Towards Rebuilding a Failed State: The United Nations Intervention in the Post-Civil War Sierra Leone

"At the time of creation, it is said, God created a tiny country rich in mineral wealth, with diamonds, gold, bauxite, rutile, iron-ore, chromite, and platinum; an abundance of offshore fish; relatively fertile land; and plenty of rainfall. People from the neighbouring territories became furious and demanded equal treatment. God, however, cautioned them with the caveat that they should first wait and see what kind of government would rule over Sierra Leone" (Zack-Williams, 1990: 22). The end of the communist ideology, the disintegration of the Soviet behemoth, the dynamism of glasnost and perestroika introduced by the Gorbachev's administration in the defunct USSR, and the fall of communist backed governments in Eastern Europe signalled the birth of a new international geostrategic, economic, and political order. A New World Order where the ideological bipolarity and East-West contestations between the United States (US) and the former USSR had given way to a unipolar world on which the US is riding as a colossus. The thawing of the East-West Cold War and the relaxation of tensions between the superpowers made the world to believe, albeit erroneously, that the era of total peace had arrived, and by extension, the same for the Third World countries (TWCs) of which Africa is not an exception. Paradoxically however, while interstate conflicts at the global level are on the decrease, the end of the Cold War has ignited numerous intrastate conflicts in Africa, championed by sub-state actors (insurgents, irregular forces, local warlords, ethnic nationalists, etc) challenging the status quo.