The Way And The Truth: First Liberian Civil War

Liberia is located in west Africa next to Sierra Leone one of the worlds most dangerous places. There where two civil wars one lasted from 1989 until 1996 the secent lasted from 1999 until 2003.

Before the first civil war broke out Samuel Doe was president of Liberia and he had taken power in a popular coup of 1980 but opposition to his undemocratic regime led to economic collapse. But after his krahn ethnic group began attacking other ethnic groups (mostly in Nimba county) conflict seemed inevitable.

Charles Taylor who left Does govermont they later became known as the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). They invaded Nimba County on the 24 of December 1989. The Liberian army retailiated against the whole population of the region atacking unarmed civilians and burning villages. Many left as refugees to Giunea and Cote d'lvoire, but opposition to Doe was inflamed. Prince Johnson an NPFL fighter, split to form his own guerilla force soon after crossing the border and named the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia or INPFL.

By 1990 a civil war was raging. Taylors NPFL soon controlled much of the country, while Johnson took most of the capital Monrovia. ECOWAS tried to persuade Doe resign and go into exile, but despite his weak position (he was besieged in his mansion) he refused. While making a brief trip out of the Executive Mansion to ECOMOG headquarters, Doe was captured by Johnson, then he was tortured brutaly and killed. Then they left his body out to rot and Johnsons army poured beer on him or spit on him. The murder of Doe was videotaped and seen on news reports around the world.

But peace was still far off as both Taylor and Johnson claimed power. ECOMOG declared an Interim Govermont of National Unity, with Amos Sawyer as thier president, with broad support of Johnson. Taylor attacked Monrovia in 1992, but ECOMOG reinforced the city and negotiated the Contouno Agreement, a treaty between the NPFL, IGNU and Does remaining supporters (known as the United Liberiation Movement of Liberia for Democracy or ULIMO). a coalition govermont was formed in August 1993.

In September 1994, Akosombo Agreement attempted to replace the coalition with moves toward a democratic govermont, but IGNU rejected this. The Abuja Acord of August 1995 finaly achieved this, but in April 1996 the NPFL and ULIMO again began fighting in Monrovia, leading to the eavacuation of most of the nations NGO's and the destruction of most of the city.

Charles Taylor organized and trained some indigenous northerners in Cote d'Ivoire. During Doe's regime Taylor had served in the Liberian Government's General Services Agency, acting 'as its de facto director'. However, he fled to the United States in 1983 amid what Stephan Ellis describes as the 'increasingly menacing atmosphere in Monrovia' shortly before Thomas Quiwonkpa, Doe's chief lieutenant, fled into exile himself. Doe requested Taylor's extradition for embezzling $900,000 of Liberian government funds. Taylor was thus arrested in the United States and after sixteen months broke out of a Massachusetts jail in circumstances that are still unclear.

On December 24, 1989, Charles Taylor and a small group of Libyan-trained rebels calling themselves the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) entered Nimba County from neighboring Côte d'Ivoire, attacking the village of Butuo. The raid, mounted by a small group of men, managed to capture some weapons, and then the raiders withdrew to the jungle.

The NPFL initially encountered plenty of support within Nimba County, which had endured the majority of Samuel Doe’s wrath after the 1985 attempted coup. When Taylor and his force of 100 rebels reentered Liberia in 1989, on Christmas Eve, thousands of Gio and Mano joined them. While these formed the core of his rebel army, there were many Liberians of other ethnic backgrounds who joined as well.

Doe responded by sending two AFL battalions, including the 1st Infantry Battalion,[4] to Nimba in December 1989-January 1990,[5] apparently under then-Colonel Hezekiah Bowen.[6] The AFL acted in a very brutal and scorched-earth fashion which quickly alienated the local people.

Tribal affiliations played a key role in the split between the Krahn, to which Doe and most of his adherents belonged, and the Gio and Mano people, who formed the bulk of the rebel forces. The rebel invasion soon pitted ethnic Krahn sympathetic to the Doe regime against those victimized by it, the Gio and the Mano. Thousands of civilians were massacred on both sides. Hundreds of thousands fled their homes.

