The IMF gathers for their World Economic Forum. Photo by Michael Wuertenberg.

The Human Development Index lists Sierra Leone, a nation on the coast of West Africa, as one of the poorest countries in the world. By contrast, Sierra Leone’s land is laden with diamonds, minerals, and oil that could enrich the government and its citizenry. Yet, wealthier nations block Sierra Leone from its own profit or power by extracting these resources. While the United Nations champions decolonization initiatives, it fails to effectively intervene in neoliberal systems of economic exploitation that can devastate places like Sierra Leone. Indeed, international diplomats often blame the government and Sierra Leoneans for the state of their country rather than acknowledging the corrupt international structures that feed Sierra Leone’s economic crisis.

Despite the disappearance of visible European colonial rule in African countries in the 1960s, the same systems of economic extraction remain. The term “neocolonialism” refers to the continuing covert economic exploitation of post-colonial nations. Modern statesmen in the International Monetary Fund may wear suits instead of the performative robes of 19th-century European emperors, but make no mistake— their policies and self-interests influence millions across their former colonies. The consequences of this exploitation are blatant in Sierra Leone. The region has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, severe segregation by wealth, and the average adult only receives 3.6 years of schooling.

HOW STATES EXPLOIT SIERRA LEONE’S ECONOMY

The name of Sierra Leone’s first city and current capital, Freetown, is ironic considering Britain’s imperialist involvement in Sierra Leone since the nation’s establishment. The Sierra Leone Company, a group of British abolitionists, founded Freetown in 1787 to resettle formerly enslaved people in England. When the British Parliament outlawed slavery in 1807, it acquired Sierra Leone from the company to settle people freed from the Atlantic Slave Trade. Henceforth, Britain controlled the Sierra Leone administration, and British colonists in the area informally enslaved settlers despite the illegality of slavery. Despite their freedom, the people of Sierra Leone became subject to a new form of oppression.

In 1930, a British geologist discovered diamonds in the region. The gems became one of the greatest sources of Sierra Leone’s future conflict, earning them the name “Blood Diamonds.” British companies and other foreign merchants quickly seized control of diamond mines to profit from the newfound market. By 1937, British companies unearthed one million carats annually — an amount currently worth $2 billion to $25 billion USD. As Britain and its companies grew rich, the Sierra Leonean people earned almost none of this profit.

After Sierra Leone gained independence from Britain in 1961, this brutal and overt colonialism was replaced by covert economic exploitation. The people of Sierra Leone had lost billions of potential revenue to foreign miners and British companies during the prior three decades. Because of this, the country needed substantial income to develop: colonialism left Sierra Leone with a poor economy, minimal social services, and few educational institutions. To develop infrastructure, the newly-independent nation began loan arrangements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1967. The nations leading the IMF — namely the United States, Japan, and other wealthy countries — subsequently took control of Sierra Leone’s economy and wrangled away the nation’s freedom, profit, and power once again.

Since its formation in 1945, the IMF has stated its purpose has been to “ensure the stability of the international monetary system” and help regions structurally develop. To achieve this, the IMF has given loans to nations and asked that they follow IMF conditions in return. Over the past decades, these conditions have come under increasing scrutiny for inflicting damage on poorer nations. Many critics deem the IMF a neocolonial institution for using its economic influence to keep certain nations impoverished and others enriched.

Indeed, the IMF’s control over Sierra Leone after its “independence” furthered the country’s spiral into an economic crisis. The IMF required that Sierra Leone devalue its currency, claiming that this would promote domestic business by increasing the cost of national imports. Yet, this currency devaluation also lowered the cost of Sierra Leone’s minerals for other countries, incentivizing diamond extraction and decreasing the amount of revenue the government could generate by selling the gems.

In the 1980s, the conditions of IMF loans further deteriorated the economy and set the stage for civil unrest. To decrease the government’s debt, the international body suggested that Sierra Leone’s authorities lower public sector spending. However, this diminished the nation’s ability to fund basic social infrastructures for healthcare, education, and more. While illicit diamond traders gained wealth from Sierra Leone’s mines, the general populace remained in situations of dire poverty. In the mid-1980s, around 80 percent of the population lived below $1 (USD) per day.

A downtown street in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital. Photo by Annabel Symington.

