Conflict and Reconstruction in Africa: The Case of Liberia.

Africa had some peace dividends following the end of the Cold War – Namibia gained its independence; Apartheid ended in South Africa, the conflict in Mozambique was resolved, while several African states transited from authoritarian (one party/military) regimes to multi-party governance. But a far more striking feature of the first decade of post Cold War Africa has been the upsurge in violent internal conflicts. Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congo Republic etc. Not only is the roll call of these wars distressingly long but they have also occurred in very swift succession (Schram 1995:7l, Amoo 1997:1).

There is no doubt that internal violent conflict is not new to Africa, but the post Cold War civil conflicts in Africa have become so phenomenal that they have been described as ‘new wars’ (Kaldor et.al. 1997). Such conflicts challenge our conventional wisdom of the nature of wars and their aftermath (Collelta et. al. 1998:5). They are waged not by professional armies but by youthful combatants with little or no professional training. Civilians are deliberately targeted resulting in a dramatically high ratio of civilian, compared to military casualties. They tend to be more pervasive, more destructive but less decisive. Formal peace agreements are rarely fully implemented with the result than there is a prolonged period of half war and half peace (Kaldor et. al 1997:8-14; Collelta et. al. 1998:5-8). Not only do they have spillover on neigbouring states but also in the new wars seizure of resources like diamonds, gold and timber appear to be more important than military victories (Allen 1999:371).

Though the genealogy and dimensions of conflicts in Africa are quite complex and varied one major contribution factor in the post Cold War era has been the ending of the Cold War itself. The end of the Cold War removed the global tapestry capable of suppressing, containing and managing the under-currents of conflicts in the respective spheres of the super powers; left African marginalized and made available mercenaries and weapons of destruction (Adejumobi 2001:77; Kieh 1998:151). Such conflicts, however, do not just happen overnight rather they have deep roots in the histories of the states concerned and the result of a long term degenerative process (Lemarchand 1988:7; Zartman 1995:1).

Towards the end of the 1990s, a number of the above mentioned conflicts were seemingly resolved with a return to a semblance of democratic governance. Though countries’ transition out of war into real peace is slow, painful and financially expensive, it is worth nurturing if we are to avert renewed conflicts (Kumar 1997:Backcover).

The Liberian experience provides a useful case study for examining conflict, peace settlement and reconstruction.

Up to 1980, Liberia had existed as a state for nearly one and half centuries and had cloaked itself in a number of accolades, such as "an oasis of tranquility in a continent awash with political crises and civil wars"; "an African outpost of Western civilization"; and "Africa’s longest republic". In addition, Liberia, a country with pre war population of about 2.1 million (1984 Census) and rich in natural resources, should, all things being equal, have provided a welfare, rather than a warfare, system for its citizenry (Frempong 2001:1).

However, a bloody coup d’etat in 1980 and a rebel incursion almost a decade later in 1989 set Liberia on the road to self destruction. The incursion degenerated into a bloody civil war which continued for seven years and exhibited the major characteristics of state collapse – a paralysed and inoperative central authority; inability to guarantee the security of its citizenry and a destroyed socio-economic system.

The war which began with two parties soon spawned several warring factions with each warlord carving a "colony" out of Liberian territory and fighting for a seat at the peace conference table.

The peace process attracted, in an unprecedented manner in Africa, global, regional and sub-regional involvement (through the UN, OAU and ECOWAS respectively). After a score of peace conferences and more than a dozen failed accords, Liberia returned to a fragile peace in 1997. As part of the peace settlement, the first post-war election in July 1997 gave a massive 75% victory to the initiator of the rebellion, Charles Taylor, whose war-machine, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), had been turned into a political party, the National Patriotic Party (NPP).

On the face of things such as overwhelming mandate seemed a recipe for post-war stability in Liberia. But would the Taylor administration be able to shed its bloody image to reconcile Liberians and garner enough local human and material resources to reconstruct Liberia? Would the government be able to attract the needed dose of international assistance? What would account for the relapse into violent conflict barely three years down the path of post conflict peacebuilding?

It is the contention of this paper that the roots of the Liberian crisis laid deep in the contradictions of its history and the success or failure of the post conflict reconstruction has been a function of the depth of war-related hostility and its impact on the political social and economic circumstances of the local actors, the nature of the peace settlement and the availability of international assistance.

This paper is organized into six parts. Part one which is this introduction, provides a background discourse on the issue of post Cold War conflict in both African and Liberian context. The second section is a theoretical analysis of conflict, peace settlement and post conflict reconstruction. Part three makes a post mortem of Liberia’s history up to 1989 to unearth the contradictions at the root of the crisis. Part four focuses on the dynamics of the conflict and how it impacted on the peace settlement. The post conflict reconstruction and the relapse into conflict are discussed in part five. The paper ends by distilling some guiding principles from the Liberian tragedy as a contribution to the debate on conflict and reconstruction in Africa.

Coser (1956:3) defines conflict as "a struggle over values or claims to status, power and scarce resources in which the aims of the conflicting parties are not only to gain the desired values but also to neutralize, injure or terminate their rivals". This definition emphasizes the destructive aspect of conflict. That is, the opposing parties in their attempt to achieve their goals try to neutralize their competitors or even to destroy them. But Stedman (1991:370) is of the view that conflict does not necessarily lead to violence (or the destruction of the opponent). Instead, it is when peaceful mechanisms for pursuing competing interests fail that violence is resorted to. As he puts it: "Although conflict may turn violent, violence is not an inherent aspect of conflict but rather a potential form that violence may take" (Ibid).

Stedman, however, cautions that as soon as conflict turns violent, "concerns about security and survival co-exist with the issues that caused the violence" (Ibid:388). And in such a situation, Stedman argues, conflict resolution necessarily becomes more difficult since it must deal with two levels – the underlying causes of the conflict and the violent expression of it. Worse still, the latter takes on a significance and priority larger than the former. As violence continues, actors tend to see their opponents as a threat to their very survival and so any settlement short of eliminating them would be unacceptable. Conflict, therefore becomes prolonged because antagonists come to fear the consequences of settlement (Ibid: 368).

Zartman (1991:300) introduces a dilemma which governments face in dealing with demands and grievances before they turn violent. In his view, "politics is the process of handling demands and demands left unhandled can escalate from politics to violence" (Ibid). He therefore expects governments to deal with demands early in their formation. But he argues that governments are often reluctant to take on demands that challenge their programmes and authority, "often with the hope that the problems would go away" (Ibid:301), and when they don’t, it becomes too late to avoid violence.

Goodman and Boggard (1992:5) have opined that for negotiation to succeed in reaching a settlement, there should be an element of doubt on both sides. "If one side of a military conflict remains convinced that they (sic) have the time and resources to achieve their original goals … they may enter negotiations with a state of conceived motives" (Ibid). Such motives could be to test the determination of the others to continue fighting or to allow for time to regroup their forces and prepare for a new offensive.

Deng and Zartman (1991:6) in their analysis of the conceptual basis of conflict resolution, highlight the fact that conflicts are usually approached from the perspective of the key leaders of the conflicting factions. While the role of such leaders cannot be ignored if any settlement is to succeed, it is essential to remember that often there exist differences in the objectives of the elite, the fighting men and the populace. Usually the faction leaders are more concern with their personal aggrandizement (power and wealth) and less for the lives of the citizens and the welfare of the community as a whole.

It is interesting how most of the above issues manifested themselves in the Liberian context.

There is no doubt that the design of an agreement (particularly with regard to its provisions for reconstituting political authority in a country wrecked by civil war), can significantly affect the prospects of achieving a viable peace process and a durable settlement. A peace agreement worth its sort should not merely ensure an end to the shooting but must also provide a social basis for remedying the underlying causes of the conflict. Thus there is the need to reconcile the short term need of ending the fighting with the long term process of building accountable state institutions (Reno 2000:2).

Contrasting perspectives exist on how to craft peace agreements. On the one hand, if peace agreement denies the combatants a stake in the new dispensation, the agreement is most likely to be derailed, and basic stability will not be achieved. Hampson (1996:537) for example, prescribes that a good agreement is one that has been crafted by all parties to the conflict. Thus it is essential that all the warring parties be represented at the negotiation table and be involved in discussions about the new constitutional order. This school also emphasizes that there should be power-sharing provisions for winners and losers in the aftermath of the elections. Unless that there is some form of compensation, the losers will have strong incentive to return to a renewed campaign of violence (Ibid).

Hampson, however, cautions that a peace agreement is only an imperfect road map to the future. A poorly negotiated and badly designed agreement is a sure prescription for disaster. But a well negotiated and well crafted agreement is no guarantee to success since there are always ambiguities and different interpretations about key provisions and major unresolved issues (Ibid). In a similar vein, Ball (1996:619) indicates that the peace agreements in reality only provide a framework for ending hostilities and a guide to the initial stages of post conflict reform but do not resolve all the outstanding issues between the parties and do not transform society automatically. Simply put, safe landings should not be assumed because peace accords have been signed (Rothchild 1999:319).

