Podcast Eva Dufourc Excoffon and Clara Davin.mov

Suspended: Sierra Leone, the Coup of 1997 and the Commonwealth

In May 1997, soldiers overthrew Sierra Leone’s elected government, unleashing a wave of political violence and human-rights abuses. In this episode, a journalist speaks with a historian, a Sierra Leonean reporter, a human-rights researcher and a former Commonwealth official about how the Commonwealth responded. We look at the suspension of Sierra Leone in 1997, the pressure that helped restore democratic rule in 1998, and what the crisis reveals about the strengths and limits of international organisations.