SUMMARY
The RUF did not only engage in combat with the Government of Sierra Leone but also made use of one-sided violence and gross human rights atrocities against the civilian population during the civil conflict in Sierra Leone. One-sided violence throughout the years took large proportions, and displayed large variations in strategies and possible goals. The RUF became especially infamous for cutting off the arms, hands, and feet of innocent civilians, but the group also engaged in looting and burning, rape and murder, and forced conscription of civilians.
Many theories have been put forward to explain the RUF's brutal amputation and civilian targeting strategies, ranging from penalizing those who had voted in the elections that brought Kabbah to power, through pure irrationality that became institutionalized within the movement, to desperate acts to show resolve when the RUF appeared to face defeat. No tradition of war-related amputation had ever existed within the tribes and ethnicities in Sierra Leone, and it was thus a completely new phenomenon lacking any ritual connotations (as was the case for some of the violence perpetrated in Rwanda’s genocide). The RUF also looted and burned villages and towns and during the conflict employed forced labour to mine diamonds that were then smuggled out of the country to pay for the war and enrich its leaders and backers. Rape and murder were rampant when RUF attacked cities and villages, which it did more often than attacking regular troops. The RUF also made use of forced conscription, expanding its ranks through coercing men and young boys to join the movement, often through fear or helplessness, or by brutalising them through making them kill other civilians; sometimes their own families. Young women were also forced into the movement, sometimes as fighters, but more often to become ‘bush wives’, in essence the sexual property of RUF fighters. In many ways the RUF's war on the government was more of a war on the civilians of Sierra Leone.
The brutalized and undisciplined nature of the cadres fighting for the RUF can explain parts of the RUF's ‘strategy’ of targeting civilians for mutilation and killings, but other explanations may have equal significance and endow the violence with ‘rationale’. Mass-amputations of limbs became especially rampant in the mid-1990s, in the pre- and post-elections phase of 1995-1996. In the run-up to elections several reports state that RUF would hack off limbs of eligible voters to scare them into not voting for Kabbah in the upcoming elections, or to remove the fingerprints needed to imprint the voter ballot. After the elections limbs would in turn be chopped off if they had markings of indelible ink, which proved that civilians had voted. Such actions were then a means to hinder a legitimate return to civilian rule.
Attacks on civilian villages and killings of its inhabitants can also be explained through a ‘rational’ perspective, with the RUF applying such strategies to coerce and force civilians into its ranks, to penalize those the group felt supported the Government of Sierra Leone and also to show resolve in the face of battlefield reverses. Killings of civilians ensured fear among the populace, gave loot to the impoverished cadres, and put pressure on the Government of Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone’s civil war is oftentimes portrayed as being about diamonds, and such extractable resources also played a large role in the RUF's targeting of civilians. Illegal mining and smuggling of diamonds became a core issue in the conflict, one that prolonged the war and deepened the suffering of Sierra Leone. Much of the fighting and the one-sided killings were concentrated on the diamond-rich areas of eastern Sierra Leone, where attacks on villages and the forced exodus of civilians could ensure control over vast diamond fields such as the ones in Kono. Attacking civilians was a way to ensure the most important financial asset of the conflict.
In terms of intensity and the number of civilians killed during RUF's one-sided campaign during the 1990s there are a number of uncertainties. News reporting from Sierra Leone up until 1994 was very scarce, yielding very few reliable sources on the number of deaths. NGO and watchdog activity was likewise low. These two factors combine to make numbers uncertain. Also, when the RUF and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) joined hands in 1997, and also took control of the Government of Sierra Leone, it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between the two groups’ activities, yet again yielding uncertain numbers for the years 1997-2000. A final factor that complicates the gathering of reliable data is the fact that government soldiers (being highly undisciplined and engaging in attacks on civilians) at many times since 1993/1994 cannot be distinguished from RUF forces, due to widespread collaboration and the rag-tag appearance of cadres from both these outfits.
It is important to note that RUF attacks on civilians did not abate in 1997, but that RUF attacks that year are attributed to the Government of Sierra Leone, at that time being composed of the RUF and the AFRC.
RUF first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 1991, when the one-sided violence resulted in more than 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached in April that year when the group killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Koindu.
