Liberian Civil Wars
From The Peopling of New York City
Contents |
Pre-War
On April 12, 1980, a coup was staged by army personnel under the leadership of Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe. A People’s Redemption Council, headed by Doe, suspended the constitution and assumed full legislative and executive powers. More than a dozen officials of the previous regime were publicly executed.
Under pressure from the United States and other creditors, in July 1984 Doe’s government issued a decree that allowed the return of political parties that were outlawed since 1980. Doe, however, used his power to assure that opposition parties did not threaten his domination, and he won the presidential election in 1985. Relations with the United States, Liberia’s major foreign benefactor, deteriorated because of government corruption and human-rights abuses.
Civil War
In December 1989, a group of rebels began an uprising against the government. The NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia), led by Charles Taylor, soon had an army of 10,000 men. Within weeks they controlled much of the countryside. Fighting continued into 1990, so an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) monitoring group (ECOMOG) was sent to Liberia as a peacekeeping force, but it failed to stop the fighting.
The war spread through Liberia, as the NPFL battled ECOMOG, the Liberian army, and ULIMO (United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy). By early 1991, ECOMOG held Monrovia and the NPFL controlled the rest of the country. In October 1991, ECOWAS and the NPFL agreed to stop the fighting and establish an Interim Government of National Unity. The NPFL began to disarm in early 1992, but clashed with ECOMOG forces, and in August was attacked by ULIMO from Sierra Leone. In September the NPFL launched an all-out assault on ECOMOG forces in Monrovia, recruiting boys as young as eight to fight, and executing civilians who refused to join. ECOMOG succeeded in pushing the NPFL back into the countryside by January 1993. In the meantime, ULIMO had captured much of western Liberia, but had split along ethnic lines into two warring factions, ULIMO-J and ULIMO-K.
Attempts for Peace
At a peace conference in July 1993 the leaders of IGNU, NPFL, and ULIMO-K drew up a plan for a Liberian National Transitional Government, led by a five-member council consisting of one ULIMO-K member, one NPFL leader, one Interim Government of National Unity representative, and two other civilians. A cease-fire was implemented but the Liberian Peace Council (LPC), a new faction, and the refusal of ULIMO-J to disarm made it difficult. By mid-1994 the cease-fire had completely failed, and fighting continued between the LPC and the NPFL, between ULIMO-J and ULIMO-K, and between ULIMO-J and ECOMOG. The United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) was deployed to cooperate with ECOMOG in March.
The leaders of the factions secretly met in August 1994, and negotiated a timeline for disarmament and the institution of a Council of State based on the 1993 plan, but with six members instead of the original five. A cease-fire in December was interrupted by skirmishes until a formal peace accord was signed in August 1995. The peace was broken in April 1996 when an uprising by ULIMO-J in the outskirts of Monrovia quickly spread into the capital, sparking street-to-street fighting and looting. Another cease-fire was declared in August, and Monrovia was reclaimed by ECOMOG forces.
In all, more than 150,000 Liberians died in the seven-year civil war.
Resolution
An ECOMOG disarmament program was initiated under the August 1996 peace agreement. Despite some minor skirmishes and an assassination attempt on Taylor, the disarmament proceeded relatively smoothly. ECOMOG forces cleared land mines and reopened the country’s roads, allowing refugees to begin returning from neighboring countries and humanitarian aid to reach the previously inaccessible interior. The disarmament program was declared a success in January 1997. Presidential and legislative elections were held in July. Charles Taylor, the man who instigated the Liberian Civil War eight years earlier, was elected president by a landslide, and his political party, the National Patriotic Party, won a majority of seats in the National Assembly.
Taylor pledged to forge national reconciliation and appointed leaders of rival factions to various government positions. After the last ECOMOG forces withdrew from Liberia in 1999, however, Taylor’s security forces were criticized by international groups for human rights abuses against members of the opposition. Beginning in 2000 government forces shut down several independent newspapers and radio stations.
In 2001 the UN imposed economic sanctions against Liberia for aiding rebel groups in neighboring Sierra Leone. Taylor’s administration also allegedly aided rebels in both Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire. Taylor accused Guinea of supporting a new Liberian rebel group called Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and retaliated with several attacks on Guinean border towns. LURD rebels gained control over significant amounts of northern Liberia by 2002, soon limiting Taylor’s authority to little more than Monrovia. After months of fighting and international pressure (notably from the United States), Taylor agreed to step down in August 2003 as part of an overall peace agreement, and he went into exile in Nigeria. A Special Court, jointly administered by the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government, later brought war crimes charges against Taylor, and in June 2007 he went on trial in The Hague. In October, Liberian businessman Charles Gyude Bryant was sworn in as Liberia’s new president, charged with overseeing a two-year power-sharing transitional government. The legislature was replaced temporarily by an interim National Transitional Legislative Assembly. Under the 2003 peace agreement, the United Nations Security Council formally established a peacekeeping force known as the UN Mission in Liberia.
In November 2005 elections, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, an economist and longtime political dissident, was elected president. She became the first female head of state of an African nation. Elections were also held for the restored bicameral legislature. Johnson-Sirleaf defeated George Weah, a popular former soccer star, winning more than 59 percent of the vote.
References
Microsoft Encarta: [1]