Experiences showed that amnesties hardly resist time, and often fail to ensure a long-lasting peace. Amnesties in Sierra Leone After more than a decade of violent civil war, the Lomé Peace Agreement was signed by the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) and the rebel group Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the renegade of the military, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). The agreement provided for a blanket amnesty, citing “the imperative need to meet the desire of the people of Sierra Leone for a definitive settlement of the fratricidal war in their country and for genuine national unity and reconciliation” and stating the parties’ “[d]etermin[ation] to establish sustainable peace and security; to pledge forthwith, to settle all past, present and future differences and grievances by peaceful means”,13 in its Article 9(1) and (2) provides for “absolute and free pardon” to RUF and AFRC. The same amnesty was extended to members of the Sierra Leone Army and the Civil Defence Forces for the period covering the beginning of the war in March 1991, up to the time of the signing of the present Agreement.”14 The GoSL was obliged to ensure no official or judicial action is taken against any member of these groups and their collaborators in respect of anything done by them in pursuit of their objectives, up to the time of the signing of the present Agreement”. For many, this amnesty law was absolutely necessary and a "prerequisite for any meaningful negotiation".15 It was used as a tool by the government to push the RUF, in particular, to associate itself to the Sierra Leone peace process. Amnesty was used to end the war by the government; ready to do what it "could do to produce that result”.16 The Agreement consequently provided a blanket amnesty for all crimes, and therefore included war crimes, acts of torture, crimes against humanity, genocide, and other serious violations of human rights,17 committed within the context of the Sierra Leonean civil war. But it is noteworthy that the UN representative at the scribbled an exemption that was annexed to the peace accord indicating that such serious crimes are not amnestiable under international law. • Effects on the peace process Even after the Lomé Peace Agreement was signed, gross violations of Human Rights were still committed, especially against humanitarian workers18. With the exception of the political arrangement that has to do with power sharing, the RUF reneged on almost every aspects of the peace agreement.19 The RUF failed to disarm and demobilize, and therefore, fighting ensued between them and the government forces. The civil war officially ended in January 2002 after the parties signed a second cease-fire agreement in Abuja in May 2001. • Lessons learned 13 Ibid, Preamble of the Agreement Ibid, Art.9(3) 15 Hayner, P. “Negotiating peace in Sierra Leone: Confronting the justice challenge”, December 2007 Report, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and International Center for Transitional Justice; Hayner quoting sources pg.13; at http://www.ictj.org/static/Africa/SierraLeone/HaynerSL1207.eng.pdf 16 Berewa quoted and explained in Ibid, pg.13 17 Rakate, P. K. “Is the Sierra Leonean Amnesty Law compatible with International law?”, in MenschenRechtsMagazin - online, University of Potsdam, Issue 3, 2000, at http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/mrz/mrm/mrm13-1.htm#Anm.%20X 18 “Sierra Leone: A Call for Justice” – “Recent violations of the Lomé Peace Accord”, Human Rights Watch, January 2000, at http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/sleone/violations.htm#top 19 “The situation in Sierra Leone”, Statement by H. E. Ambassador Gelson Fonseca Junior, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations, New York, 10 December 1999, available at: http://www.un.int/brazil/speech/99d-gfj-csnusierra-leone.htm 14 5