On the other hand, peace settlement is seen as a dilemma between seeking peace to end the bloodshed and upholding human rights and democratic principles. In Baker’s view, the need to create power-sharing arrangements with rival factions and to include all major groups in a peace process often clashes with the need to bring human rights abusers to justice, establish the rule of law and the building of new structures that can create confidence and trust in the people (Baker 1996:564).

Concurring with Baker, Reno (2000:1) points out that peace agreements based on general amnesty to all combatants and which allow the worst human rights violators to ascend to power in the new dispensation tend to create governments which are unable to provide security for all persons or control the use of violence. More significantly, allowing warlords who have personally profited from the conflict rise to power is fundamentally antagonistic to the task of state reconstruction. This is because those who have committed most atrocities become internationally recognized rulers and they are most likely to continue to base their organizational capabilities and interest in the pursuit of private gain which undermined state institutions in the first place (Ibid:1). Such leaders are also unlikely to be deeply interested in governance and especially in subordinating their personal ambitions to the interest of government and the citizenry (Ibid). Such settlements then risk rebuilding the causes of the war.

How do we deal with the guilty and achieve justice while advancing peace becomes a very delicate balancing game. The extent to which the preference for peace over justice in the Liberian peace agreement contributed to the relapse is carefully investigated below.

Reconstruction refers to the efforts to rebuild political, social and economic structure of war torn societies (Kumar 1997:3).

Lemarchand (1998:11) has intimated that "after the descent into hell, comes the purgatory of national reconstruction". But the shop list of state reconstruction is a rather tall one and may so overwhelm the new government that it may fail to address the root causes and the pressures that led to the conflict (Coussens et. al., 2001:10). The list includes disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants; repatriation and resettlement of ex-refugees and internally displaced persons, victims of rape, torture and other abuses and accommodating erstwhile warlords. Others are coping with illegal and widespread distribution and sale of weapons and drugs, rebuilding state structures and resuscitating infrastructure. Apart from these concrete legacies of the conflict, the government also has to grapple with more subtle ones as the corrosive impact of conflict on the rules and practices of politics and on upon institutions as well as the psychological damages.

Civil conflicts often systematically redistributes power wealth and status towards military factions, warlords, arms and drug dealers. This redistribution creates new political realities which are exceedingly hard to reverse and make long term reconstruction highly problematic (Cliffe and Luckham 2000:303).

The question of who undertakes the reconstruction exercise becomes crucial. In general, indigenous actors should have the primary responsibility and should play central roles throughout the reconstruction process since it is their own future that hangs in the balance. But international intervention is also crucial in building capacity among indigenous actors and institutions and facilitating their long term success. In the view of Coussens and others, the peculiar challenges of civil wars call for international assistance and the most effective path of preventing the return of hostilities is for international effort to help a given society build its political capacity to mange conflict without violence (Cousens et. al., 2001:10).

In practice, there is always the fear that in the post conflict phase international assistance may not be forth coming. Normally, because civil wars threaten regimes in neighbouring states, collective measures are adopted by international organizations to mediate an end to the fighting and a return to fragile peace. But they leave the war torn states to their own devices to tackle the more arduous task of reconstruction. Too often the responsibility to rebuilding has been insufficiently recognized by the international community and the commitment to help to reconstruct has been inadequate. In this connection, the limited dose of international assistance in Liberia’s reconstruction process has proved a devastating missing link.

i) The Founding of Liberia

Liberia is unique in the political history of (West) Africa but in that uniqueness also lay the seed of its self-destruction. Founded as a home for freed slaves from USA in 1822 and never colonized by an European power the Liberian state had been in existence long before the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 formally partitioned Africa.

The story of Liberia is often told from the arrival of the freed slaves because for more than a one and half centuries those settlers and their descendants (the Americo-Liberians) dominated the political, social and economic life of that country. But to equate Liberia’s history only to the fortunes of the Americo-Liberians is to obscure the fact that they formed only a small minority of the country’s population and that long before their arrival there were about one and half dozen ethnic groups (African Liberians) living in the area that eventually became the republic of Liberia. More significantly, the relations between the new comers and those they met would remain a source of worry throughout Liberia’s history.

The seed of distrust between the two groups were sown soon after the latter’s arrival. At the heart of this hostility was the issue of land, initially a misunderstanding over the traditional African concept of land tenure based on usufactory right rather than ownership through purchase. This was later compounded by the refusal of the settlers to pay the low prices agreed upon on very flimsy excuses (Liebenow 1969:25). The settlers also sought to impose on the indigenes an alien socio-cultural, economic and political system which they themselves had not properly imbedded (Clower, et. al., 1966:6).

In reaction, several indigenous groups engaged the settlers in battles but because these attacks came from one ethnic group at a time, the settlers won those initial battles. However, the mutual suspicion created and the problem of incorporating the indigenous population into the life of the nation remained and exploded from time to time.

The declaration of Liberia’s independence in 1847, should have provided an opportunity for the establishment of a common Liberian identity and the prevention of a fundamental social conflict. However, the Americo-Liberian leaders squandered that opportunity when they opted for an exclusive "settler state that would exercise the prerogatives of government over a settler-dominated society"(Sawyerr 1997:4)

The preamble of the 1847 Constitution – "We the people of the Republic of Liberia were originally the inhabitants of the United States of North America…." – confirmed the emergent segregated society. Citizenship was thus restricted to only those of the settler stock at the exclusion of the original inhabitants. Worse still, the constitution made no provision regarding the government of the indigenous groups but left all such questions to be determined by the government of the Americo-Liberians. Other aspects of the contradictions in the declaration of independence could be found in Liberia’s motto – The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here – as well as the national flag, national anthem and seal, all of which did not reflect the cultural values and realities in Liberia but those of USA.

In effect, the Americo-Liberians never perceived the indigenes to have a past worthy of inclusion in the corpus of Liberian history. This perception rendered Liberian history distorted and parochial a mere record of the triumphs and problems of the pioneers as they laboured to build the Liberian nation (Conteh, et. al., 1999:111)

In place of a common Liberian identity an internal colonialism model was introduced in which the dominant core exploited the numerically preponderant periphery and used its political and economic power to maintain its superiority (Nnoli 1998:144). Essential features of this master-servant relationship included:

• payment of taxes to the settler government;
• free labour for road construction and other public projects;
• use of native labour on settler farms characterised by low wages, lack of amenities, abuse of apprenticeship and freedom to fire employees;
• special regulations on indigenous residence and migration; and
• extra-legal exactions of money and rice (Libenow 1969:25, Clower, et. al., 1966:7).

Thus the original inhabitants were set apart and treated as a subordinate and inferior group and discrimination against them "hardened into policy as well as a habit of mind" (Clower 1966:7). How different was this from the white settler regimes in other parts of Africa?

For the first half century of Liberia’s existence as an independent state, the authorities retained only a passing interest in the more remote hinterland. But by 1904, pressure from British and French imperial demands had forced the Liberian government to grant citizenship (second rate?) to the residents of the interior and introduced an interior administration under the Barclay Plan which set the tone for settler-indigene relations for the first four decades of the twentieth century.

An intriguing aspect of the plan was that indigenous Liberian representation in the House of Representatives was conditioned on the payment of hundred dollars per year by the ethnic group wishing to be represented to discuss only issues related to native interests(Conteh, et. al., 1999:112). The Plan also established a machinery for the effective suppression and oppression of the indigenous population; it eroded the traditional base of the authority of chieftaincy and made it vulnerable to manipulation. The hall mark of this exploitation was the alleged exportation of labour to Fernado Po which eventually led to the demise of President King in 1930 (Kieh 1992:26). The irony here is that a group whose ancestors had been freed from slavery were themselves accused of dealing in slavery.

The ‘colonial’ relationship in which there were separate laws for the Americo-Liberians and the African-Liberians remained more or less the same up to the end of the end of the Second World War and the assumption of office of William Tubman as the 18^th President. Equally significant is the fact that Liberia was unable to effect any formal economic development policies in its first hundred years of statehood, in part because of the hostilities between the indigenes and the settlers and this in turn exacerbated the social conditions, thereby creating a vicious circle of inequalities – political, social and economic.

When Tubman assumed office in 1944, therefore, very little if any, had been done about overcoming the crises to statehood. Against this background, Tubman’s 27-year rule is often regarded with nostalgia as one in which a benevolent leader took his people through an era of economic development, national integration and political stability (Frempong 1999:62). But a critical review of that period in Liberia’s history also reveals several paradoxes which not only kept the Americo-Liberian hegemony intact, but eventually contributed, in no small way, to Liberia’s collapse.

