Sierra Leone - Military Personnel

The army of Sierra Leone, trained by about 360 British troops, counted nearly 9,000 men as of 2012. In late 1975 the RSLMF was estimated to be 2,125 strong. The army component of the military forces was estimated at 2,000, the navy at 100, and the air force at twenty-five. Before the war in 1991, the strength of the RSLAF was only 3,500 with 2 poorly equipped battalions. By 1992, the number had swollen up to 6,500 and during the 4-year NPRC regime, it rose to 14,000. Subsequently, as a result of the MRP, the strength further increased to 17,000 by the end of the war in 2002. This was absolutely a huge figure that the government, just coming out of war, obviously could not afford to sustain. The British Government again intervened with a redundancy program to down-size or right-size the RSLAF. The strength was initially reduced to 10,500 by 2006 and finally to 8,500 by 2010 which was adopted as the final ceiling.

About 50,000 ex-combatants had disarmed since President Kabbah launched a peace and disarmament program in 2011. The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNARMSIL), created in October 1999, comprised 17,000 troops in 2011, making it the largest UN peacekeeping operation in the world at that time.

The population at large will not forget the role of the Civil Defence Force (CDF) during the war. They provided active and vital support to the then Sierra Leone Army (SLA). With this in mind many people acknowledge and recognise the need for civilians to give support to the RSLAF in the defence of our country. However, in keeping with the spirit of reconciliation and particularly the Lome Peace Agreement the Government no longer recognised the CDF, but did acknowledge that there may be a need in the future for some form of part-time reserve force fully integrated into the command structure of the RSLAF.

Such a part-time force would need to be representative of all sectors of society and totally non-political in the same way as their full-time colleagues in the RSLAF. A Working Group (WG) was set up to look at the requirement and advise on the need or otherwise to establish some form of Territorial Defence Force (TDF). The WG's report was endorsed by the National Security Council (NSC) on 30 November 2001.

By January 1999 the Armed Forces were in total disarray and they could no longer be considered an effective fighting force. Urgent action was called for if the fragile peace was to hold. The government's thoughts turned to the formation of new Armed Forces.

Following consultation, it was agreed that an International Military Advisory and Training Team (IMATT) be established to reorganise, retrain, and reintegrate members of the Sierra Leone military into a newly structured and reorganised Armed Forces. Under the banner of reconciliation and in the interest of national unity it was thought by the government of the day that the Armed Forces should comprise former combatants of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC); of the SLA; RUF and CDF who had been in the DDR Program.

In taking forward the program these ex-combatants were reintegrated by undergoing a series of intensive refresher courses organised by the British at the Armed Forces Training Centre (AFTC). Later a special Military Reintegration Programme (MRP) was put in place to provide for the inclusion of ex-Combatants from the RUF and CDF into a single military force for Sierra Leone. This was a complex process that involved bringing together the differing and disparate organisational structures and political affiliations of soldiers who were not only former adversaries, but who also distrusted one another.