Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

Most of the some twenty human rights organizations that operated in Sierra Leone worked exclusively in the capital Freetown and lacked proper funding, expertise, and institutional support. In the months following the signing of the Lome Peace Accord, these groups did very little monitoring of continuing human rights abuses and instead focused on human rights education for the public.

After the May crisis, these groups became somewhat more vocal and active in both monitoring and advocacy, and several groups called for the establishment of an international war crimes tribunal.

The formation of an autonomous, quasi-judicial national Human Rights Commission as provided for in the Lome Accord made only limited progress. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights sent a consultant to assist the government in shaping and drafting the legislation for the commission, but Parliament had yet to consider a draft. UNAMSIL blamed the lack of progress on the breakdown in the peace process and lack of personnel within its own human rights section.

Meanwhile, the preexisting governmental body, the National Commission for Democracy and Human Rights (NCDHR), effectively did no monitoring, documentation of human rights violations, or advocacy, and neglected to take a public stand on the war crimes tribunal.