Members of the ‘Wrecking Crew’, a group of street fighters loyal to the NPFL, Monrovia, April 1996.
Bringing peace to Liberia
Max Ahmadu Sesay (1996)
On Christmas Eve in 1989, a few hundred armed fighters calling themselves the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) attacked border posts around the village of Butuo in Nimba County, north-eastern Liberia. These attacks, which launched a campaign to oust the dictatorship of President Samuel Doe, effectively triggered a war that has brought the almost complete destruction of Africa's oldest republic.
Once war broke out, it quickly spread to other parts of the country due largely to the brutal counter-insurgency strategy of the national army, the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL). By mid-1990, the NPFL, under Charles Taylor, had seized control of most of the country and had besieged the capital, Monrovia. The gruesome fighting in the city led to the massacre of civilians and attacks on foreign embassies which provoked an outcry from the international community. The most widely publicized cases were the attack by AFL soldiers on the United Nations compound on 30 May 1990, and their subsequent massacre of over 600 civilians at St. Peter's Lutheran Church on 30 July.
By September 1990, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had sent in its Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) to halt the carnage. However, the ceasefire signed in November broke down comprehensively in October 1992, when Taylor's fighters again attacked Monrovia and the peacekeeping force responded with heavy bombing raids. Events moved rapidly after this point, leading to the proliferation of armed factions, continued warfare, a string of national and international conferences and the signing of more peace agreements. By 1996, three successive interim governments had been installed with the help of the international community. Over a dozen peace accords have been acceded to by the various parties to the conflict, but none have established a lasting cessation of hostilities. Elections scheduled for August 1996, like many before them, have been postponed for at least nine months.
Roots of the conflict
Explanations for the outbreak of conflict in Liberia have mostly focused on the domestic socio-economic and political environment of the 1980s. The People's Redemption Council (PRC), headed by the almost untutored Master-Sergeant Samuel Doe, seized power in a bloody coup d'etat in April 1980 and promised a complete revolution of Liberian society. Initially seeking advice from civilian politicians and academics, Doe quickly learnt the cunning, deceit and realpolitik that had been the hallmarks of Liberian politics for decades. Having done so, he disavowed his original ideals and set himself on an inexorable path of self-destruction.
The reign of Doe was characterized by sustained levels of political violence, dramatic economic decline precipitated by widespread corruption, a lack of progress in political reform, and purges of real and imagined enemies. During 1980-87, GNP declined at an estimated average rate of 2.1% per annum, while GNP per head declined by an annual average of 5.2% (Europa Africa Yearbook, 1996). By 1988, Liberia's foreign debt stood at $1.4 billion and domestic debt at $507 million (Pereira-Lunghu, 1995). Capital flight and a weakened revenue position pushed the government to unwittingly embark on the printing of 'fiat money' to finance the fiscal deficit. Politically, the regime's brutality was demonstrated by the persistent haste with which those implicated in anti-government plots were eliminated. The tone was set early on, when 15 prominent politicians of the Tolbert government (1971-80) were publicly executed on a beach in Monrovia immediately following the coup.
Very soon, Doe came to trust no-one. Consequently, he adopted a policy of appointing members of his Krahn ethnic group to the top jobs in the bureaucracy, the public services, and the officer corps in the army and security forces. Though the poorly educated Krahn made up only four per cent of Liberia's pre-war population, Doe's policies dramatically increased their national profile and as late as 1995, at least eight out of 11 top positions in the AFL were Krahn (Nelson, 1984; Liebenow, 1987; Africa Watch, 1989; Sawyer, 1992). In 1985, rigged elections secured Doe the presidency at the head of a new 'civilian' government. In the aftermath of these elections, the President viciously suppressed an attempted military coup led by his former ally, Thomas Quiwonkpa. This action immediately raised alarm about a genocide against the Gio and Mano of Nimba County, home and power base of Quiwonkpa. Taylor, who was related by marriage to Quiwonkpa, benefitted from the alienation of the Nimba population as the Gio and Mano became willing recruits of the NPFL in 1990.
The primary confrontation at the start of the war was thus between the Krahn-dominated army, supported by the Mandingo who had helped prop up Doe's regime, and a rebel force backed by the Gio and Mano. Within a short period, the war degenerated from a calculated conflict for control of the state to a horrendous slaughter waged along ethnic lines (Berkeley, 1992; Ruiz, 1992).
Liberia's unresolved past
Looking beyond its immediate triggers, the Liberian conflict can be seen as the brutal culmination of the country's 'unresolved past'. The history of Liberia pre-1980 is literally the story of the arrival and success of freed North American slaves, resettled by the American colonization Society (ACS) along the present-day Monrovia coast in the mid 1900s. For almost a century and half, these 'Americo-Liberians' dominated the political, social and economic life of Liberia, in alliance with Africans liberated from slave ships bound for the Americas (the 'Congos'). They were able to achieve this through the institutions they created, such as the churches, judiciary, business associations, and other clubs and societies, notably the Grand Lodge of Freemasons. Their community was small in size, close-knit and culturally coherent, which was enhanced by intermarriages and by participation in the True Whig Party (TWP). The TWP, the Americo-Liberians' ultimate source of wealth, status and employment, governed Liberia for over a century.
