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Education Reform – 1997

In January 1997, two months after the peace accord was signed, the SLPP government and Kamajors launched attacks against RUF units in northern Kailahun. Keen argues that the continued actions of the Kamajors (which also included executions of RUF combatants that attempted to resettle in their home villages) was one of the main reasons for why the RUF rejected the 1996 accord and sided with the AFRC in May 1997.¹ In May of 1997, Major Johnny Paul Koroma and his soldiers formed an alliance with RUF troops and toppled Sierra Leone’s government. President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah fled into Guinea.²

1. David Keen, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005),193-197.
2. “Sierra Leone coup leader claims power,” The Independent (London), May 26, 1997, 13.