Armed Forces Revolutionary Council The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council ( AFRC ) were a group of Sierra Leone soldiers that allied itself with the rebel Revolutionary United Front in the late 1990s . While the AFRC briefly controlled the country in 1998 , it was driven from the capital by a coalition of West African troops . It was no longer a coherent and effective organization by the elections of 2002 . Description . The AFRC was formed by Major Johnny Paul Koroma of the Sierra Leonean military in 1997 , who used it to carry out a coup d ' etat against the government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah . The former Sierra Leone Army ( " ex - SLA " ) is a term used to refer to soldiers loyal to the AFRC . Several rationales have been suggested for the coup , including : anger at the government for not implementing the November 1996 peace agreement with the Revolutionary United Front ( RUF ) , perceived ethnic discrimination in the appointment of the highest ranks of government , perceived financial neglect of the armed forces , and favoritism for the ethnic Mende Kamajors led by Samuel Hinga Norman . Following the coup , in May 1997 the AFRC demanded that the Nigerian - led West African peacekeeping force then in the country release the arrested RUF leader Foday Sankoh . Sankoh gave his blessing to the AFRC , and RUF forces who had been fighting in the countryside linked up with AFRC forces in the capital Freetown . Sankoh was named Vice - Chairman of the AFRC and several other RUF leaders were named to high positions . The AFRC and RUF thus formed a joint military junta controlling the country . However , in March 1998 the AFRC / RUF was forced out of Freetown by an invading West African force that put President Kabbah back in power . However , the rebels according to their respective origins , RUF and ex - SLA , under the renewed pressure , with a force of ex - SLA based in the Occra Hills , 50 km from the capital . The rebel AFRC regrouped to retake the capital in January 1999 , but was again forced out by the Nigerian - led force . By 1999 , the authority of the AFRC and Major Koroma over the ex - SLA had become very uncertain and the AFRC is commonly seen as devolving into bands of loosely associated combatants . The West Side Boys rebel group are sometimes referred to as an AFRC splinter group . The West Side Boys abducted several soldiers of the British army that were training West African peacekeepers in July 2000 , and was subsequently destroyed by British forces in a September raid that freed the hostages . While many of the combatants who were under the command of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council continued to fight , the " AFRC " designation gradually ceased to become useful and the AFRC organization is no longer considered to exist . After the folding of AFRC , Koroma ' s supporters have organized the Peace and Liberation Party . Indictment and conviction . In June 2007 , the Special Court found three of the eleven people indicted – Alex Tamba Brima , Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu – guilty of war crimes , including acts of terrorism , collective punishment s , extermination , murder , rape , outrages upon personal dignity , conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces , enslavement and pillage . It was notably the first - ever international court to bring a guilty verdict for the military conscription of children .