By May 1990 the AFL had been forced back to Gbarnga, still under the control of Bowen's troops, but they lost the town to a NPFL assault on 28 May.[7] By June 1990, Taylor's forces were laying siege to Monrovia. In July 1990, Prince Yormie Johnson split from Taylor and formed the Independent National Patriotic Front (INPFL). The INPFL and NPFL continued their siege on Monrovia, which the AFL defended. Johnson quickly controlled parts of Monrovia prompting evacuation of foreign nationals and diplomats by the US Navy in August

In August 1990, the 16-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) agreed to deploy a joint military intervention force, the Economic Community Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), and place it under Nigerian leadership. The mission later included troops from non-ECOWAS countries, including Uganda and Tanzania. ECOMOG’s objectives were to impose a cease-fire; help Liberians establish an interim government until elections could be held; stop the killing of innocent civilians; and ensure the safe evacuation of foreign nationals. ECOMOG also sought to prevent the conflict from spreading into neighboring states, which share a complex history of state, economic, and ethno-linguistic social relations with Liberia.

Johnson’s INPFL and Taylor’s NPFL continued to struggle for control of Monrovia in the months that followed. With military discipline absent and bloodshed throughout the capital region, members of the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) created the Economic Community Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) to restore order. The force comprised some 4,000 troops from Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, the Gambia and Guinea. ECOMOG succeeded in bringing Taylor and Johnson to agree to its intervention, but Taylor's forces engaged it in the port area of Monrovia

In November 1990, ECOWAS invited the principal Liberian players to meet in Banjul, Gambia to form a government of national unity. The negotiated settlement established the Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU), led by Dr. Amos Sawyer, leader of the LPP. Bishop Ronald Diggs of the Liberian Council of Churches became vice president. However, Taylor's NPFL refused to attend the conference.

Within days, hostilities resumed. ECOMOG was reinforced in order to protect the interim government. Sawyer was able to establish his authority over most of Monrovia, but the rest of Liberia was in the hands of various factions of the NPFL or of local gangs.

The United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) was formed in June 1991 by supporters of the late President Samuel Doe and former Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) fighters who had taken refuge in Guinea and Sierra Leone. It was led by Raleigh Seekie, a deputy Minister of Finance in the Doe government.

After fighting alongside the Sierra Leonean army against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), ULIMO forces entered western Liberia in September 1991. The group scored significant gains in areas held by another rebel group – the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), notably around the diamond mining areas of Lofa and Bomi counties.

From its outset, ULIMO was beset with internal divisions and the group effectively broke into two separate militias in 1994: ULIMO-J, an ethnic Krahn faction led by General Roosevelt Johnson and ULIMO-K, a Mandingo-based faction led by Alhaji G.V. Kromah.The group was alleged to have committed serious violations of human rights, both before and after its breakup.

In 1993, ECOWAS brokered a peace agreement in Cotonou, Benin. Following this, on September 22, 1993, the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council established the U.N. Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL), to support ECOMOG in implementing this Cotonou peace agreement. UNOMIL in early 1994 deployed 368 military observers and associated civilian personnel to monitor implementation of the abortive Cotonou Peace Agreement, prior to elections originally planned for February/March 1994. Renewed armed hostilities, however, broke out in May 1994 and continued, becoming especially intense in July and August. ECOMOG, and later UNOMIL, members were captured and held hostage by some factions. By mid-1994, the humanitarian situation had become disastrous, with 1.8 million Liberians in need of humanitarian assistance. Conditions continued to deteriorate, but humanitarian agencies were unable to reach many in need due to hostilities and general insecurity. Factional leaders agreed in September 1994 to the Akosombo Agreement, a supplement to the Cotonou agreement, named after the Ghanaian town where it was signed, but the security situation in Liberia remained poor. In October 1994, in the face of ECOMOG funding shortfalls and a lack of will by the Liberian combatants to honor agreements to end the war, the Security Council reduced to about 90 the number of UNOMIL observers. It extended UNOMIL’s mandate, however, and subsequently extended it several times until September 1997. In December 1994, the factions and other parties signed the Accra Agreement, a supplement to the Akosombo Agreement, but disagreements ensued and fighting continued.

