The war in Sierra Leone officially ended in 2002, and while sporadic violence continued until 2004, the country has been mostly at peace since then. Since 2002, the government of Sierra Leone, in conjunction with the United Nations, established the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, to prosecute those responsible for the most egregious crimes committed during the war years after 1996. While the court has indicted 13 people for war crimes since its inception, on Wednesday the court handed down some of its most severe sentences to three former commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

While the severity of the sentences are important for judicial reasons, perhaps that most important influence that the sentencing will have is its psychological impact on the people of Sierra Leone. The war in Sierra Leone was unique not just in its shocking brutality, but also in the ubiquity of those who it affected. In one of the smallest countries in Africa, there was barely a community or township spared from the grotesque violence. I met with people in the most remote, non-resource filled, non-strategic corners of the country, who had seen their village burn for no reason other than for one militant to flex their muscle to a militant of an opposite group. And yet for these people who had lost their livelihood, their families, and often, their limbs, what has been the restitution?

Sierra Leone is the second poorest country on the planet, and the impact that the conviction of three former rebel commanders has on the country's economic, social, and human development will be negligible. Yet in a country that has been so needlessly beset by violence over the past generation, the psychological impact of this trial on those affected by the war will be immeasurable.