Our primary goal for the Sierra Leone Icon series is to increase awareness about people who helped shape the history of Sierra Leone and around the world. We have done our best to balance facts, the emotions and the illustrations to deliver a book that will inspire a wide range of young adults about Sierra Leone.
Our primary goal for the Sierra Leone Icon series is to increase awareness about people who helped shape the history of Sierra Leone and around the world. We have done our best to balance facts, the emotions and the illustrations to deliver a book that will inspire a wide range of young adults about Sierra Leone.
The armed conflict in Sierra Leone and the extreme violence of the main rebel faction - the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) - have challenged scholars and members of the international community to come up with explanations. Up to this point, though, conclusions about the nature of the war are mainly drawn from accounts of civilian victims and commentators who had access to only one side of the war. The present study addresses this currently incomplete understanding of the conflict by focusing on the direct experiences and interpretations of protagonists, paying special attention to the hitherto neglected, and often underage, cadres of the RUF. The data presented challenges the widely canvassed notion of the Sierra Leone conflict as a war motivated by 'greed, not grievance'. Rather, it points to a rural crisis expressed in terms of unresolved tensions between landowners and marginalized rural youth, further reinforced and triggered by a collapsing patrimonial state.
"Set in the steaming jungles of the ravaged West African country Sierra Leone, this book shows how multiple countries were devastated by an international criminal enterprise led by Presidents Muammar Gadhafi of Libya, Charles Taylor of Liberia, and Blasé Compare of Burkina Faso, with an assist from a vast network of terrorists, including Al Qaeda, vying for the control of diamonds. Following the creation of Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2004, a small band of lawyers, investigators, and paralegals changed the face of international criminal law with their innovative plan to effectively and efficiently deliver justice for the tens of thousands of victims, most of them women and children, in the process bringing down warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor of Liberia, the most wanted man in the world. Drawn from the author's personal journals, this book is the first ever detailed account written by a chief prosecutor of an international war crimes tribunal. This book is the first such work to show how the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of the gun-and provides the playbook for accounting for similar horrors elsewhere"--
In this thought-provoking history, Gilbert illuminates how the fight for abolition and equality - not just for the independence of the few but for the freedom and self-government of the many - has been central to the American story from its inception."--Pub. desc.
With frankness, Stewart tells the story of his own remarkable recovery as well as the extraordinary risks he and other journalists take to report the news from remote war-ravaged countries.".
“[An] elegantly written mix of complex history, riveting memoir and damning exposé,” from this award-winning Sierra Leonean author (Publishers Weekly). As a child, Aminatta Forna was witness to the political upheaval and social unrest of post-colonial Africa. Forced to flee her home for exile in Britain, she was subject to the consequences of her dissident father’s actions. After war had abated in Sierra Leone, Aminatta’s father, Mohamed, returned to his country to be part of the fledgling democracy. But as progress gave way to dictatorships and corruption, Mohamed soon found himself caught in a dangerous political battle, imprisoned for his beliefs and facing far worse. Years later, Aminatta returns to her home country as an adult and a journalist. Searching for the truth of her father’s fate and her country’s destiny, she uncovers a harrowing web of intrigue, conspiracy, and painful revelations. The Devil That Danced on the Water is an “extremely moving” memoir of family, heritage, and innocence lost (The Guardian).