Liberian Civil War I: 1989-1997

Summary: From the end of 1989 until the middle of 1997 Liberia was devastated by a prolonged civil war fought among rival warlords who also represented ethnic (or "tribal") resentments. The origins of the war lay in a military mutiny in 1980 that ushered in nine years of brutal rule by the dictator Samuel Doe. On Christmas Eve 1989 a member of the Americo-Liberian ruling class, Charles Taylor, invaded Liberia with a guerrilla army that within nine months had reached the capital, Monrovia. A splinter faction seized Doe and executed him and all but one member of his cabinet. Despite the overthrow of Doe, the rival factions were unable to reach an agreement on a new government despite the intervention of a West African peace-keeping force. A series of interim governments and peace agreements broke down until 1996, when the warring parties agreed on elections to be held in 1997, in which Charles Taylor easily won the presidency. By then, an estimated 150,000 (or more) Liberians had died, and up to two-thirds of the population had been forced to flee the fighting, which also devastated the country's economy, driving 80% of the population into poverty.

From Christmas Eve 1989 until 1997 Liberia was engulfed in what turned out to be the first of two civil wars that followed in short succession. The first civil war began with attacks on the government led by Charles Taylor, a former minister for purchases under President Samuel Doe, a former Liberian Army Sergeant who seized power in a military coup in 1980. The civil war broadened when a former ally of Taylor, Prince Johnson, entered the fray at the head of a group that splintered from Taylor's. Eventually a truce was negotiated in 1995 in Abuja, Nigeria, which provided for installation of Taylor as president.

During the six years of warfare, the Liberian conflict took on aspects of tribal warfare, with divisions between the contending leaders of armed factions essentially representing different tribes, or alliances of tribes, including Americo-Liberians, or direct ancestors of the former American slaves who founded Liberia in the nineteenth century. The war also brought intervention by neighboring West African states in the form of the West African Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), of which Nigeria was the largest supplier of troops. Rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone were active at about the same time, and Charles Taylor was accused of helping finance their rebellion, as well as leading the largest force of rebels in Liberia.

The first civil war ended in early 1997 with election of Taylor as president of Liberia; he was credited with winning 75% of the vote. The first civil war resulted in the deaths of more than 150,000 people (including about 50,000 children) and the forced relocation of about two-thirds of the population (of about 2.7 million). The war devastated the economy, leaving many businesses shattered and causing most foreign investors to leave the country.

No clear ideological or religious distinctions were apparent during the civil war. The war seemed to begin with widespread satisfaction with the government of Doe. The chief rebel, and eventually president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, was alleged to have received military training in Libya in the late 1980s, but religion was not a factor in the Liberian war. As fighting went on, there were clear tribal distinctions between soldiers of Doe, Taylor, and Johnson. Doe was a member of the Krahn ethnic group, long predominant in rural Liberia, and his government from 1980-1990 was dominated by fellow Krahns. Taylor's father was an Americo-Liberian and his mother a member of the Gola tribe; Taylor later added a Gola name, becoming Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor, to increase his credibility as a member of an indigenous group. No previous grievances were resolved during the fighting, nor did Taylor's election as president mark the end of conflict. A second civil war (see separate Background Information Summary in this database) broke out two years after his election.

Key Players

Samuel Doe (b. 1950 or 1951; Doe allegedly changed his birth certificate in order to be eligible to become president in 1985), a master sergeant in the Liberian army in 1980 and highest-ranking member of a military coup by non-commissioned officers who overthrew elected President William R. Tolbert, Jr., ending a century of rule by the Liberian Whig Party, dominated by Americo-Liberians (direct descendants of American slaves who founded Liberia) and the country's only legal party since 1878. Early in 1980 Tolbert's opponents had been recognized as a legitimate opposition party, and in March they called for Tolbert's overthrow. In April 1980 soldiers led by Doe overthrew the government and executed Tolbert, along with about a dozen other officials. Doe's People's Redemption Council suspended the constitution and assumed powers of both the executive and legislative branches. Doe was a member of the Krahn ethnic group, which was predominant in rural areas. Political parties were banned until 1984. Elections, in which fraud and vote-rigging was widely reported, were held in October 1985, with Doe's National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL) declared the winner. The Krahns were increasingly dominant in both the military and in Doe's government, which had a reputation for brutality.

Charles Taylor (b. January 1948), who was director of the General Services Agency under Doe from 1980 and 1983, was removed from the post on accusations of embezzlement. Taylor, the son of an Americo-Liberian father and a mother of the indigenous Gola ethnic group. Taylor had been educated in the United States, and while there became active in a group of exile students opposed to the government of Tolbert. His credentials as an economics major led to his appointment as head of the General Services Agency, responsible for all purchases by Doe's government. After he was accused of embezzling over $1 million Taylor briefly returned to the United States, then apparently went to Libya where he received military training at a camp sponsored by Muammar Qaddafi. Taylor returned to Libya from the Ivory Coast on Christmas Eve 1989 as head of a guerrilla army numbering between 100 and 500 fighters calling itself the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), largely comprising members of the Mano and Gio ethnic groups, intent on overthrowing the dictatorial Samuel Doe.