Very early in his administration, Tubman introduced two policies which virtually became synonymous with his name – the Open Door Policy (ODP) and the Unification Policy (UP). The ODP placed at the core of Liberia’s economic development plan the exploitation of mineral and agricultural resources through foreign investment. This was a pragmatic policy since the ending of the World War coincided with growing demands for rubber and steel. The ODP, based on joint ventures between the government and foreign investors, had the positive effect of stimulating economic growth and development. Even Tubman’s critics admitted that he brought Liberia into the mainstream of twentieth century development (Wreh 1976:ix)

However, there were disturbing aspects to the prosperity that followed the ODP:

• it increased the amount of revenue available to the government which in turn increased the scope of presidential patronage which enabled Tubman to transform the presidency into a personal domain;
• because the policy was over-reliant on foreign investment, it increased the economic dependence of Liberia, failed to stimulate local entreprenuership and stifled creativity;
• the substantial economic growth in the 1950s and early 1960s did not produce commensurate broadly-shared economic, social and political development. Rather it strengthened the Americo-Liberian dominant over the indigenous people.

As late as 1971, 2 percent of Americo-Liberians controlled 60 percent of the nation’s wealth (Vogt 1992:36).

The UP officially aimed at bridging the gap between the Americo-and African-Liberians. It involved the extension of the suffrage for the first time to the indigenes, the formulation and implementation of schemes to obliterate the psychological impediments to integration and the restructuring of the subdivisions of the country to foster parity in representation (Wreh 1976:42). Tubman himself had emphasised that the UP was based on the belief that the nation should be composed of men (and women) who were equal under the law and had the same rights and privileges (Ibid:43).

The UP, no doubt, succeeded in reducing tension and attempted to break the long standing suspicion between settler and indigene, it should, however, not be viewed simply as altruism on Tubman’s part but also as "a domestic response to African nationalism, and international criticism as well as an instrument of personal control" (Sawyerr 1992:283).

The UP provided Tubman with a means of preventing the indigenous people from rising up against the settler elite at a time when liberation and self determination was in vogue throughout Africa. The limited inclusion and symbolic gestures under the UP created a new atmosphere in the hinterland, reduced international criticism of Liberia’s seemingly unbridgeable social system and at the same time enabled Tubman to develop a system based on personal loyalty (ibid). In effect Tubman through the UP attempted and largely succeeded in killing three birds with one stone (Frempong 1999:64).

The implementation of the UP was also full of contradictions:

• throughout his term the national motto and the preamble of the Constitution remained unchanged in spite of their discriminatory connotations;
• a government which advocated national integration still celebrated Matilda Newport Day, commemorating a decisive victory of the settlers over the indigenes, as national holiday though it clearly hurt the sensibilities of the latter;
• a full blooded ethnic Liberian was never appointed to the office of Vice President and the distribution of ministerial and other public positions remain skewed against the indigenes.

It should be clear that the UP and ODP notwithstanding the overriding goal of Liberia’s authorities remained largely what it had been at its foundation – to retain the economic and political hegemony of the Americo-Liberians. Tubman only allowed those comestic changes that did not threaten this hegemony.

More significant for our purpose was Tubman’s contribution towards the outbreak of the Liberian conflict. Briefly put, Tubman’s long reign created problems for his successor, Tolbert, and some of the techniques of oppression Tubman adopted against his opponents would be emulated, albeit in a more brutal fashion, by Samuel Doe, whose regime would mark the immediate triggers of the Liberian civil war. To illustrate:

• His seemingly endless tenure made Tubman personally indistinguishable from the presidency to the extent that he became virtually "the ultimate source of individual livelihood" (Sawyerr 1992:285);
• Tubman had to personally sign all cheques worth $25 and above (Liebenow 1969:66);
• Over the years, he so consolidated the powers of the presidency that the legislature and judiciary were reduced to mere rubber stamps for his decisions (Ibid).
• Tubman also relied heavily on a complex security network which he did not hesitate to unleash on actual and perceived enemies (Vogt 1992:34; Wreh 1976:27).
• In 1951 when, for the first time, Didwho Twe, an indigene, made a desperate attempt to challenge Tubman for the presidency, he was forced into exile before election day.
• Similarly the violence and repression which followed ex president Edwin Barclay’s attempted comeback in 1955, under a new party was such that no other political party could emerge for the next quarter century.
• Tubman began his tenure when the Liberian Constitution provided for at most two terms of four years, but he manipulated it to enable him serve an initial eight year term and an unspecified number of four-year terms.

Such personalisation of his rule led to the failure to develop civil institutions that could resolve conflict peacefully and according to rule of law. This would prove fatal when power fell into the hands of Samuel Doe who was less qualified to rule. Similarly, his repression of opponents became a disincentive for participation in the development of society.

With the benefit of hindsight, death did Tubman a service by taking him away in 1971, for during his last term, there were the tell-tale signs that his personalised rule was losing its leverage.

The legacy which Tolbert inherited was, to say the least, unenviable – a declining economy (soon to be worsened by the oil crisis), growing unemployment, a more politically conscious populace and an unwieldy security apparatus. For most of his nine years in office, Tolbert would be grappling with the problems left behind by Tubman and would hardly move the nation-building exercise forward.

Tolbert had the misfortune of assuming power when the booms of the 1960s were giving way to the recessions of the 1970s vis-à-vis an ever expanding public sector payroll, debt servicing and an increased unemployment of school leavers and drop outs. The combined effects of all this were the lowering of living standards of especially, ordinary citizens (Sawyerr 1992:273). At the same time, the ending of Tubman’s rule gave rise to an outburst of hitherto repressed social forces which manifested itself in the formation of political and social groupings and organisations.

The options open to Tolbert were difficult, if not contradictory. He was to establish his authority but without the financial wherewithal of his predecessor; to give the presidency a new face without losing its excessive and exclusive privileges; to accept the re-emergence of civil society and yet to maintain the status quo, to flirt with a new generation of politicians without antagonising the old guards (Ibid 287-289).

Under the circumstances, the modest reforms Tolbert introduced were either without conviction or yielded conflicting results:

• His promise for open society and free debate soon degenerated into assumption of emergency powers and the passage of stringent sedition laws to deal with his critics;
• The security apparatus which was initially trimmed to size soon returned to Tubman levels;
• His declared commitment to equal opportunity for entreprenuership, in practice, meant retention of the dominance of his relatives and cronies in business;
• His replacement of ageing soldiers with young men recruited from the urban unemployed turned out to be the signing of Tolberts’ own death warrant. The leaders of the 1980 coup emerged from this group.
• His flirtation with the younger generation of politicians as a means of stepping out of the shadow of Tubman antagonised the old guards who felt he was showing disrespect to a system which nurtured and elevated him to the presidency.
• The emerging groups, however, did not see Tolbert’s reforms as radical enough. The Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) and the Progressive Alliance of Liberians (PAL) in particular remained a torn in his flesh to the end.

While Tolbert became a victim of a reforming government which lost the support of its conservative base but could not satisfy fully the new constituencies it was wooing, it must be emphasised that Tolbert committed mistakes of his own. Significant among them were:

• The decision to host the OAU Summit in 1979 in the face of economic downstring. It cost the ailing economy $100 million, overshot that year’s budget by $50 million and left the government just $5 million in its coffers; (Vogt 1992:40)
• The increase in the price of rice from $22 to $30 per bag made the government look insensitive to the plight of its citizens;
• The bloody confrontation of the security forces with the peaceful demonstrators in April 1979 – the rice riots;
• The postponement of the Monrovia mayoral election which Amos Sawyerr of MOJA was tipped to win; and
• The arrest and detention of the leaders of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in March 1980 and the general fear that they would be eliminated on the first anniversary of the rice riots.

This series of ill-timed actions by the Tolbert government alienated several sectors of Liberian society and further weakened the already fragile political system. No wonder, few Liberians rose to defend it when non commissioned officers led by Master-Sergeant Samuel Doe staged the 12 April 1980 coup.

It is significant to note that at the time of the April 12, 1980 coup the Americo-Liberians (about 5% of the population) enjoyed about 60% of Liberia’s national income while the indigenes had less than 25%. Ninety percent of the market value of goods and services in the economy was controlled by external forces, and out of every dollar earned in Liberia less than twenty cents stayed in the country (West Africa 1981:785). That was the extent to which the Americo-Liberian hegemony in collusion with foreign investors exploited the ordinary Liberians.

