The West Side Boys, also known as the West Side Niggaz or the West Side Junglers, were an armed group in

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

, sometimes described as a splinter Political faction, faction of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. They captured and held peacekeepers from the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and, in August 2000, captured a patrol of British soldiers from the Royal Irish Regiment and their Sierra Leone Army liaison officer. The group was subsequently destroyed in an operation by the

Special Air Service The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terro ...

and Parachute Regiment in September 2000 during Operation Barras. The group was influenced to some extent by American

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and

gangsta rap Gangsta rap or gangster rap, initially called reality rap, emerged in the mid- to late 1980s as a controversial hip-hop subgenre whose lyrics assert the culture and values typical of American street gangs and street hustlers. Many gangsta rappe ...

music, especially

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, and the "gangsta" culture portrayed therein. Since the title 'West Side Niggaz' would have been an entirely unacceptable phrase to be regularly used on news programmes concerning the group, the title was amended to render it to the innocuous 'West Side Boys'. Prior to their destruction, the group's size had expanded to around 600 but later suffered about 200 defections. Many members of the group were

child soldiers Children (defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child as people under the age of 18) have been recruited for participation in military operations and campaigns throughout history and in many cultures. Children in the military, includ ...

abducted after their parents had been killed by the "recruiters". Some of these children were forced to participate in

torturing Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

their parents to death in order to brutalise and dehumanise them. The West Side Boys were heavy users of poyo (homemade palm wine), locally grown

marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...

, and

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bought with

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. Conflict diamonds were also used to purchase many of their weapons, which ranged from FN FAL/L1A1 rifles, AK-47/AKM rifles and RPG-7 grenade launchers to 81 mm mortars and ZPU-2 anti-aircraft guns. Most of their vehicles were hijacked from UN food convoys.

Description

At the time that the West Side Boys were active, large areas of Sierra Leone were controlled by militias. However, there existed no provable connections to the main rebel group in Sierra Leone, the Revolutionary United Front. Frequently the subject of British media, due in part to their kidnapping of British soldiers and their flamboyant character, as reported by the

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: "They were known for wearing bizarre clothing – women's wigs and flip-flops were favourites – and being almost perpetually drunk." A 2008 article published in the '' Journal of Modern African Studies'' offers an alternative view of the West Side Boys as an effective military unit employing military and political techniques to achieve defined goals, as opposed to a criminal gang with no political purpose engendered by the perpetual lawlessness and social breakdown of the country.

References

Bibliography

* ''Operation Certain Death'', Damien Lewis, Arrow Books, 2005, {{ISBN, 978-0099466420 Rebel groups in Sierra Leone Guerrilla organizations Sierra Leone Civil War 1998 establishments in Sierra Leone