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TONCA Celebrates Sierra Leone's 50th; Independence Day The Sierra Leone StorySierra Leone is 27,699 square miles, and it is located between Guinea and Liberia on the West Coast of Africa. The original inhabitants of Sierra Leone included the Bulloms, (Sherbro), and Limba. The Mende and Temne tribes arrived in the 15th; century and who knew the country as Romarong, and the Kono settled in the east of the country. In 1462, it was visited by the Portuguese explorer Pedro da Cintra who called it Serra de Le?o, meaning "Lion Mountains”. In recent history, the Sierra Leone story goes back to 1772 when Lord Chief Justice Mansfield declared the abolition of the illegal slave trade. Freetown, its capital was founded by British abolitionists and philanthropists in the 17th century, where two communities of former slaves were resettled. The freed slaves consisted of those who were abandoned in England in 1807, and another group, the Maroons who came from the West Indies. Their slave ships were intercepted and landed in Freetown and legally set free. About 411 ex-soldiers from the British regiments at the end of the Jamaican war from the West Indies were settled on the Sierra Leone River by the British Navy. Freetown became a British Crown Colony in 1896, and the interior of the country became a British Protectorate in 1961.As an independent colony under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company on March 11th 1792, Sierra Leone became a British colony in 1808. Sierra Leone is now constitutionally a Republic, comprising of three Provinces and the Western Area. The country and her citizens inherited a proud legacy of a dramatic, but impressive history as the Mother of British West Africa. The Governor General, Sir Maurice Dorman was based in Freetown, and became the last British representative of colonial rule, who later became responsible to the people of Sierra Leone at independence. He once stated that Sierra Leone is a new nation that could boast of a very strong educational background with the establishment of the University of Sierra Leone (Fourah Bay College) in 1826, the oldest institution, south of the Sahara, which provided higher education to the whole of West Africa. Fourah Bay College was known as the Athens of West Africa, and was affiliated to the University of Durham.The Golden Jubilee of our country’s independence has been a hazardous journey that began 175 years ago (1786 to 1961). With the birth of a new African nation on April 27th; 1961, which began with unprecedented challenges faced by 2.5 million people at independence, has culminated into modern Sierra Leone with an estimated 6.5 million people, fifty years later. With independence and economic difficulties, the worst agony started with the Sierra Leone Rebel War in 1991 and was resolved in 2000. The return of peace and democracy in Sierra Leone under the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and fostered by the All People’s Congress (APC) has set on the path of responsible leadership and economic development as the way forward, as we prepare for the years ahead. This will be tested in this year’s general election in November, 2012, a challenge for the respect of the rule of law, and to uphold the democratic system for which the nation has sacrificed so much for peace and nation building.As we celebrate fifty years of independence in our struggle for economic freedom, Sierra Leoneans will always remember April 27th; as the twelfth member of the commonwealth nation that has emerged at the bright light of Freedom, proud of its past, hopeful and determined about its future - a country that renders the bravery of its emancipated slaves along the World’s third largest natural harbor, and guarded by the mountains of the lion.On such special events, TONCA wished all freedom lovers to remember what the U. S. President John F. Kennedy said on the occasion of Sierra Leone’s independence to Sir Milton Margai, the first Prime Minister of Sierra Leone: “History has bequeathed dawn on both our nations, a common awareness that the rightness of our goals of freedom and brotherhood for all men with goodwill, and {with} God’s help, let us forge new bonds of friendship in a common advance toward this fine goal”.Dr. Mohamed A. Bereteh,Secretary General - TONCA ................
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