Sierra Leone, 1995 — military coup attempt

Event Summary

The dataset records an event coded as an attempted military coupi in Sierra Leone on 2 October 1995 against the military government of Captain Valentine Strasser, whose National Provisional Ruling Council had held power since 1992 while waging a losing war against the Revolutionary United Front insurgency. By late 1995 Strasser's young juntai was under mounting strain: the civil war had spread and grown more brutal, the regime had controversially turned to the South African mercenary firm Executive Outcomes to shore up its battered army, and pressure was building both from within the military and from a civil society movement demanding a return to democratic rule and elections. A coup attempt or plot in October 1995 arose within that atmosphere of instability and factional rivalry inside the NPRC and did not topple Strasser at that stage.

His hold, however, was slipping. In January 1996 he was overthrown in a palace coupi by his own deputy, Brigadier Julius Maada Bio, who then presided over the transition to elections that brought the civilian president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to power in March 1996, even as the ruinous war continued.