Violation of the Peace Agreement RUF compliance with the disarmament process was inconsistent and sluggish, and by May 2000, the rebels were advancing again upon Freetown.[8] The British intervened to save the failing UN mission and the weak government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. With help from a renewed UN mandate and Guinean air support, the British Operation Palliser finally defeated the RUF. Operation No Living Thing In May 1997, the newly elected government was forced into exile following a bloody coup as former members of the military (AFRC) and the RUF invaded Freetown, the capital and in an operation named “Operation No Living Thing” killed thousands of civilians, looted and raped young girls, took many as sexual slaves and carried out amputations. Rescue Operation The paratroopers landed in Freetown on 8th May, 2000 with a limited mission – named Operation Palliser – which was to secure Lungi airport and evacuate British nationals and foreigners out of the country as the civil war raged on around them. The mission was expected to last for ten days, after which time they would depart and leave Sierra Leone to its fate. After landing at Lungi airport, brigadier David Richards, force commander of the mission, approached the capital by crossing Man O’War Bay in a dinghy. He looked out at the water, which seemed to be full of logs, but soon realised the ‘logs’ were floating dead bodies, many of them children. As he entered Freetown he witnessed the shocking sight of hundreds of amputees, terrified refugees streaming into the city, blood-stained hospital corridors packed with the injured and hundreds more dead bodies – all victims of “Operation No Living Thing”. He knew that once the British troops left in a few days, the people of Sierra Leone would have no protection and that the capital would fall to the RUF. The West Side Boys were another rebel group operating in Sierra Leone and, like the RUF, were particularly brutal. They were fond of kidnapping children and dehumanising them in order to participate in their killing sprees. They dressed in bizarre clothing, namely women’s wigs and flipflops and were constantly either drunk or under the influence of heroin and cocaine. This made Truth Commissions: the Best Practices 43