Ⅰ. INTRODUCTION

摘要

The UK's contribution to the post-war reconstruction of Sierra Leone since the late 1990s has been widely held up as an example of successful stabilisation and state-building, particularly in relation to the country's security and justice institutions. Sierra Leone's civil war began in 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, initiated a campaign of violence along the border with Liberia. The RUF's stated aim was to end state corruption, but in reality this cause intertwined with a desire to assume control over resources, particularly in the diamond-rich areas in the eastern part of the country. The decade of conflict that followed accelerated a breakdown of state institutions that had been fundamentally weakened by the pre-war one-party regime of the All People's Congress (APC) and its leader Siaka Stevens (1968-85).