Under the rule of the settlers, indigenous Liberians were treated as second-class citizens. Although comprising over 95% of the population, they were consistently excluded from the decision-making processes that affected their lives. This situation was improved to some extent during the rule of William Tubman (1947-71), in which the property rights qualifications which had disenfranchised the masses were removed (Clapham, 1976; 1978; Lowenkopf, 1976; Justice and Peace Commission, 1994). The government of William Tolbert (1971-80) continued to pursue integrationist policies, unifying the coastal settlements and indigenous hinterland, broadening participation in government and instituting an 'Open Door' policy that eventually brought a measure of development to the interior. These reforms were long overdue however and they soon gave vent to a deep well of resentment which erupted into full-scale violence in early 1980.
Thus while the civil war was sparked off by the excesses of the Doe regime, its roots run deep in Liberian history. The civil war can perhaps be seen as just one link in a long chain of events by which an exclusionary political establishment might one day be replaced with a more democratic order (Nelson, 1993). This, together with economic hardship, explains the popular euphoria that greeted both the 1980 coup and the NPFL invasion in 1989.
The costs of war
The Liberian conflict is a striking example of contemporary warfare, involving the use of irregular armies and guerrilla tactics. Fighters use mostly light weapons, lack air cover and are bloodthirsty and unprofessional. Superstitious practices abound with masked fighters often clad in pyjamas, dressed as women and adorned with 'juju' (black magic) which is supposed to render them invisible, invincible or bullet-proof (Riley, 1993). There have been several large-scale massacres, allegations of cannibalism, cases of pregnant women disembowelled, and ethnocidal killings carried out by all parties (Ellis, 1995; Africa Watch, 1990; 1991). The rape and sexual abuse of women and girls has also been widespread.
Among the many flagrant human rights violations, abuse of children has been especially common. Various estimates put the total number of Liberian soldiers below the age of 15 at around 6,000, approximately 10 per cent of all fighters. It is further estimated that around 20 per cent of the militias are between the ages of 15 and 17 (Human Rights Watch, 1994). Child soldiers have engaged in various forms of imitative violence inculcated from routine exposure to brutality, reinforced by repeated showings of 'Rambo' and 'Kung Fu' videos, and further facilitated by the regular abuse of drugs (Richards, 1995). The World Health organization (WHO) reported in 1994 that nearly two thirds of high school students in Liberia had seen someone killed, tortured or raped and that 77 per cent had lost a close relative. Trauma on this scale leaves deep scars on a country's collective psyche. It is this high human cost of the war that many see as the greatest challenge for the healing process of the twenty-first century (Sesay, 1996b).
While the factions have exploited Liberia's natural resources throughout the war, the long-term decline of the formal economy has intensified rapidly, further undermining state revenues. This collapse of state and economy has both reflected and reinforced a comprehensive destruction of Liberian infrastructure. Basic amenities such as electricity, water supply and medical services have broken down and many Liberians have come to depend on international relief for their subsistence. Because the official export sector has been dormant, foreign exchange has also become scarce, its availability depending crucially on expatriates such as ECOMOG, the United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) and relief workers. The security situation has further affected transhipment activity, as insurance rates for ships docking in Monrovia have risen dramatically. Those ships that have managed to dock have often had to depart without cargo. In short, Monrovia's traditional attraction as a 'free port' has been hit hard.
A final devastating impact of the war has been the massive displacement of Liberia's population. In early 1995, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) put the figures at over 850,000 refugees across West Africa (471,100 in Guinea, 360,000 in Cote d'Ivoire, 16,000 in Sierra Leone, 14,000 in Ghana and 4,200 in Nigeria), with over a million internally displaced and 150,000 dead. While these figures are very rough estimates, it is clear that the displaced represent a significant majority of Liberia's 2.6 million pre-war population. Moreover, the process of displacement is continuous and ongoing, with the recent bloodshed in Monrovia providing fresh impetus (UNHCR, 1995; Ruiz, 1992).
Conflict dynamics
Factional proliferation
As the Liberian conflict has progressed, the number of warring factions has grown from two to as many as eight. On occasion, factions have splintered due to internal tensions arising from a complex mix of strategic differences and personality clashes. Prince Yormie Johnson, for example, broke from the NPFL in 1990 due to profound personal differences with Taylor. The official position of his Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) was that the split had emerged from arguments over the ultimate goals of the rebel movement. Johnson's propaganda slogan was the 'gun that liberates should not rule' (Johnson, 1991), a direct challenge to Taylor's openly expressed presidential ambitions. Internal dissent within the NPFL resurfaced in 1994, when another breakaway group, the NPFL Central Revolutionary Council (NPFL-CRC), was formed. The leaders, mostly founders of the parent organization, such as Tom Woewiyu, Sam Dokie and Lavell Supuwood, voiced concern over its lack of direction and vision, and about Taylor's abandonment of his supposed ideals.
