The current situation in Liberia can best be described as "sustaining hostilities" stirred up by six years of savage civil war. Claiming over 250,000 lives (about fifteen percent of the population) and displacing over 800,000 Liberians from their native land, the war's immense destruction provoked the chairman of the Council of State of the National Transitional Government, Ruth Perry, to call it "one of the worst man-made disasters in recent memory." (UN #1)

This "tailspin into chaos" began on December 24, 1989 as Charles Taylor sought revenge for the bloody 1980 coup led by Samuel K. Doe, which forced the end of 158 years of Americo-Liberian rule. (Ransdell, 35) Taylor's band of roughly one hundred Libyan-trained men invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast and marked the beginning of what would become a six year battle for control of the poverty-stricken country on Africa's west coast. (Ransdell, 37) After Doe's execution, at least eight major rebel groups emerged to contend for power during the conflict, including the Arms Forces of Liberia (an offshoot of Doe's army) and Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front for Liberia. (US Agency for International Development) The violence that consumed these war years was characterized by "the killing of civilians and a blatant disregard for international humanitarian standards and human rights law by all parties." (Amnesty International)

On August 19, 1995, the Abuja Peace Accord was signed by leaders of the main warring factions in Abuja, Nigeria. (US Agency for International Development) As the thirteenth peace agreement attempted since the war's outbreak, the deal specified an immediate cease-fire, disarmament within six weeks, and the establishment of a council of state to govern until elections one year later. (The Economist) However, the invalidity of this accord was reflected as violence broke out in Monrovia on April 6, 1996 between Taylor's front (the NPFL) and the ULIMO/Krahn, a splinter faction led by Roosevelt Johnson representing Doe's ethnic group, the Krahns. (US Agency for International Development) According to an Amnesty International press release, fighting erupted when police tried to arrest Johnson for alleged involvement in the murder of an associate of the new leader of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO-J), to whom Johnson had lost leadership of the group after internal disagreement. (Amnesty International) As a result of the outbreak, at least six hundred people, mostly Liberian civilians or Lebanese nationals, were held hostage to act as human shields at the Barclay Training Center, where Johnson continued to resist arrest. (Amnesty International) Later in April and May 1996, the violence escalated as 75% of Monrovia (including homes, churches, and schools) was looted by warring factions, and NGOs and UN agencies in the capital lost $8.2 million worth of vehicles. (US Agency for International Development)

This type of indiscriminate violence has characterized much of post-war Liberia, whose countryside is marked by makeshift militias with no training extending beyond "the arts of pillage, looting, and mass murder." (Ransdell, 35) As the rebel factions continue to divide into smaller groups, the irony of the conflict is pointed out by a member of the ULIMO/Krahn rebels. Because food and other vital necessities can be obtained for "free" during rebel activity, being a fighter "makes better economic sense than living as a civilian." (Ransdell, 37) According to Djudi Bryant, a Liberian economist, the militias will continue to disregard any subsequent peace treaties as long as profit results from situations in which "war has become indistinguishable from crime." (Ransdell, 37)

This hopeless analysis has proven frustrating for the many peacekeeping efforts that have attempted to keep current violence under control. From their arrival in Monrovia in August 1990, much of these peacekeeping efforts during and after the war have fallen into the hands of forces from ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, and ECOMOG, a cease-fire monitoring group. (US Agency for International Development) Sent by the Economic Committee of West African States, the ECOMOG presence in Liberia consists of 8,500 troops sent to monitor the implementation of the Abuja Peace Accord. (Adeyemi #1) The cumulative failure of these organizations to control the fighting has been attributed largely to financial difficulties. Although the U.S. government pledged in April to award an additional $30 million in conditional assistance to ECOMOG (US Agency for International Development), Ruth Perry appealed to the UN General Assembly for more aid for the organization in October, following the latest round of violence between rebel factions. (Adeyemi #2)

The intensified fighting prompting this plea erupted in the town of Sinje (about 75 km northwest of Monrovia) on September 29, 1996 between the western Bomi and Grant Cape Mount counties. Over forty civilian casualties resulted from the violence between rival groups of ULIMO, the United Liberation Movement, one of Liberia's many warring factions. (African Church Information Service) On September 30, fifteen bodies of women and children who had been shot or hacked to death by fighters were found on Grand Cape Mount highway. (African Church Information Service) Anthony Nyaki, the UN special representative to Liberia, called the cease fire violation "a most serious violation of human rights and of the rights of children." (African Church Information Service) One of the many harmful ramifications of this latest violence was the forced withdrawal of dry food rations to Liberian civilians by the World Food Programme. (Panafrican News Service) Because the food recipients were often the target of foreign fighters, aid workers were forced to cease the two-week dry food rations and resort to on the spot wet feeding, which reached only 2500 people (instead of the previous 40,000.) (Panafrican News Service) Roughly 1.5 million Liberians currently require humanitarian assistance, out of a prewar population of over 2.4 million. However, in late July the U.N. World Food Program reported that warring factions denied the evacuation of severely malnourished children to Monrovia, signifying the threat that the factions represent to widespread relief efforts. (US Agency for International Development)

The immense humanitarian harm catalyzed by the increased violence has provoked the United Nations to reevaluate the strength of its Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL). The organization has already undertaken urgent investigations of the latest violence in Monrovia in pursuit of humanitarian rights and verification of cease-fire violations. (UN #2) In addition, the mandate for the UNOMIL mission was extended until November 30, 1996. (US Agency for International Development) Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali emphasized that the continued support of the international community strictly depended upon the warring factions showing a commitment to resolving their differences under the bounds of the Abuja Peace Agreement. (UN #2) Along with Perry, Ghali stands committed to the implementation of a democratic government in Liberia marked by the elections set for May 30, 1997. (Panafrican News Agency) In preparation, the U.S. plans to fulfill the November 5, 1996 request of ECOMOG to retrain and equip the Liberian Police for the elections. (Panafrican News Agency) Additional democratic efforts attempted at the ECOWAS Committee of Nine on Liberia Summit meeting held from August 13-17, 1996 include a war crimes tribunal for warlords who act out of accordance with the Ajuba Accord. (US Agency for International Development)

Other democratic efforts cited by Perry include the reintegration of child soldiers into society, which would require giving the children "not just a pair of sneakers but [putting them] into institutions where they will have benefits for the future," and an increased role for women in the peace process. (UN #3) Noting that she strongly supports the decisions regarding the advancement of women at last year's conference in Beijing, Perry states that her selection for the Council of State reflected "the active involvement of Liberian women in the peace process," and that the resolution of violence was not a challenge just to her but to all women in Liberia, Africa, and the world. (Adeyemi #2) These wide-ranging democratic efforts represent the international quest to free Liberia from its tradition of violence.

Copyright Heather Craigie, 1996