The military take-over was, therefore, seen initially by the indigenes as the birth of a new country owned by them rather than the Americo-Liberians (Nnoli 1998:145-146). For the first time, the head of state and all members of the ruling People’s Redemption Council (PRC) were indigenes. The limited educated background of the new military leaders also created the impression that power had shifted from the well-to-do to the down-trodden. Some of the slogans of the PRC such as ‘monkey work, baboon eat is over’, ‘our eyes are now open’ also bore this perception (ibid:146). The new rulers also promised to consummate the ‘revolution’ in the cause of the people. No wonder there were demands for changes in the country’s name, flag, emblem and all that symbolised the Americo-Liberian hegemony. But what those who felt the coup would set in train a profound social transformation forgot was that Liberia was too heavy with history to conform to simplistic assumptions about its history and society.

Any hope of the restructuring of Liberian society for the benefit of the majority soon faded; rather the contours of the Doe regime began to appear – an incredible ability of the new rulers to imbibe the habits of their predecessors, continuation of the exclusive policies of the previous era this time with Doe’s native Krahn as the new hegemony and Doe’s inordinate ambition to personalise and retain power as long as he could. In this direction:

• beginning with the execution of his second-in-command, Weh Syen, in August 1981, Doe eliminated all the other coupists on grounds of plotting to over throw him. As he killed or detained his opponents he lost the support of their ethnic constituencies.
• Replacement/appointment to important government positions and particularly the security services went to Krahns. By 1984 his personal body guards, executive mansion guards, state security service, immigration and the police were headed by and predominantly composed of Krahns (Nnoli 1998:148) and by the outbreak of the war, it was difficult to describe the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) as anything but a Krahn army (Ibid.).
• No sector of Liberian society escaped the repression of the ‘bully boys’ of the Doe regime and every social and cultural institution that previously imposed some restraint on the exercise of power was either destroyed or weakened. Churches and other religious bodies were denounced, institutions of higher learning purged, press houses closed and editors imprisoned and business houses looted.

One programme which, if faithfully executed, could have offered Liberians a voice in the management of their own affairs was the transition to civilian rule. But that was also manipulated to perpetuate Doe in power in the guise of a civilian president and the process was full of contradictions:

• A 25 member constitutional commission, appointed on the first anniversary of the coup to draft a new constitution, before it could begin its work had one of its members imprisoned for alleged involvement in a coup. Later, its Chairman, Amos Sawyerr, would be banned from politics.
• Another body, Constitutional Advisory Assembly (CAA) ended up removing all provisions in the draft constitution meant to exact greater accountability of public officials and altered it to suit the specific ambitions of Doe.
• Major political parties were denied registration while a few fringe ones were registered to give a measure of legitimacy to Doe’s National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL);
• Doe, in order to circumvent the qualifying age of 35 years for the president added two years to his previously announced age.

The above measures notwithstanding, Doe had to disband the Electoral Commission and replace it with a committee of counters to be declared a winner by 50.9%. Interestingly, the narrow margin of victory was used as proof of the fairness of the election but that could not erase the general impression that the verdict was stolen from Jackson Doe of the Liberian Action Party (LAP).

A crucial nexus to Liberia’s descent into anarchy was Doe’s relationship with Quiwonkpa. Thomas Quiwonkpa, one of the original coupists and until 1983, the army commander, proved a hard nut for Doe to crack. Quiwonkpa returned from exile in the heat of the confusion that followed the 1985 elections and attempted a coup which had bloody consequences. The coup failed and Quiwonkpa’s mutilated body was publicly exhibited and allegedly cannibalized. More significantly, as a collective punishment for the "sins" of Quiwonkpa, his native Gios and Manos in the military were purged and the people of Nimba County suffered reprisals from the Krahn-dominated AFL. Some of these people would be forced to flee to Cote d’Ivoire and would return later to seek revenge. The reprisal would be repeated when the civil war began.

Thus when the forces of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Charles Taylor launched the attack on the Doe government on the Christmas eve of 1989, it became the latest in a series of triggers of violent conflict in Liberia following the rice riots of 1979, the military coup in 1980, and the foiled Quiwonkpa invasion of 1985.

Equally intriguing is the fact that it was on the recommendation of Quiwonkpa that Charles Taylor, (the initiator of the rebellion which led to the collapse of the Liberian state), was appointed Director of the General Services Agency in the Doe government. Doe had fallen out with Taylor and Quiwonkpa around the some time and in a sense, the 1989 rebellion was seen as a continuation of what Quiwonkpa began in 1985 (Ellis 1995:180).

The Doe regime was one of particularly bad leadership: his over ambition for power and wealth made him step on several toes and turned Quiwonkpa and Taylor to avenging angels; his style of governance increased rivalries among the indigenes and created poor relations with his immediate neighbours. It was all these concentric circles around Doe that sparked off the Liberian tragedy; one which the spilling of his own blood could not atone for (Frempong 1999:98).

It is also clear, on the whole, that in spite of its long existence as a state Liberia never resolved its internal contradictions and to a large extent its tragedy was the net effect of the tugs and pulls of different identities, the differential distribution of resources and access to power.

Details of the dynamics of the war for the first six months (up to May 1990) cannot be recounted here. It may suffice however to point out that:

• The initial response of the Doe government to the incursion by visiting reprisals on the people of Nimba County rather swelled the ranks of the NPFL and its strategy of withdrawing from the war front to defend Monrovia gave the NPFL swift control of most part of the country.
• All tenets of war were broken with impunity by both parties. Civilians were deliberately targeted and even those who sought refugee in churches and mosques, foreign embassies and even the UN Mission were not spared.

While this mayhem was going on, the USA, the traditional ‘step father’ of Liberia, evacuated its real "sons" and "daughters" (American residents) and abandoned its "stepchildren" (Liberians) (Frempong 1999:4) claiming that the Liberian war was not worth the blood of one American soldier. The UN, preoccupied with the crises in the Gulf and Eastern Europe turned a blind eye to the poor man’s war, while the OAU merely dusted up its articles of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states.

Under the circumstances it is significant to note that the first group to attempt to broker peace was a coalition of the Liberian Council of Churches (LCC) and National Muslim Council of Liberia (NMCL), the Inter-Faith Mediation Committee formed in May 1990 to try to bring the warring factions to the negotiation table. While its initial efforts failed, it remained significant in the peace process in many respects. The coalition of Muslims and Christians was in itself a novelty and the continued existence of the IFMC forestalled a religious backlash in the war. Its prescription for peace subsequently formed the basis for the ECOWAS Peace Plan. It played leading roles in the initial stages of ECOWAS involvement and later provided a forum for critiquing the peace process (Frempong 1999:205-209).

Three main concerns dictated ECOWAS’ involvement in Liberia, namely, the threat to the safety of the nationals of member states resident in Liberia, the potential contagious effects of the conflict on sub-regional stability and the scale of the humanitarian disaster. But the ECOWAS initiative remained dogged by questions of legality, credibility and neutrality.

ECOWAS’ involvement began in May 1990 when the 13^th ECOWAS summit formed a Standing Mediation Committee (SMC) to mediate in conflicts within the sub-region which would have a disruptive impact on the normal life within member-states and the smooth functioning of the community (ECOWAS Journal 1990:17). The SMC, in effect, was charged with a purely mediatory role and this was why its later decision to intervene militarily in Liberia became controversial. It is also interesting to note that the SMC was formed on the initiative of the then Nigerian Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida, who was the closest associate of the Doe regime and later the chief advocate of the ECOMOG intervention; while the decision was signed on behalf of the Community by the Burkinabe president, Blaise Campaore, then out-going ECOWAS chairman, a known supporter of the NPFL and one of the staunchest critics of the ECOMOG idea.

After its initial mediatory efforts had failed, the SMC in August 1990 adopted a resolution which became known as the ECOWAS Peace Plan (EPP) (Weller 1994:70-71), calling for immediate cease-fire of all warring parties, the formation of a cease-fire monitoring group (ECOMOG) to monitor the ceasefire, restore law and order, and to create conditions for holding free and fair elections within one year. It also called for a broadly based interim government to be set up by Liberians themselves to oversee the return to democratic rule. While the EPP seemed a bold attempt on the part of the SMC to see the Liberian crisis resolved its good intentions encountered several stumbling blocks which generally impacted negatively on ECOWAS’ performance in Liberia (Frempong 1999:132).

The adoption of the EPP, especially its peacekeeping component generated several controversial questions which unfortunately revived the demons of Anglo – Francophone cleavage. Though these controversies were couched in terms of principles and procedures, they remained largely intra-community political differences.

The major criticisms against the ECOMOG idea which emanated from the Francophone bloc particularly Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, included the legality of the SMC’s decision to create and deploy a peacekeeping force without the expressed and consummate declaration of the whole Authority when it had only been given a mediatory role. It was further argued that mediatory efforts were not exhausted before the military dimension was introduced. It was, therefore, alleged that Babangida, the prime mover of the ECOMOG concept, was in a hurry to protect the moribund Doe government. There was also the added issue of whether or not ECOWAS itself did not need the UN Security Council’s authorisation.