Part of the explanation for the proliferation of factions also lies in the ethnic divisions that characterize the conflict. Ethnic identification in Liberia has always been significant but in recent years, it has become increasingly so as faction leaders have manipulated it to aid recruitment and mobilization. The United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia (ULIMO) was fsormed in Sierra Leone in 1991, comprising mostly Mandingo and Krahn refugees, many of whom had served in the AFL. Because of their national and regional connections, ULIMO initially had the support of the AFL, the Sierra Leonean military government, and of key figures in the ECOMOG hierarchy. Its initial aims were to prevent Taylor from attaining power through the use of force and to protect the shared political interests of the Krahn, the Mandingo and their regional sponsors. By 1994 however, a split had occurred over the allocation of ULIMO posts in the Transitional Government. This led to the formation of a mostly Krahn wing led by Roosevelt Johnson (ULIMO-J) and a predominantly Mandingo faction under the leadership of Alhaji Kromah (ULIMO-K).
Later in the war, other factions emerged to defend ethnic and local interests, though often at the behest of the larger armed groups. The Lofa Defence Force (LDF), was one such faction, formed with NPFL cooperation to resist ULIMO aggression in Lofa County. The Bong Defence Force (BDF) was another, which had links with ULIMO-K. However, the most powerful of these new factions was the Liberia Peace Council (LPC), which emerged in October 1993 and is led by Dr. George Boley. The LPC, formed with the collaboration of top-level AFL and ECOMOG personnel, served mainly to protect Krahn interests, as the Mandingos in ULIMO were unwilling 'to spill blood to liberate Grand Gedeh (the county where most of the Krahn live)' from NPFL control (Human Rights Watch/Africa, 1994).
The spoils
Pre-war Liberia was an unusually rentier state, with most of its income coming from maritime services and from foreign exploitation of rubber, agricultural, forestry and mineral resources. Through their control of most of the country in the early years of the war, the NPFL denied the official government in Monrovia access to most of this income apart from that derived from shipping. In doing so, they undermined what remained of the pre-war state and, in its place, built their 'National Patriotic Reconstruction Assembly Government' (NPRAG).
This alternative administration followed the logic of both Doe and the Americo-Liberians, 'privatizing' Liberia's resources and remaining accountable to no one (Reno, 1995). According to allegations of corruption among civilian transitional leaders, the official wartime regimes in Monrovia were also not entirely averse to pursuing such a logic. The enduring ambition of most of the faction leaders is to succeed the transitional regimes into the presidential palace. Assuming peace is secured, such an ascendancy would guarantee total command of Liberia's resources and the amassing of wealth on a grand scale.
In the meantime however, faction leaders and their 'strongmen' have been engaged in an accumulation of personal wealth which itself forms a crucial dynamic of the conflict. There has been ruthless exploitation of Liberia's forestry, mineral and other natural resources for the purposes of self-enrichment and for the financing and arming of private militias.
'Greater Liberia', the countryside beyond Monrovia controlled for a long time by the NPFL, was practically run as a business. Some of Taylor's commercial links, especially in the early years of the war, were with the British and French firms involved in iron ore mining in the region. African Mining Consortium Ltd., a British firm, was reported to have paid him $10 million a month for permission to transport ore on an existing railroad. French firms were also heavily involved in timber exports from the NPFL, largely through Cote d'Ivoire. In more recent years, smaller private firms have been willing to offer Taylor weapons, communications facilities and military training in return for access to timber that larger competitors were unwilling or unable to exploit. Diamonds illicitly mined in Sierra Leone, estimated at $100 million a year, have also found their way into the hands of various NPFL and ULIMO strongmen.
Even ECOMOG became involved in illicit business dealings after the capture of Buchanan from the NPFL in 1993. According to one source, 'they have concentrated on stripping the country of fixed assets - railroad stock, mining equipment, public utilities - and selling them abroad'. The LPC, with the backing of some Nigerian ECOMOG soldiers, operates a rubber plantation firm that exported about 3,000 tons of rubber through Buchanan in 1994, netting an estimated $1.5 million (Reno, 1993; 1996). These are the resources that have helped fuel the war and have made disarmament difficult.
Regional machinations
Given the large flows of refugees, the competitive jockeying between West African regional powers and the fact that economic activity and ethnic identification frequently blur national boundaries, it was always spurious to view the Liberian war as a purely internal matter. Indeed, in its very earliest days, the NPFL was a multinational force, composed of exiled dissidents from across the region who threatened to export Taylor's 'revolution' to neighbouring states once success had been achieved in Liberia. What also became public knowledge early on was that the NPFL had received support from Libya, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire. Libya had provided weapons, military training and oil, Burkina Faso had contributed men and training facilities, while Cote d'Ivoire was the major conduit for supplies and reinforcements.
In 1991, the war spilled into Sierra Leone where NPFL-backed rebels in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) launched an anti-government insurrection. By this time, the swift manner in which the NPFL had over-run Liberia and the possibility of a domino effect had already helped spur a forceful regional intervention in the crisis. This intervention, spearheaded by ECOMOG, was largely the initiative of the nervous anglophone powers.