ever tried to reach an agreement? When and where?

Yes, in in July 7 of 1999, Sankoh (RUF head) and Sierra Leone's president at the time, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, signed the Lome ( place where it was signed) Peace Agreeent with the help of U.N. and the U.S. government. The RUF agreed to surrender its forces for ashare in Sierra Leone's government, this will benefit both sides. As a concession to the RUF the government released Sankoh from the death sentence he earned for his war crimes and violations to human rights and made him a leader of the Strategic Mineral Resources Commission, a Charge that controlled most of Sierra Leone's diamond exports, which will give control over a very big part of thecountries economy.

The Diamond agreement took a long time to be signd, ans it brought peace just for a while. On January of 2000, seven months after it was signed, RUF attacked again Freetown civilians and Sierra Leone's government. Forgetting their promises to stop the war, everything was just as before, the fight continued. However, it's important to say Sankoh was recaptured.
In november of2001, a year before the war ended the Sierra Leonean Government and the Revolutionary United Front reached a new peace agreement during their talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. How ever this agreement was broken too. So it was re- signed under the same conditions in 2002, but was broken again by the RUF.

   What were their petitions and points of

During the 1999 agreement the URF , with...