The specific provision of the EPP that members of the SMC were to contribute troops to ECOMOG also created the impression that there was a deliberate ploy not to consult the non-SMC members and also to debar them from participation. Other issues raised were the legality of intervening in an internal conflict without the consent of the parties involved and also concerns about the exact role of ECOMOG.

Some of these criticisms, however did not stand the test of scrutiny. For instance the ECOWAS Authority had in May empowered the SMC to act for and on its behalf and only to keep the other heads of states informed of its decision (Vogt 1992:213). The question of internal conflict also did not arise because the Liberian conflict had never been purely internal. Not only was the initial NPFL group composed of dissidents from other West African countries, but also the ransacking of foreign missions, for example, amounted to a declaration of war on those states.

While the controversies did not prevent the formation of ECOMOG, the distrust, bitterness and feelings of neglect that existed nearly broke up ECOWAS itself and created the situation that to be able to rescue Liberia, ECOWAS first had to rescue itself from internal wranglings. Worse still, this lack of consensus and intra-community rivalries re-appeared at various stages of the peace process.

The EPP set up the Special Emergency Fund to finance the ECOMOG operations largely through voluntary contributions from member states. But in a situation where some member states were aggrieved, added to the fact that member-states hardly paid their regular contributions to the community, funding the operation was left on the shoulders of the troop-contributing states and became a further disincentive for troop contribution.

On the other hand, the EPP did not obtain the needed support from the warring factions. If anything it rather induced intransigence from them. It was too optimistic for the SMC to expect that all the warring factions would willingly accede to an immediate ceasefire given their attitude towards earlier mediatory efforts and the fact that the warring factions were not signatories to the EPP. As it turned out the NPFL, opposed not only the cessation of hostilities, but the entire peace plan. Sadly, it had the tacit support of Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire.

The call for a national conference to establish a broadly based interim government to oversee the transition to democratic elections seemed the best thing to do under the circumstances. The reach of the incumbent Doe government’s authority had by then shrunk to only within the executive mansion and it was unable to protect its citizens. However, the provision was by implication, calling for the withdrawal of Doe and he resisted on the claim that he remained the legitimate head of Liberia.

The EPP’s provision that excluded the faction leaders from heading the interim government and the interim president from contesting the presidential election was meant to ensure fair play. But the NPFL was not amused. In a situation where it militarily controlled virtually the whole of the country, the NPFL felt that power should be handed over to its leader. It therefore saw the provision as a deliberate attempt to deny it the fruits of its labour. For this reason, Taylor and the NPFL deliberately frustrated the implementation of several peace accords based on that provision.

Though the EPP would be modified and amended over time it would still remain the baseline of ECOWAS’ political and military involvement in Liberia.

The controversies notwithstanding, five countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Gambia - contributed about 3,500 troops to form the core of ECOMOG. The refusal of the Francophone states (apart from Guinea) to contribute troops in effect turned what was meant to be an ECOWAS peace initiative into an Anglophone venture* . It also accentuated the dominance of Nigeria and therefore dented the neutrality of ECOMOG and offered the NPFL the excuse to resist its entry* * . Not even the appointment of a Ghanaian, Lt. General Arnold Quainoo, as the Force Commander, could remove the perception of ECOMOG as a Nigerian initiative to shore up the moribund Doe regime or at least to prevent Taylor from acceding to power.

The credentials of the leaders of the ECOMOG contributing states also did not help ECOMOG’s credibility. Three of then – Babangida (Nigeria), Rawlings (Ghana) and Lansana Conteh (Guinea) had assumed power through military coups while Momoh (Sierra Leone) and Jawara (Gambia) were presiding over one-party systems. The impression was created, then, that ECOMOG was a reaction of such leaders to genuine civilian rebellion and had sent troops to prevent the ‘revolution’ from spreading to their respective states. (Frempong 1999:140).

ECOMOG’s entry into Liberia was received differently by the warring factions. The NPFL, in fulfilment of its earlier threat, opened fire on the ECOMOG forces as they disembarked, forcing ECOMOG to fight back and becoming a party to the conflict from the very beginning. Apart from fanning the distrust between the NPFL and ECOMOG, it also clearly demonstrated how suicidal it is to deploy peacekeepers into an active war zone and without the consent of all the parties. Prince Johnson’s INPFL received ECOMOG warmly but it soon turned out that it was a subterfuge for attaining its basic objective of eliminating Doe. Doe and the AFL welcomed ECOMOG but protested against the interim government component of the EPP. However, given the circumstances, the protest was nothing more than the last kickings of a dying horse!

ECOMOG was billed to restore peace in Liberia within one year but it turned out to be seven years owing to a number of complications at both the military and diplomatic levels. On the military front:

1. The capture of Doe from the ECOMOG headquarters in September 1990 by the INPFL forces seriously dented ECOMOG’s image. It also raised doubts about the capacity of the force to separate the warring factions, guarantee security and to act as a restraining force.
2. Rather than leading to a speedy end of the debacle, Doe’s death rekindled the embers of fire when the leaders of the three warring factions laid claim to the vacated presidency;
3. The limited offensive adopted by the new ECOMOG Commander Joshua Dogonyaro between September and November 1990 only succeeded in restraining the INPFL at its Caldwell base and driving the NPFL out of Monrovia, while the latter retained control over the rest of the country;
4. The long spell of uneasy peace which prevail between November 1990 and October 1992 allowed the NPFL sufficient time to consolidate its control of Greater Liberia (area outside Monrovia), and to stockpile arms through the exploitation of the nation’s natural resources.
5. The situation was further complicated by the spillover of the rebellion into Sierra Leone in March 1991 and the subsequent emergence of the United Liberian Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO);
6. The "Operation Octopus" which the NPFL launched in October 1992 in its bid to overran ECOMOG and capture Monrovia forced ECOMOG again into direct combat with the NPFL and threw out of gear the fragile peace that had been achieved over the years;
7. There was a proliferation of warring factions in the 1993-95 period with each warlord carving a territory for himself and demanding a seat at the conference table;
8. ECOMOG also had to contend with an attempted coup led by Charles Julu a former AFL commander in September 1994, the April 6, 1996 war in which Monrovia’s safe-haven status was destroyed and an assassination attempt on Taylor’s life in October 1996.

Thus ECOMOG’s entry into Liberia did not prove to be the quick surgical operation that the SMC had anticipated. For six years ECOMOG remained embroiled in the conflict with doubts about its credibility and neutrality a recurent issue and a major source of anti-interventionist propaganda. (Frempong 1999:162).

ECOMOG’s forceful intervention militarised the search for peace in Liberia, but the diplomatic option was never abandoned. Instead, ECOMOG peacekeeping was paralleled by a vigorous diplomatic peace process which involved peace talks in several capitals across the sub-region and on two occasions, in Europe. To be precise, ECOMOG was the principal instrument for implementing decisions taken at the various peace talks. Each of those peace conferences ended with communiques replete with pious declarations of good intentions but could not guarantee peace, rather they led to the introduction of the phenomenon of the failed accords.

There were more than a dozen peace conferences held, and agreements signed, on Liberia under the auspices of ECOWAS from November 1990 to August 1996. The initial conferences Bamako (November 1990), Banjul (December 1990), Lome I and II (February/March 1991) all failed on the one hand, because of lack of consensus within ECOWAS and, on the other, because of the intransigence of warring factions, particularly the NPFL. While the entire ECOWAS leaders had apparently endorse the EPP, the francophone states still refused to contribute troops to dilute Nigeria’s dominance of ECOMOG. Worse still, Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso continued to support the NPFL by leaving their borders porous and operating secret flights for the NPFL. Capitalising on these, Taylor also exploited ambiguities in the various accords to his advantage. The exclusion of the warlords from the interim government provided further incentive for Taylor to renege on agreements.

By mid 1991, it was clear that the ECOWAS initiative needed a change in strategy in order to make progress. There was the need to strike some compromise with Charles Taylor and the NPFL and to allow the Francophone states to play a more influential role in the peace process. This resulted in the series of Yamoussoukro Conferences, chaired by the Ivorian President Houphouet Biogny, and the creation of a Francophone-dominated Committee of Five. But it was soon realised that the leverage which the Francophone states (particularly Cote d’Ivoire) seemingly had on the NPFL was a farce; that Cote d’Ivoire’s role as a neutral mediator was doubtful and that the intra-community rivalries had taken on different ramifications. The outbreak of hostilities in October 1992 not only erased any hope of achieving peace through the Yamoussoukro series, but also put any further peace initiative on hold until July 1993.

The changed circumstances following Operation Octopus and ECOMOG’s "defensive-offensive" response led to yet another change in strategy based on acceding power to the faction leaders. The Cotonou Accord of 1993 for the first time allowed representatives of the warring factions on the transitional government.

The subsequent Akosombo and Accra Accords of 1994 allowed the warlords to sit on the Council of State of the transitional government and Abuja I and II (1995 and 1996) provided that the warlords could contest the presidency provided they resigned from the Council three months before the election.

