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Dispute Resolution Committee – 1999

On October 23, 1999, rebel leader Johnny Paul Koroma was named chairman of the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP) in Sierra Leone. At the same time President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah slowly completed his cabinet under a July peace agreement signed with the rebels. State radio said the Commission would comprise two representatives from civil society, one each from the Government and Revolutionary United Front (RUF), and a Parliamentarian. The Commission had the responsibility of supervising and observing the implementation of the peace agreement. The Commission also ensures that the process of national reconciliation is pursued. The position of Koroma, chairman of the ousted Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), had remained vague under the Lomé peace agreement (Source: Koroma named to head Sierra Leone peace commission, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 24, 1999).

According to a report:

“Initially, with Koroma as its chair, the CCP was politically and financially marginalized by both the government and the international community. While its original plan of action identified fundamental issues underlying the conflict and proposed practical solutions to ensure the security and welfare of the people, it eventually pared down its scope to focus on confidence-building at all levels as a strategy for enhancing the peace process. With its broad membership it enjoyed the relative confidence of all parties. As Koroma’s public and political rehabilitation outpaced Sankoh’s and with growing recognition that multi-level confidence-building was crucial to the peace process, the commission began to attract greater attention and financial support”¹

According to a report:

“The serious disagreements that arose during the first ten months of the life of the agreement, and the disastrous effect they were to have, point to fundamental negligence on the part of the government to provide for an effective dispute resolution mechanism. Under the agreement, a Council of Elders and Religious Leaders was to be established to settle differences arising from conflicting interpretations of how it should be implemented. One would assume that potentially explosive misunderstandings could have received special attention from this mediating body. Unfortunately, the government never set up the Council of Elders, even though its establishment would not have been costly”²

1. “Implementing the Lomé Peace Agreement,” Conciliation Resources, http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/sierra-leone/implementing-Lomé.php, accessed October 25, 2010).
2. Ibid.