On 30 November 1996, in Abidjan, the Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone (RUF/SL) signed the Peace Agreement. For the Government: President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. For the RUF: Corporal Foday Saybana Sankoh. Moral guarantors, Article 28: Côte d’Ivoire (President Henri Konan Bédié), the United Nations (Berhanu Dinka), the OAU (Adwoa Coleman) and the Commonwealth (Moses Anafu). The text was circulated to the Security Council as S/1996/1034. It is not the 1999 Lomé Peace Agreement.

The preamble: a just and durable peace; genuine national unity; popular participation, human rights and humanitarian law; a socio-political order free of inequality, nepotism and corruption. Article 1: the armed conflict is ended with immediate effect; a total cessation of hostilities forthwith. Article 2: the establishment and consolidation of a just peace shall be a priority.

Article 3: within two weeks, a Commission for the Consolidation of Peace as a verification mechanism, with representatives of the Government and the RUF; a Socio-Economic Forum, Citizens’ Consultative Conferences, a Multi-partisan Council, a Trust Fund, a Demobilization and Resettlement Committee and a National Budget and Debt Committee. Articles 5–8: encampment, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration; assembly zones no later than three months; a Joint Monitoring Group. Article 11: a Neutral Monitoring Group from the international community, initially for three months. Article 12: Executive Outcomes shall be withdrawn five weeks after deployment of the Neutral Monitoring Group; other foreign troops no later than three months after that deployment or six months after signature, whichever is earlier.

Article 13: the RUF/SL shall commence to function as a political movement; registration according to law within thirty days. Article 14: no official or judicial action against any member of the RUF/SL in respect of anything done in pursuit of their objectives as members of that organization up to the signing; measures for the reintegration of former combatants, exiles and other persons outside the country. Article 19: basic civil and political liberties, and the release of political prisoners and prisoners of war, if any. Article 20: an independent National Commission on Human Rights.

An annex: a nationwide sensitization programme. The text does not fix a number of monitors. A later Wikipedia sentence placing the signing on 22 November is false against S/1996/1034. The Accord did not end the war; Lomé is a different instrument.

The Plateau, Abidjan, seen from Hôtel Ivoire. The city of signature, not the signing hall. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

For context: Abidjan Peace Accord. The text: UN Peacemaker, Peace Agreement Sierra Leone and RUF/SL.