Following the October 1992 war, ECOWAS seemed to be at its wits end. It therefore extended invitation to the United Nations (UN) to get involved in the Liberian peace process. This set in motion a series of UN Security Council actions following its Resolution 788 which gave birth to the ECOWAS-UN task-sharing experiment, the first of such partnership between the UN and a sub-regional organisation in peacekeeping operation. (West Africa, 7-13 February 1994:202).

The main features of the UN’s involvement in Liberia were:

• The appointment of the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Liberia in May 1993.
• The hosting of the conference which kick-started the stalled peace process at the UN’s offices in Geneva under the joint chairmanship of the Secretary General’s Special Representative in July 1993.
• The Special Representatives together with the OAU Eminent Person and the ECOWAS Chairman served as the guarantors of the Cotonou Accord, the most comprehensive of all the accords on Liberia.
• Under the Cotonou Accord, the UN created and deployed, the UN Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) in September 1993 to monitor the implementation procedures and verify their impartial application.

The introduction of UNOMIL was significant in several respects: it provided the needed and invaluable endorsement of the international community and was expected to assuage the suspicions of the warring factions. The trust fund under UN auspices created together with UNOMIL provided financial assistance for the peace process. It was also expected that it would serve as a model to encourage greater cooperation between the UN and other regions in conflict resolution.

However, the much-touted ECOWAS-UN partnership came with its own baggage of problems. Among them:

• the delay in the creation and deployment of UNOMIL threw the Cotonou Accord out of gear.
• UNOMIL and ECOMOG were parallel institutions and this seriously hampered cooperation and effectiveness of field operations. The warlords particularly the NPFL capitalised on the differences between ECOMOG and UNOMIL.
• The size of UNOMIL, about four hundred at its highest, was too small to be effective.
• UNOMIL’s operations were also hampered by inadequacy of fund.

On the whole the presence of UNOMIL did not create an environment in which peace could be achieved. Following the failure of the Cotonou Accord and the subsequent reduction of the size of UNOMIL to a quarter, in September 1994, the UN increasingly became a dormant partner in the peace process. UN’s "rescue operation", therefore failed to provide solace.

Details of the factors which eventually led to the cessation of hostilities and the peaceful settlement of the Liberian crisis can not be recounted here. It may suffice however to pin point:

• The dynamism which Ghanaian President Rawlings introduced into the stalled peace process when he assumed the Chairmanship of ECOWAS late 1994.
• The rapprochement between Nigeria (Sani Abacha) and the NPFL (Charles Taylor) following Taylor’s visit to Nigeria mid 1996. This in effective removed one of the major stumbling blocks – the suspicion and distrust between the two players who mattered most in the peace process – Nigeria and the NPFL.
• The increasing consensus and growing harmony within ECOWAS particularly among major players like Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso.
• The realisation among the warlords following the April 6, 1996 war that the possibility of a military victory was out of question
• The increasing war-weariness of the combatants.
• The ability of ECOMOG, in spite of its shortcomings to have frustrated the warring factions long enough for their leaders to wonder if they could survive a permanent war.

The Abuja Accords which eventually clinched the deal provided that the three main warlords – Charles Taylor, Alhaji Kroma and George Boley who sat on the Executive Council of the Transitional Government could contest the elections provided they resigned their positions on the Council three months before the elections. Thus by the time peace returned to Liberia in 1997, ECOWAS had jettisoned one of its fundamental principles under the EPP – the prevention of warlords from acceding to power. As it turned out the wealthiest and perhaps the bloodiest warlord, Charles Taylor, won the presidency. But would he be up to the task of reconciling Liberians?

i) The Electoral Outcome

The 75% victory of Charles Taylor and his war-machine-turned political party, the New Patriotic Party, had serious implications for post-war reconstruction. On the face of things, such an overwhelming victory could be a recipe for post-war stability but a number of factors leading to the victory indicated otherwise. It is true that the failure of civilian politicians to forge an alliance contributed to Taylor’s victory, but there were other disturbing aspects:

• The playing field was uneven. Taylor remained the only candidate who commanded the financial resources (obtained, ironically from his control of Liberia’s resources during the war) to wage an effective campaign. He owned the only nationwide short-wave radio station and had a leased helicopter, which allowed him campaign nation-wide (Tanner 1998:7). His party had also been in existence as far back as 1992 (New Africa, September 1997:15) while most of his opponents did not have more than two months.
• The greatest determinant of the margin of Taylor’s victory was fear. Liberian voters according to Tanner (1998:10) "were intimidated not by thugs at the polling stations but by the trauma of seven years of war". Many voted for him out of the fear that he would return to the bush a la Savimbi,^*** if Taylor lost. Apart from Taylor’s suggestions to that effect, there was the general perception that most of those disarmed were not the factions’ most reliable troops; that most of the guns turned in were in poor condition. Again in a situation where rebel camps had been turned into party offices they could be easily reverted to the previous roles if the need arose. (Tanner 1998:6; African Agenda 1997:32; Frempong 1999:252). The fear therefore was real and for most Liberians, the elections were a case of "your vote or your life", and they chose their lives (African Agenda 1997:32).
• There was also a ‘divine propaganda’ to it all. Advocates of this view made reference to Taylor surviving the October 31 assassination attempt;^**** and even went to the extent of interpreting his middle name "GHANKAY" to mean "God Has Adorned New King Among You". Even the position of his name at the seventh position of the ballot was also interpreted in divine terms. (Sam 1997:2; Ohene 1997:21-24). Thus, the ‘pious’ as it were did not want to go against ‘divine’ wishes.
• There were also those who voted for Taylor because they wanted him "to rebuild what he has destroyed; to unite a people he has polarized and to heal the wounds he had caused" (Padibo 1997:32).

The margin of his victory therefore was deceptive.

More significantly, it had serious implications for the post war period.

• The victory also gave Taylor and the NPP 49 out of the 64 seats in the House of Representatives and 21 out of 26 in the Senate. This made mockery of the proportional representation and power-sharing mechanism built into the electoral system. In effect it led to a virtual return to the one party system of the True Whig days. Worse still, the fact that Taylor was going to operate the 1986 Constitution which was tailor-made for Doe and gave very wide powers to the president.
• The outcome demonstrated clearly how civil society had been marginalized in the course of the war and conveyed the grin message that violence after all was rewarding.
• It also confirmed the U-turn in the ECOWAS peace initiative from one which sought to prevent the accession of a warlord to power to that which facilitated Taylor’s ‘seizure’ of power.

Thus on the whole, while the peace settlement brought the ‘strongman of the moment’ to power, it cast serious doubts about whether he was the reconciler Liberians needed most.

ii) The Taylor Administration

Charles Taylor in his inaugural address on 2^nd August 1997, emphasized reconciliation, human rights, national unity and economic reconstruction and promise to be the leader of every Liberian (Public Agenda 11-16 August 1997:6). At least within his first hundred days he tried to be a practitioner of good governance. He included a number of opposition politicians – Tom Woewiyu, Francis Massaquoui, Rayleigh Seekie, Blamoh Nelson, Browne Blayee, Milton Teahjay, and Roosevelt Johnson^* - in his government. He also wooed two former interim heads of state, Amos Sawyer and David Kpormakpor. He introduced the "Executive Meetings" at which he found out the needs and expectations of the people in the provinces (Ankomah 1997:3-4). He also set up the National Commission on Human Rights and dangled the chairmanship of the National Reconciliation and Reunification Commission before Alhaji Koromah one of his former foes (Butty 1997:1838; African Topics August-September 1998:22). There was a semblance of good relations with former members of the transitional government (Ankomah 1997:6). A new Supreme Court with Gloria Scott as Chief Justice was sworn in. (Oquaye 1998:30). On the economy, Finance Minister Elie Saleeby, had stressed free enterprise, reduction in the size of the public sector, partnership with the private sector, fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability (Butty 1997:183). Taylor also wanted to privatized the government owned Liberian Broadcasting as a sign of press freedom (Ankomah 1997:23).

On the foreign front, he attended his first ECOWAS Summit late August 1997. He was full of appreciation for the sacrifices made by other member states and expressed his determination to make Liberia play an active role in the sub-region, and outlined his goals for reconciling the countries various factions and rebuilding the nation (Olowu 1997:1421).