Dissatisfied with the economy, citizenry and ex-soldiers violently grappled for control over diamond mines and sparked a civil war in 1991. A decade later, UN intervention disarmed rebels and created the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a war crimes court to prosecute leaders that had terrorized civilians. The international community has commonly blamed the civil war on failures of the Sierra Leonean government and the Prime Minister. Yet, this type of judgment is paternalistic at best: it implies that Sierra Leone needs the involvement of entities like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, or the United Nations to keep it from causing its own crises. This perspective fundamentally ignores decades of imperial and neocolonial activities that culminated in the outbreak of such violent conflict.

NEOCOLONIALISM’S DEVASTATING EFFECTS TODAY

Despite the settlement of the war, the nation faced a long road to recovery. Around 2 million Sierra Leoneans—almost half the population at the time—were displaced and thousands were killed. The conflict sprouted disease, destroyed the economy, dwindled food supplies, and demolished national infrastructures. It positioned Sierra Leone for greater economic dependency on institutions like the IMF and the World Bank for development loans.

Indeed, over the next decade, Sierra Leone made five more arrangements with the IMF for emergency assistance or Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility loans (PRGFs). While the national GDP initially grew between 2000 and 2007, the dependency of Sierra Leone’s economy on its wealthy IMF donors led to a domestic crisis in the 2008 recession. As a native Sierra Leonean explained in an anonymous group study, “You know whenever there is a crisis in [the] Middle East, and, or Europe/America, Africa will suffer, especially Sierra Leone and [Sub-Saharan] Africa. The credit crunch [reduces] remittances to households and [export value] and our country depends on donor funds.” By tethering Sierra Leone’s economy to others through loans, the IMF has bred an economic dependency that parallels the dependency of a colonial nation on its metropole.

Legacies of colonialism also pervade the diamond industry. Sierra Leone’s government attempts to reduce illicit diamond trading by holding export taxes low and promoting international trade through legitimate channels. However, low export taxes allow foreign corporations to exploit Sierra Leone’s wealth of resources using tactics similar to those from the 20th century. Large-scale, foreign buyers own mines across the region and trap informal diamond diggers using debt bondage. Even where debt bondage is uncommon, children regularly mine for long hours each day to sustain their families.

Miners in Sierra Leone sift for diamonds. Photo by Mummane.

As Sierra Leone’s resources enrich global corporations, the government struggles to establish public services or infrastructure. In an interview with the Columbia Political Review, Dr. Yusuf Dibba—a physician and native Gambian—described his experience working throughout Sierra Leone. Across the country, railroad lines center around mining sites and fail to connect rural areas to cities with more resources. Coupled with the government’s inability to fund social services, this limited rail system fuels health inequity: in the rural district of Kono, Dr. Dibba recalled only two doctors present for a population of 500,000. City populations, however, also suffered before the intervention of NGOs. When asked about his time working in the public healthcare system from 2010 to 2013, he stated that, “During the time that I went [to the public hospital], it was like a death trap. People didn’t even want to [go]…. you [ended] up either dying or discharging yourself.” Since there are relatively few institutes of higher education in the nation, the government has relied on foreign experts and NGOs to improve such facilities.

While the diplomats heading the World Bank and IMF are clearly culpable for the crisis in Sierra Leone, the populaces of wealthy nations also influence this system. When citizens buy goods, like diamonds, that are extracted from countries like Sierra Leone, they contribute to international structures of dominance and inequality. Although diamond miners earn next to nothing for hours of grueling work, diamond corporations sell gems for approximately $3,200 per carat. Diamond buyers unjustly enrich these companies and bolster demand for a product that produces misery for Sierra Leoneans. Ever since the horrors of the trade were exposed in the early 2000s, there has been an international movement to ban blood diamonds. Yet, the industry still generates billions in revenue annually.

Sierra Leoneans protest to improve their conditions, but such movements may end violently. Constituents of nations that lead the IMF can alleviate the plight of miners by opposing the IMF’s neocolonial activity. The top ten nations in the IMF—which include the U.S., Japan, China, and the U.K.—hold over 50 percent of the voting power, inevitably making their interests prevail in the international body. Citizens can avoid products of diamond moguls to challenge the industry or lobby elected officials to prevent increases in these nations’ voting power. As people like Dr. Dibba attempt to improve conditions, NGOs can boycott the IMF when unjust policies arise or strengthen the capacity of the Sierra Leonean government. Dismantling this global system of economic dominance requires the intentional action of all individuals.

Leena Yumeen is a sophomore in Columbia College studying Political Science. She volunteers with Partners in Health Engage and the Fund for Global Health, two non-profit groups that advocate for global equity.

Blood Diamonds in Sierra Leone: How Colonialism Functions Today