Prince Yormie Johnson (Ed. note: "Prince" is Johnson's first name), a former Liberian army military policeman and intelligence officer who eventually was promoted to the rank of captain. As a politician, he made common cause with Charles Taylor until forming a splinter group, the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). Johnson was a member of the Gio ethnic group (sometimes called "tribe"), bitter foes of Samuel Doe's Krahns. Johnson was arrested in 1985 during a failed coup attempt led by General Thomas Quiwonkpa, but managed to escape to the Ivory Coast, where he joined Taylor in forming a guerrilla force to remove Doe from office. In September 1990, nine months into the civil war, Johnson split with Taylor over Johnson's alleged oversight of executing several rebels whom Johnson accused of looting. As a result of this falling-out Johnson left Taylor's group and organized a separate group of about 600 well-disciplined fighters. Johnson's group entered the capital, Monrovia, arrested Doe and executed him, then mutilated his body. Johnson also threatened to execute foreigners in Monrovia, which led to dispatch of a detachment of United States Marines to escort Americans from the city. After the negotiated end to the first civil war, Johnson became a Liberian senator.

Amos Sawyer, named to head the Government of National Unity (IGNU) after Doe's murder. Sawyer was president in name only, since his appointment did not mark the end of fighting between rival forces.

Alhaji Kromah, formerly information minister under Samuel Doe, leader of the United Liberation Movement for Democracy (ULIMO), which organized in Guinea and Sierra Leone and entered the fighting against Taylor's forces in April 1991.

George Boley, a former junior minister under William Tolbert and later a cabinet minister under Samuel Doe, organized the Liberia Peace Council in 1993, fighting against Taylor.

Roosevelt Johnson, initially a member of ULIMO who led a splinter faction, the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy-Johnson Faction (ULIMO-J).

ECOMOG, a force of about 4,000 troops sent to Liberia in August 1990 by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) at the request of Samuel Doe to the president of Nigeria. ECOMOG failed to protect Doe from being captured and executed, nor was it able to impose a peace in Nigeria until an agreement negotiated in Nigeria in 1996 (see Condensed Chronology below). Nevertheless ECOMOG did represent collective action by West African states to stem fighting in one country of the region. ECOMOG was also active in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone (see separate Background Information Summary on Sierra Leone Civil War 1991-2001).

Condensed Chronology of the first Liberian Civil war

The roots of the Liberian civil war lie in a coup, in 1980, by a group of 18 non-commissioned officers of the Liberian army, of whom Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe was the highest ranking. The incumbent president, William Tolbert, and all but one member of his cabinet were executed. Doe later became president after an election in 1985, widely regarded as fraudulent. Years of brutal dictatorial rule by Doe, whose ethnic group, the Krahns, dominated his government, have been likened to the rule of such notorious dictators as Idi Amin in Uganda.

The first civil war started on Christmas Eve 1989 when Charles Taylor, at the head of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, entered Liberia from neighboring Ivory Coast.

In September 1990 a breakaway group, the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia, led by former Taylor ally Prince Johnson, entered Monrovia, and captured Doe who, along with all but one cabinet member, was executed. A peace-keeping force from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), failed to protect Doe.

The next month, October 1990, ECOWAS negotiated a settlement to establish an interim government headed by politician and academic Amos Sawyer. Taylor. However, rebels refused to recognize the authority of the interim government and continued fighting.

In January 1991, Taylor-whose soldiers control about 90% of the country, forms a government based in Gbarnga, in central Liberia. In February an agreement is reached in Lome, Togo (the Lome Agreement), that would permit ECOMOG peace-keepers to be deployed throughout Liberia; it is never implemented. In April 1991 a group of Doe loyalists calling themselves the United Liberation Movement for Democracy (ULIMO), led by former Information Minister Alhaji Kromah, invades Liberia to fight Taylor.

In October 1992 Taylor's forces attack the ECOMOG peace-keepers and the interim government in the capital, Monrovia.

Taylor's rebels met representatives of ULIMO in Geneva and sign a cease-fire agreement in July 1993. A week later, another peace agreement, this one mediated by ECOWAS and the Organization of African Unity, is signed in Benin. Plans are made for a new transitional government that will organize elections in February 1994. The elections do not take place. In September 1994 yet another peace agreement, also mediated by ECOWAS, is signed in Akosombo, Ghana, by all the warring parties. The agreement calls for a five-member council to organize elections in October 1995. Three months later, in December 1994, another peace conference is organized in Accra, Ghana, and agree on elections, this time scheduled for November 1995.

Instead of those elections, in September 1995 three competing military leaders-Taylor (National Patriotic Front of Liberia ), Kromah (ULIMO) and Boley (Liberia Peace Council) become members of a "collective presidency" to lead a transitional government.

In April 1996 fighting erupted in Monrovia between the forces of Taylor and Kromah on one side and fighters loyal to Johnson on the other. Four months later, in August 1996, a peace conference sponsored by ECOWAS in Abuja, Nigeria, resulted in a peace agreement among all warring factions. The agreement called for disarmament, supervised by ECOMOG, in November 1996 and elections on May 30, 1997.

On July 19, 1997, elections were held, resulting in an overwhelming victory by Charles Taylor. He was sworn into a six-year term on August 4, 1997. His National Patriotic Party also won large majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, bringing the first Liberian civil war to a close.

Aftermath: Peace was short-lived. Two years after Taylor was sworn in, a new rebel group invaded Liberia from Guinea, launching the second Liberian civil war (see separate Background Information Summary in this database). At the end of the first civil war, about 80% of Liberians were living in poverty. Much of the nation's economy had ground to a halt.

Bibliography

Bøås, Morten. "The Liberian Civil War: New War/Old War?" Global Society: Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations. 19:1 (January 2005) 16p. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=15751861&site=ehost-live

Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson. "The Causes and Consequences of the Liberian Civil War." Harvard International Review 13:3 (Spring 1991) 4p. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=9710150880&site=ehost-live