It was not long however that the old Taylor began to show:

• His visit to Libya in September 1997 provoked public criticism from the US;
• The independence of the National Commission on Human Rights became increasingly doubtful (Human Rights Watch 1997:26);
• The faithfulness of the government’s commitment to human rights was gravely undermined by the (re-)appointment of NPFL diehard Joe Tate as Director of Police in December 1997 to replace Charles Deshield who appeared to be an independent figure and more acceptable to human rights groups. Several protests came from aspects of civil society because as the police chief in the transitional government, he was responsible for several abuses. His appointment resulted in the US suspending its police-training programme for Liberia. But Tate went along and re-introduced, the police Rapid Response Unit which had been banned by his predecessor for its excesses (Oquaye 1998:30-31; UNDHA 1997; US Department of State 1991, Atkinson 1997).
• In November 1997, Taylor declared that the Abjua Accord (which had specified that ECOMOG was to remain for six month subsequent to the installation of the government and assist in restructuring and training the army) ‘ceased to exist’ from his assumption of office, a disturbing and unwarranted interpretation, which was meant to deny ECOMOG any role in establishing a legitimate army in Liberia. As it turned out the1,000 man nucleus of a national army would be recruited from the ranks of former NPFL fighters (Davies 1997; Human Rights Watch 1997:25).
• The government’s reconstruction efforts were hampered by obsessive partisan and war time mentality (African Topics 1999:22).
• 40% of the shares in the government holding company, the Liberian Resources Corporation (LIBRESCO) was to be ceded to Amalia Gold Corporation of South Africa whose relation with Taylor predated the 1997 election (Ankomah 1997:21) supposedly for exploratory work.

At the end of his first year in office Taylor on the advice of Archbishop Francis convened a national conference to discuss the country’s future and to plan for the next quarter century. (Special Report 1998:710). Taylor saw the conference as part of his government’s principles of inclusion, fair play … and commitment to democracy …." (Ibid). He admitted that his government had not realized the high expectations of the people but blamed it on "unexplainable donor delays and empty global promises" (Ibid). The delegates saw the situation differently. There was the need to guarantee security to attract investment.

The security situation remained precarious:

• There were arbitrary arrests and detentions of Liberians and extra-judicial killings as well as the presence of trigger happy security personnel on the streets of Monrovia;
• Taylor’s own Gbarnga residence was ransacked by some of this own former NPFL fighters (African Observer 1998:8);
• In June 1998, the ECOMOG Commander had to withdraw his troops from check points in Monrovia to avoid a head-on collision with the State Security Service (Ibid:5);
• In August 1998, Taylor openly accused Sierra Leone and Guinea of trying to overthrow his government (Ibid:8);
• On 18-19 September 1998, there was shooting between the security forces and men loyal to Roosevelt Johnson (the former faction leader who had been retained as rural development Minister (Liberia Special Report 1998:716). This led to a shoot out on the American Embassy where Johnson had sought refuge and that worsened the relations between US and Liberia;

In subsequent years Taylor would take actions which would depict him more as a war lord than a democratic president. To illustrate:

• He sacked and later reinstate most of his ministers for failing to attend thanksgiving service;
• In February 2000, Anti Terrorist Units evicted and occupied the houses of citizens living near the Executive Mansion on the orders of the president at a time when the Barclay Training Centre (BTC) had been turned to children’s playing grounds; (Network Africa: 15 February 2000).
• In March 2000, two independent radio stations Radio Veritas and Star Radio were closed down; when the Catholics threatened to close down their schools Taylor promised to deal with them for their denial of children’s right to education (Network Africa: 7 March 2000).
• In July the president banned all rumors surrounding the death of Vice President Enoch Dogolea (West Africa 24-30 July 2000:20).
• In August 2000 visiting foreign journalists were arrested and accused of spying (BBC Focus on Africa, October-December 2002:13).
• Four journalists of "The News" newspaper were charged for espionage and detained for more than a month for publishing a story "$50,000 Spent on Helicopters" which the government said amounted to divulging military secret to the enemy. They had to apologize after the intervention of the Press Union of Liberia (West Africa 9-15 April 2001:25).
• Former Deputy Minister Milton Teahjay was fired for an "act inimical to security of the state" when he observed that the activities of Inland Logging Company in his home province of Sinoe were not beneficial to the local people. Later he had to flee for his dear life (West Africa, 21-27 May 2001:22-23).
• Deputy Minister of State for Presidential Affairs Vivian Wreh was sacked reportedly for not being partisan enough (Ibid:23).

Against this background it is significant to note that Amos Sawyer who in 1997 had stood with Taylor on national reconciliation and reconstruction and had called on all political parties to close their rank and move forward (Ankomah 1997:4) four years later expressed misgivings about lack of consolidation of peace in Liberia (Amaglo 2001:4). It would be clear that the "Executive meetings" began in 1997 did not continue since in 2001 the government-owned "The New Liberian" indicated that Taylor’s greatest achievement in that year was his visit to five provinces outside Monrovia (Taweh 2001:18).

iii) The LURD Rebellion

When news of a new rebellion in Liberia broke out on 21^st April 1999, the government dismissed the dissidents as "insignificant troublemakers" and "unknown gunmen" (West Africa 17-23 December 2001:18; West Africa 10-16 December 2001, p.22). The Liberian public received the news with mixed reactions and three sets of theories emerged then:

• The first argued that the incursion was phoney and stage-managed to show that Liberia was threatened externally and thus justify the lifting of the 1992 UN arms embargo on Liberia, to enable the Taylor government to rearm;
• The second suggested that the incursion was nothing more than an act of banditry by a group of disgruntled Liberian ex-combatants who had gone on a looting spree; and
• The third indicated that given the amount of casualties among the government troops, the incursion was indeed real.

But the insurgency has survived and its existence no longer in doubt.

The Lofa County where the rebellion began was a good breeding ground because of the mutual antagonism between the Mandingos and Lormas, which predated the Liberian civil war.

The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Development (LURD) rebellion has had several implications:

• It has effectively derailed the reconstruction process which was already under stress owing to limited foreign assistance.
• The Taylor government has found itself persecuting a war while it is still under 1992 UN arms embargo.
• Both parties – the NPP government and the LURD – have external allies which have thrown the whole of the Mano River region into chaos. Taylor’s forces are backed by Sierra Leonean rebels (RUF), Guineans opposed to the Lansana Conteh regime and mercenaries from Burkina Faso while the LURD is supported by Guinea’s US trained army and fighters from pro-government Kamajor militias from Sierra Leone (West Africa 27 May-2 June 2002, p.17).

iv) Sanctions

The Taylor government since May 2000 has been under UN Sanctions which were aimed at raising the cost to Taylor for his support for the RUF, limiting his freedom of action, denying him resources and exposing him as widely as possible to world opinion of his destructive role in the region.

The sanctions have had serious impact of the reconstruction process in Liberia. The European Union not only suspended $15 million loan but also pulled out of South East Liberia where it was engaged in relief and reintegration work. Similarly the UNHCR has cut down its support for a number of implementing partners which were engaged in humanitarian work throughout the country. The Taylor government also finds its hands tied in the prosecution of the rebel war.

In the midst of the rebellion and sanctions there are serious doubts whether the elections due next year will come off. In addition the fact that the government had to convene another national reconciliation conference four years after the first to discuss issues agreed on in the previous one indicate that to all intent and purposes the Liberian post conflict reconstruction has been thrown off track.

This work has tried to establish that the Liberian civil war which had its deep roots in the contradictions in the country’s unresolved past could not survive the fragile peace of 1997 in part because the initiator of the rebellion who ascended to power could not be the reconciler Liberians needed and in part because the international community which was generous in brokering peace left the arduous burden of reconstruction on the local actors. We conclude by distilling some lessons from the Liberian tragedy for the rest of Africa:

• The Liberian conflict has shown that peace cannot be taken for granted. Conflict’s nature, causes, consequences and prevention should be well understood. The genesis and dynamics of that conflict demonstrate, inter alia, that violent state actions ultimately beget violent reactions from the people; that a misgoverned state is like a badly constructed dam – no one knows exactly when it will burst but when it does, it does not stop until it has run its course.
• Politics of exclusion particularly along ethnic lines, in which some groups within the state are deliberately favoured at the expense of others carry its own seeds of destruction. Governance in Liberia under the Americo-Liberians and Doe clearly demonstrate this fact. This by no means imply that ethnic heterogeneity per se inevitably produces conflict. In fact ethnicity is capable of constructive application if perceived positively. Enlightened institutional arrangements and accommodation can reconcile ethnic heterogeneity, which is an African reality, with open and enabling politics.
• The Liberian crisis illustrates how African states are totally taken by surprise by conflict anytime it occurs. It is necessary to think out what mechanisms may be designed to deal collectively with those factors which are likely to bring about conflict in the future and how to deal with them in advance. We cannot afford to be interested only in the resolution of conflict but must also work for its prevention. The latter implies that we should be able to deal with simmering conflict before it erupts into conflagration. African states should shift from assisting to invoke peace after violent conflict to helping to resolve conflict peacefully.
• There is the need to devise a strategy whereby even if conflict erupts in any state no warring person should be allowed to obtain or contest for political power. Any person who aspires for future leadership should stay out of armed conflict. While it may be argued that this recommendation amounts to disenfranchising certain citizens, it must be emphasized that the rise to the presidency as a reward for waging war in one’s nation tends to perpetuate the flawed notion that military success is the only viable option for resolve disputes. Taylor’s support for the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone clearly demonstrates that such leaders hardly ever leave their warring ways and continue to be a source of sub-regional and regional instability.
• The relapse into conflict in Liberia is indicative of the fact it is enough merely to return to a fragile peace after conflict, there is the need to build institutions that will lead to the establishment of permanent peace. Such institutions should promote the rule of law and provide for the needs and safety of the people, which is indeed the essence of the return to normalcy. The judicial system, the police, the security forces, the prison service etc. must develop responsiveness and accountability. It should be possible to prosecute all law breakers including soldiers and militia men. Others bodies like human rights and reconciliation commissions should be given enough resources and independence to operate effectively.
• Peace and security within Africa can best be assured if each African state creates an environment that makes it possible for the populace to determine its own government through the democratic process. It is clear that the Liberian crisis and other seething internal conflicts in Africa have been created by a single political context – the absence of safeguards against abuses of human rights, lack of effective participation of the citizens in the political process and the marginalization of civil society to the advantage of the military. There is therefore the need to admit the correlation between lack of democracy and insecurity in Africa and to adopt preventive processes.

