Second Liberian Civil War
This article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject.(August 2020) |
Second Liberian Civil War | |||||||
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Part of the Liberian Civil Wars and spillover of the Sierra Leone Civil War | |||||||
Unidentified Liberian rebel fighters, including child soldiers, during the Second Liberian Civil War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
RUF RDFG |
Guinea United Kingdom United States | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Charles Taylor Benjamin Yeaten Chucky Taylor Sam Bockarie |
Gyude Bryant Sekou Conneh Thomas Nimely Lansana Conté | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
1,250–1,500 (2002)[2] FAL: 11,000—14,000 (2002) 12,000 (2003)[3] Militias: 16,000 (2003)[3] |
(2003):[3] 35,000 LURD 14,000 MODEL | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
~50,000 killed[4] |
The Second Liberian Civil War was a civil war in the West African nation of Liberia that lasted from 1999 to 2003.
President
The Second Liberian Civil War resulted in the deaths of over 50,000 people and the
Overview
Background
The
Taylor won a
LURD invasion
The second civil war began in April 1999, when Liberian dissidents under the banner of the Organization of Displaced Liberians invaded Liberia from Guinea.
Also important in forming LURD was an alliance, brokered by ECOMOG-SL Nigerian chief General Maxwell Khobe, between Liberian dissidents and the Sierra Leonean Kamajors hunter militia, including chiefs Samuel Hinga Norman and Eddie Massally.[6] Against the dissidents Taylor deployed irregular ex-National Patriotic Front of Liberia fighters with his more privileged units, such as the Anti-Terrorist Unit, positioned to ensure the irregulars did fight.
Simultaneous September 2000 counter-attacks on Guinea from Liberia and Sierra Leone by RUF – still loyal to Taylor and Guinean dissidents – achieved initial success.[7] By January 2001, however, Taylor's forces were pushed back inside Sierra Leone and Liberia. The insurgents were posing a major threat to the Taylor government. Liberia was now engaged in a complex three-way conflict with Sierra Leone and the Guinea Republic.
By the beginning of 2002, both of these countries were supporting LURD, while Taylor was supporting various opposition factions in both countries. By supporting — practically creating — the SL rebels, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Taylor also drew the enmity of the British and Americans. British and U.S. pressure on Taylor increased with rising financial support for Guinea and U.S./U.K.-proposed sanctions, a weaker version of which were imposed by U.N. Security Council May 2001.
Rebels approach Monrovia
By mid-February 2002 LURD troops were just 44 kilometres from Monrovia, at Klay Junction, and Taylor was forced to declare a state of emergency.[8] The February 2002 ICG report says that this attack was made by pursuing ‘a strategy of infiltration of south-western Liberia through the thick bush of Southern Lofa, looping around government strongholds and disrupting supply lines... while LURD claims between 300 and 500 men were assigned to that mission, ... the number that actually attacked was likely closer to twenty.’ Any image of a large force gradually pushing toward Monrovia is mistaken; ‘hit and run’ raids, rather than a continuous advance, seem to have been the pattern.[9]
Through the first half of 2002 LURD mounted raids in Bomi, Bong, and Montserrado counties, hitting, in addition to Klay Junction, Gbarnga and Tubmanburg, each time temporarily seizing control from government fighters.[9] In May, an attack on Arthington, less than 20 kilometres from the capital, apparently prompted panic in Monrovia. The state of emergency was lifted in September 2002, after, the government claimed, the township of Bopolu had been retaken.[10]
In early 2003, a second rebel group, the Ivoirian-backed Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), emerged in the south, and by the summer of 2003, Taylor's government controlled only a third of the country. Despite some setbacks, by mid-2003 LURD controlled the northern third of the country and was threatening the capital. The capital Monrovia was besieged by LURD, and that group's shelling of the city resulted in the deaths of many civilians. Thousands of people were displaced from their homes as a result of the conflict.
A new bout of fighting began in March 2003 after a relative lull and by early May, LURD and MODEL had gained control of nearly two-thirds of the country, and were threatening Monrovia. Regional and wider pressure led to the convening of a conference in Accra by the then Chair of the
Siege of Monrovia (July–August 2003)
By July 2003 Monrovia appeared to be in danger of being occupied and devastated despite ongoing peace talks.[11] The U.S. established Joint Task Force Liberia, built around a U.S. navy amphibious group with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard, positioned off the West African coast.
In July 2003 the United States (US) sent a small number of troops to bolster security around the US embassy in Monrovia, which had come under attack during
On 29 July 2003, LURD declared a ceasefire.[12] ECOWAS sent two battalions of Nigerian peacekeepers to Liberia. The first Nigerian battalion detached from the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, and the second came from Nigeria itself.[13]
President Taylor resigns (August 2003)
President Taylor resigned on 11 August 2003, ahead of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which formed the negotiated end to the war, and was flown into exile in Nigeria. An arrest warrant for Taylor for war crimes committed by his RUF rebel allies in Sierra Leone was later issued by Interpol but Nigeria refused to deport him for a time unless they receive a specific request from Liberia. Vice-President Moses Blah replaced Taylor.
