A few weeks back, after years of relative stability, violence returned to the streets of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, when clashes between the two main political parties left at least twenty people injured and several women raped.

The trouble started on Friday 13th March, when members of the opposition, the Sierra Leone People's Party, were accused of throwing stones and broken bottles at a parade led by the Mayor of the All People's Congress, who govern the country. On Monday, thousands of APC supporters surrounded the SLPP's headquarters, trapping party members on the roof. In both instances, police were on hand to administer tear gas to disperse the crowds, but it's clear that the problems in the region lie deeper than last week.

In 2002, Sierra Leone emerged from a brutal ten-year civil war, which had left a legacy of mutilated children and blood diamonds. The origins of the conflict, however, stretch as far back as 1985, when Joseph Momoh, a military leader, led his notoriously corrupt government into power.  Students in the country organised a major opposition group, but many were expelled from the country and fled first to Ghana, then Libya. It was here that they received training from socialist leader Colonel Gaddafi's secret service military training facility, and recruited unemployed young men and students to join the struggle. The group returned to the diamond mines in the eastern Kono District of Sierra Leone, to talk to the workers' about their situation and spread a revolutionary ideology.

On March 23rd 1991, the Revolutionary United Front launched it's first campaign against Momoh's government from Liberia into eastern Sierra Leone, capturing several towns on the border. Unfortunately, former army corporal Foday Sankoh manipulated his way to the head of the RUF, and started promoting brutal methods, including decapitating community leaders, cutting off the hands and feet of civilians and raping women, as well as the forced recruitment of children. Intellectuals in the RUF strongly opposed, but were swept aside as Sankoh took over the movement.

A series of bloody military coups were to follow. In April 1992, President Momoh was ousted by Captain Valentine Strasser and his followers, frustrated at the government's inability to deal with the RUF rebels. However, Strasser's National Provisional Ruling Council proved just as ineffective in ending the violence, and the RUF continued to grow, taking over much of the countryside and advancing towards Freetown. Despite the Lomé Peace Accord in 1999, which gave rebels government posts and assured they would not be tried for war crimes, fighting was to continue for a few more years.

As always with conflict in the developing world, hypocritical foreign policy from the West can be found at the heart of the issue. In October 1997, at the same time as the UN Security Council was busy imposing sanctions on Sierra Leone, British company Sandline was supplying arms to the newly elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's allies.  Sierra Leone is yet another example of the havoc created by Britain's colonial past; but perhaps one day, Gaddafi's vision of a "United States of Africa" will be realised.

Since the end of the Civil War in January 2002, Sierra Leone have held two widely applauded elections, a clear indicator that progress is being made.  But the events of last weekend were a violent reminder of Sierra Leone's volatile past.