Said Adejumobi (2001), "Citizenship, Rights and the Problem of Internal Conflicts and Civil Wars in Africa", African Journal of Political Science, Vol.6, No.2, December 2001, pp.77-96.

Chris Allen (1999), "Warfare, Endemic Violence and State Collapse in Africa", Review of African Political Economy, Vol.26, No.81, September 1999, pp.367-384.

Amos Amaglo (2001), "There’s No Peace in Liberia", The Daily Guide, 6 August, p.4.

Sam G. Amoo (1997), The Challenges of Ethnicity and Conflicts in Africa: The Need for a New Paradigm, New York: Emergency Response Division, UNDP.

Philipa Atkinson (1997), ‘Liberia’, Relief and Rehabilitation Network Newsletter, 9, pp.27-28.

Baffour Ankomah (1997), "Special Report on Liberia", New Africa, December 1997.

Pauline H. Baker (1996), "Conflict Resolution Versus Democratic Governance: Divergent Paths to Peace", in Chester O. Hampson, eds., Managing Global Chaos, Washington D.C: USIP Press, pp.563-571.

Nicole Ball (1996), "Challenge of Rebuilding War-Torn Societies", in Crocker and Hampson, ed., Managing Global Chaos, op. cit., pp608-622.

James Butty (1997), "Taylor’s First 100 days", West Africa, 24-30 November, pp.1838-39.

James Butty (1997), "The Task of Economic Rebuilding", Ibid., p.1839.

Lionel Cliffe and Robin Luckham, "What Happens to the State in Conflict: Political Analysis as a Tool for Planning Humanitarian Assistance", The Journal of Disaster Studies, Policy and Management, Vol.24, No.4, December 2000.

Robert Clower, "Liberia 1989-1994: A Study of Ethnic and Spiritual Violence", African Affairs, Vol.94, 1995, pp.165-200.

Nat J. Colletta and Taies Nezam (1999), "From Reconstruction to Reconciliation", in Development Outreach, Vol.1, No.2, Fall 1999, pp.5-8.

Al-Hassan Conteh, et.al. (1999), "Liberia", in Adebayo Adedeji, ed., Compreheding and Mastering African Conflicts: The Search for Sustainable Peace and Good Governance, London and New York: Zed Books.

Lewis Coser (1956), The Functions of Social Conflict, New York: The Free Press.

Elizabeth M. Cousens & Chetan Kumar with Karin Wermester, eds. (2001), Peacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace in Fragile Societies, Boulder and London:

Desmond Davies (1997), "The Key to Security", West Africa, 24-30 November, pp.1840-41.

Francis Deng and I. William Zartman, ed. (1991), Conflict Resolution in Africa, Washington D.C: The Brookings Institution.

Stephen Ellis, "Liberia 1989-1994: A Study of Ethnic and Spiritual Violence", African Affairs, Vol.94, 1995, pp.165-200.

Alexander K.D. Frempong (1999), Subregional Approach to Conflict Resolution in Africa: The Case of ECOWAS and the Liberian Peace process, 1990-1997, M.Phil Thesis, University of Ghana.

Alexander K.D. Frempong (2001), "State Formation and Collapse in Liberia", Paper delivered at the Second Conference on State and Everyday Life in Africa, Helsinki, May 2001.

Allan Goodman and Sandra C. Boggard, ed. (1991), Making Peace: The United States and Conflict Resolution, Boulder: Westview Press, 1992.

Fen Osler Hampson (1996), "Why Orphaned Peace Settlement are More Prone to Failure", in Crocker and Hampson, ed., Managing Global Chaos, op. cit., pp.533-550.

Human Rights Watch (1997), Liberia Emerging from the Destruction, New York.

Mary Kaldor and Basker Vasshee, ed., (1997), Restructuring the Global Military Sector, Vol.1, London and Washington D.C: Pinter.

George K. Kieh, Jnr. (1992), Dependency and the Foreign Policy of a Small Power, San Francisco: Nilian Research University Press.

George K. Kieh, Jr. (1998), "State Collapse and Democratic Construction: Prospects for Liberia", in John M. Mbaku & Julius Ihonbvere, eds., Multiparty Democracy and Political Change: Constraints of Democratisation in Africa, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp.151-170.

Krishna Kumar, ed. (1997), Rebuilding Societies After Civil War: Critical Roles of International Assistance, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Rene Lemarchand (1998:7), Patterns of State Collapse and Reconstruction in Africa: Reflection of the Crisis in the Great Lakes", African Studies Quarterly, Vol.1, No.3, 1998.

J.G. Liebenow (1969), Liberia: The Evolution of Privilege, Ithaca:

Okwudiba Nnoli, ed. (1998), Ethnic Conflicts in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA.

Official ECOWAS Journal, Vol.17, June 1990.

Elizabeth Ohene (1997), "Chosen By God?", Focus on Africa, October-December 1997, pp.21-24.

Bola Olowo (1997), "Taylor Joins the Fold", West Africa, 1.14 September, pp.1421-1423.

Mike Oquaye (1998), "The Liberian Crisis: Lessons for Intra State Conflict Management and Prevention in Africa", Seminar Paper, ICAR, George Mason University, Virginia, USA.

Ezekiel Pajibo (1997), "Your Vote or Your Life", African Agenda, No.12/13, 1997, p.32.

Public Agenda, 11-16 August 1997, p.6.

Quetin Quatram (1998), The Lessons of Liberia: An Analysis of the Liberian CPE, A Report Commissioned by the Department for International Development (DFID)

Willian Reno (2000), The Rule of Law and Conflict Resolution in West Africa, CDD-Ghana Briefing Paper, Vol.2, No.1.

Donald Rothchild (1999), "Ethnic Insecurity, Peace Agreements and State Building", in Richard Joseph, ed., State, Conflict and Democracy in Africa, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp.139-338.

Albert Sam (1997), "Liberia Reborn", Daily Graphic, 26 July 1997, p.2.

Amos Sawyerr (1992), The Emergence of Autocracy in Liberia, San Francisco: Institute of Contemporary.

Amos Sawyerr (1997), Dynamics of Conflict Management in Liberia, Accra: Occasional Paper No.12, Institute of Economic Affairs Publication.

John R. Schram (1995), Conflict Resolution and the New World Order, Accra: University of Ghana 1995 Alumni Lecture.

Stephen J. Stedman (1991), "Conflict and Conflict Resolution: A Conceptual Framework", in Deng and Zartman, eds., Conflict Resolution in Africa, op. cit., pp.367-389.

Victor Tanner (1998), "Liberia: Railroading Peace", Review of African Political Economy, Vol.25, No.75, March

John Taweh (2001), "Four Years of Taylor", West Africa, 20-26 August, pp.18-19.

The New Republic, May 13, 1996, pp.18-19.

UNDHA (1997), Liberia: Humanitarian Situation Report, No.85, United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs, 17 September.

US Department of State (1997), Liberia Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1996, Washington D.C.

Margaret Vogt ed. (1992), The Liberian Crisis and ECOMOG, Lagos: Gabumo Publishing Co. Ltd.

M. Weller, ed. (1994), Regional Peacekeeping and International Enforcement: The Liberian Crisis, Cambridge: Grotius.

West Africa, 7-13 February 1994.

Tuah Wreh (1976), The Love of Liberty, London: C. Hurst and Co.

I. William Zartman (1991), "Conflict Reduction, Prevention, Management and Resolution in Africa, op. cit., pp.299-319.

I. William Zartman, ed. (1995) Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority, Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.