On 14 August, rebels lifted their siege of Monrovia and 200 United States Marines landed to support a West African peace force. Thousands of people danced and sang as American troops and ECOMIL, the Nigerian-led West African forces, took over the port and bridges which had split the capital into government and rebel-held zones. An estimated 1,000 people had been killed in Monrovia between 18 July and 14 August.[14]
Moses Blah handed over power to the National Transitional Government of Liberia on 14 October 2003. However, the transitional government exercised no real authority in the country, 80% of which was controlled by the rebel groups. Riots in Monrovia left approximately 16 people dead, with sources claiming that former combatants were behind the violence.[15]
Child soldiers
Both LURD and Charles Taylor made extensive use of children press ganged into military service as soldiers or ammunition porters. The use of child soldiers was prolific by both sides, regardless of prohibitions of the practice in the
Drugs made up an integral part of Liberian wartime culture. Child soldiers and other combatants were routinely addicted to cocaine, khat, and other drugs as a means of control. Several warlords felt that cocaine made soldiers more effective in battle.[17]
United Nations peacekeeping
In November 1997, following the completion of the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia
On 11 September 2003, UN Secretary General
The bulk of the personnel were armed military troops, but there were also civilian policemen, as well as political advisers and humanitarian aid workers. On 1 October, the first peacekeepers changed their berets and became a UN force, with many more troops earmarked. During three days of riots in Monrovia in October 2004, nearly 400 people were wounded and 15 killed. The UN slowly built up its forces in the country, with 5,500 projected to be in place by November 2003, and worked to disarm the various factions. However, instability in neighbouring countries, an incomplete disarmament process, and general discontent threatened Liberia's fragile peace.
Women of Liberia
A group of Liberian women headed by Leymah Gbowee formed an organization called "Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace" and forced a meeting with President Charles Taylor, extracting a promise from him to attend peace talks in Ghana. A delegation of women organized nonviolence protests and continued to apply pressure on the warring factions during the peace process. They staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace, bringing about an agreement during the stalled peace talks.[18] Their creative non-violent protest allowed them to use the power within women and mothers of Liberia; tactics included a sex strike until their men chose to set aside weapons, and threatening to undress during a sit in outside the peace talks in Ghana.[19]
Working together, over 3,000
Among the women leaders who helped end the civil war was Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who would become the first modern elected female head of state in Africa when she was elected in 2005.[22] Her election was inspired by the powerful commitment of women who had seen the war perpetuated by men in their country and were unwilling to put a man back into that powerful role.[23] This was despite the fact that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's role in triggering the war in the 1980s had hampered her presidential prospects in the 1990s. While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had recommended that she be banned from participating in politics for 30 years, she was re-elected for a second term in 2011.[24]
See also
- Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders (documentary film about Médecins Sans Frontières's work in Liberia after the war)
General:
References
- Specific
- ProQuest 219282049.
- ^ Africa South of the Sahara 2004. Europa Publications, Routledge. 2003. p. 608.
In October 2002 the ONU panel of Expert reported that some 1,250-1,500 former RUF combatants continued to operate in élite Liberian military units, under the command of Liberian General Benjamin Yeaten, but with continuing loyalty to Bockarie.
- ^ a b c Escola de Cultura de Pau. Liberia (inglés) pp. 3
- ^ De re Militari: muertos en Guerras, Dictaduras y Genocidios
- ^ International Crisis Group, ‘Liberia: The Key to Ending Regional Instability,’ 24 April 2002, p.8
- ^ a b ICG, ‘Liberia: The Key to Ending Regional Instability,’ 24 April 2002, p.3
- ^ "International Crisis Group - Conflict prevention and resolution". Archived from the original on 26 June 2007. Retrieved 15 October 2009.
- ^ International Crisis Group, April 2002, p.7, Adebayo, Liberia's Civil War, 2002, p.235
- ^ a b Mats Utas, Fluid Research Fields: Studying Excombatant Youth in the Aftermath of the Liberian Civil War, p.213, in Chapter 11, Children and Youth on the Front Line: ethnography, armed conflict and displacement, Dr Jo Boyden & J. de Berry, Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2004.
- ^ BBC News Africa, ‘Liberia ends state of emergency,’ Saturday, 14 September 2002.
- ^ S/2003/875, para 9, see also Dr T. Jaye, Liberia: an analysis of post-Taylor politics, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 30, Issue 98, Dec 2003
- ^ Agencies (29 July 2003). "Liberian rebels declare ceasefire". Theguardian.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
- ^ "Peacekeepers 'rushing' to Liberia". Theguardian.com. 24 July 2003. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
- ^ "Rebels Lift Siege of Starving Monrovia – General". Redorbit.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
- ^ "Liberia profile - Timeline". BBC News. 2011-06-10. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
- ^ "Bank's Services for Arms Dealers in Conflict with Its Own Policy – International Consortium of Investigative Journalists". Icij.org. 10 February 2015. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
- ^ "The VICE Guide to Liberia". Vice. Archived from the original on 28 August 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
- ^ "African women look within for change". Edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
- ^ Ford, Tamasin (22 January 2018). "Did Liberia's first female leader make a difference?". BBC News. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
- ^ "Bill Moyers Journal . PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL – PBS". Pbs.org. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
- ^ "mediaglobal.org". Mediaglobal.org. Archived from the original on 10 July 2010. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
- ^ "Ellen Johnson Sirleaf". Academy of Achievement. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
- General
- International Crisis Group, ‘Liberia: The Key to Ending Regional Instability,’ 24 April 2002
- Gerdes, Felix: Civil War and State Formation: The Political Economy of War and Peace in Liberia, Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag & University of Chicago Press, 2013
Further reading
- Käihkö, Ilmari. "Bush Generals and Small Boy Battalions: Military Cohesion in Liberia and Beyond." (PhD thesis, Uppsala, 2016).