The West Side Boys: military navigation in the Sierra Leone civil war

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Periodical article

Title:	The West Side Boys: military navigation in the Sierra Leone civil war
Authors:	Utas, Mats Jörgel, Magnus
Year:	2008
Periodical:	Journal of Modern African Studies
Volume:	46
Issue:	3
Pages:	487-511
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Sierra Leone
Subjects:	civil wars militias
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/30224893
Abstract:	The West Side Boys were one of several military actors in the Sierra Leonean civil war (1991-2002). A splinter group of the army, more specifically of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), the WSB emerged as a key player in 1999-2000. In most Western media accounts, the WSB appeared as nothing more than renegade, anarchistic bandits, devoid of any trace of long-term goals. By contrast, this article aims to explain how the WSB used well-devised military techniques in the field; how their history and military training within the Sierra Leone army shaped their notion of themselves and their view of what they were trying to accomplish; and, finally, how military commanders and politicians employed the WSB as a tactical instrument in a larger map of military and political strategies. It is in the politics of a military economy that this article is grounded. Bibliogr., notes, ref. sum. [Journal abstract]