In August 1995, the main factions signed an agreement largely brokered by Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings. At a conference sponsored by ECOWAS, the United Nations and the United States, the European Union, and the Organization of African Unity, Charles Taylor agreed to a cease-fire and a timetable to demobilize and disarm his troops. At the beginning of September 1995, Liberia’s three principal warlords – Taylor, George Boley and Alhaji Kromah – made theatrical entrances into Monrovia. A ruling council of six members under civilian Wilton G. S. Sankawulo and with the three factional heads Charles Taylor, Alhaji Kromah and George Boley, took control of the country preparatory to elections that were originally scheduled for 1996.

Heavy fighting broke out again in April 1996. In August 1996, these battles were ended by the Abuja Accord in Nigeria, agreeing to disarmament and demobilization by 1997 and elections in July of that year. 3 September 1996, Sankawulo is followed by Ruth Perry as chairwoman of the ruling council, who served until 2 August 1997.

Liberians had voted for Taylor in the hope that he would end the bloodshed. The bloodshed did slow considerably, but it did not end. Violent events flared up regularly after the putative end of the war. Taylor, furthermore, was accused of backing guerrillas in neighboring countries and funneling diamond monies into arms purchases for the rebel armies he supported, and into luxuries for himself. After Taylor's victory, the country was peaceful enough so that refugees began to return. But other leaders were forced to leave the country, and some ULIMO forces reformed as the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). LURD began fighting in Lofa County with the aim of destabilizing the government and gaining control of the local diamond fields, leading to the Second Liberian Civil War.

In 1997, the Liberian people elected Charles Taylor as President after he entered the capital city, Monrovia, by force. The implicit unrest manifested during the late 1990s is emblematic in the sharp national economic decline and the prevalent sale of diamonds and timber in exchange for small arms.

The 1989-1996 Liberian civil war, which was one of Africa's bloodiest, claimed the lives of more than 200,000 Liberians and further displaced a million others into refugee camps in neighboring countries. Entire villages were emptied as people fled. Children soldiers committed atrocities, raping and murdering people of all ages.

Liberia's civil war claimed the lives of one out of every 17 people in the country, uprooted most of the rest, and destroyed a once-viable economic infrastructure. The strife also spread to Liberia's neighbors, contributing to a slowing of the democratization that was progressing steadily through West Africa at the beginning of the 1990s and destabilizing a region that already was one of the world's most marginal.

The Second Liberian Civil War began in 1999 and ended in October 2003, when UN and US military intervened to stop the rebel siege on Monrovia and exiled Charles Taylor to Nigeria until he was arrested in 2006 and taken to The Hague for his trial. By the conclusion of the final war, more than 250,000 people had been killed and nearly 1 million displaced. Half that number remain to be repatriated in 2005, at the election of Liberia's first democratic President since the initial 1980 coup d'état of Samuel Doe.

The new president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who initially was a strong supporter of Charles Taylor, was inaugurated in January 2006 and the National Transitional Government of Liberia terminated its power. After fourteen years of war, Liberians may be ready for development of basic services on peaceful terms, particularly electric current and primary infrastructure.

Now here are some things I was told in Liberia that happened during the first and second Liberian civil war. And some pictures.

During the second war I was told that a village out in Nimba county was captured by some of Taylor's army and they stayed there for a couple of days because the village had food (and they didn't really get a lot of food in the army). A couple days later the Prince Jhonsons army found them and killed every single person in the village because they thought that the village was helping Taylor's army in some way (but really they were forced to).

Also the captains and sergeants and other people in positions like that believed that they had to kill at least one person a day during or before battles, and if they didn't kill a person in battle they would kill someone in their own army!

They also thought that eating the hearts of an enemy soldier or even an Innocent civilian was good luck and both army's did that almost daily!