African Journal of International Affairs,
Volume 13, Numbers 1&2, 2010, pp. 121–144
© Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 2013
(ISSN 0850–7902)
United States Foreign Policy and the Second Liberian Civil War
George Klay Kieh, Jr*
Abstract
After about three years
following the end of its first civil war in 1996, Liberia was again plunged
into another civil war, when the Liberian United for Reconciliation and
Democracy (LURD), a group of rebels, attacked the country from neighbouring
Guinea. The efforts by the Taylor regime to repel the attack occasioned a
full-scale war. Initially, the war was confined to the western and
north-western portions of the country. But, by early 2003, LURD’s forces had
advanced to the outskirts of Monrovia, the capital city.
For the
initial four years of the war, the United States displayed a nonchalant
attitude. This was because Liberia was no longer of any strategic value to the
US. Also, given the adversarial relationship between the Taylor regime and
Washington, the latter thus had no empathy for the former. However, amid the
escalation of the war and its attendant adverse consequences, especially the
death of hundreds of civilians, ECOWAS, the AU, the EU, the UN and various actors
within the American domestic setting, including Liberian Diaspora Groups,
pressured the Bush administration to join the efforts to end the carnage.
Consequently, the Bush administration obliged. After an ECOWAS-brokered
agreement that led to the resignation of President Taylor and his subsequent
departure to Nigeria in exile, the United States intervened by supporting
ECOWAS’ peacekeeping operation.
* Professor
of Political Science, University of West Georgia, USA, Senior Research Fellow in the Program on
Ethnic and Federal Studies at the University of Ibadan,
Nigeria. Email:
gkieh@westga.edu
122
Against this backdrop, this
article has interrelated purposes. First, it examines the nature and dynamics
of American intervention in the second Liberian civil war. Second, it discusses
the impact of the American intervention on the civil war. Third, it maps out
the emerging trajectory of US– Liberia relations in the post-Taylor era.
Fourth, it proffers ways of rethinking the relationship so that it would be
mutually beneficial.
Résumé
Environ trois ans après la fin
de sa première guerre civile en 1996, le Liberia a été de nouveau plongé dans
une autre guerre civile, lorsqu’un groupe de rebelles, les Libériens unis pour
la réconciliation et la démocratie (Liberian United for Reconciliation and
Democracy – LURD), a attaqué le pays à partir de la Guinée voisine. Les efforts
du régime de Taylor pour repousser l’attaque ont entraîné une guerre totale.
Celle-ci était confinée au départ aux régions ouest et nord-ouest du pays, mais
au début de l’année 2003, les forces de LURD avaient progressé jusqu’aux abords
de Monrovia, la capitale.
Pendant les quatre premières
années de guerre, les Etats-Unis ont affiché une attitude nonchalante, car le
Liberia n’avait plus aucune valeur stratégique pour eux. En outre, compte tenu
des relations conflictuelles entre le régime de Taylor et Washington, ces
derniers n’avaient aucune empathie pour le premier. Cependant, face à
l’escalade de la guerre et des conséquences négatives qui en découlent, en
particulier la mort de centaines de civils, la CEDEAO, l’Union africaine,
l’Union européenne, les Nations Unies et divers acteurs à l’intérieur des
Etats-Unis, y compris des Groupes de la diaspora libérienne, ont mis la
pression sur l’administration Bush afin qu’elle se joigne aux efforts pour
mettre fin au carnage. Ce qu’elle accepta donc. A la suite d’un accord négocié
sous l’égide de la CEDEAO qui a abouti à la démission du Président Taylor et
son départ subséquent en exil au Nigeria, les Etats-Unis sont intervenus en
soutenant l’opération de maintien de la paix de la CEDEAO.
Dans ce contexte, le présent article a des objectifs
étroitement liés : un, examiner la nature et la dynamique de l’intervention
américaine dans la seconde guerre civile libérienne ; deux, discuter de
l’impact de l’intervention américaine sur la guerre civile ; trois, dresser la
carte de la trajectoire émergente des relations entre les Etats-Unis et le
Liberia après l’ère Taylor ; et quatre, offrir des moyens de repenser les
relations pour qu’elles soient mutuellement bénéfiques.
123
Introduction
For almost four years, the United States
demonstrated nonchalance in its foreign policy behaviour toward the second
Liberian civil war. Several factors accounted for this. First, with the end of
the ‘Cold War,’ Liberia was no longer of strategic importance. Second, given
the hostile relations between the United States and Liberia during the Taylor
regime, Washington therefore saw the insurgency launched by the Liberians
United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), an amalgam of former leaders
and members of the various warring factions from Liberia’s first civil war
(1989-1997), as an opportunity to oust the Taylor regime from power. Toward
this end, despite its foreign policy behaviour, the United States acquiesced in
the transfer of its weapons from Guinea (LURD’s sub-regional patron) to LURD
(Coalition to Stop the use of Child Soldiers, 2004). The weapons were then used
by LURD’s forces to wage the war and the campaign to oust the Taylor regime
from power. Third, the theatre of the war was limited to the western and
north-western regions of Liberia from early 1999, when the war commenced, to
early 2003. Thus, the horrendous human rights violations (Human Rights Watch
1999; Human Rights Watch 2000; Human Rights Watch 2001; Human Rights Watch
2002) that were committed by the belligerents – Taylor’s government forces and
those of LURD – were not publicly known. Thus, there was no public outcry at
that time for intervention by the United States and other global actors.
However, by March 2003, the theatre of the war expanded to
the outskirts of the capital city, Monrovia. The resultant ‘tugs and pulls’
between government and LURD forces witnessed an escalation of the violence, as
hundreds of civilians were wounded and killed by both targeted and
indiscriminate attacks from the warring parties. With the war and its
associated unmitigated violence within full view, there were calls from various
quarters for the international community to intervene and halt the orgy of
violence that had engulfed the entire country with the emergence of the
Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), an offshoot of LURD, as the
so-called ‘second’ insurgent group. As Liberia’s neo-colonial patron, the
United States came under an avalanche of pressure from the European Union, the
African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and
various Liberian Diaspora groups based in the United States to intervene in the
war. Ultimately, the United States
shifted its policy from nonchalance to engagement in the second Liberian civil
war.
Against this background, the article has several
interrelated purposes. First, it will examine the nature and dynamics of the
United States’ engagement in
124
the second Liberian civil war. Second, the
study will assess the impact of the American engagement in the war. Third, the
article will probe the state of US– Liberia relations in the post-Taylor era.
Fourth, it will suggest ways for rethinking US–Liberia relations as a strategy
for helping to forestall the re-occurrence of war in Liberia.
The Stabilization Support Model
The study uses the stabilisation support
model as its theoretical framework for describing and explaining the thrust of
the United States’ engagement in the second Liberian civil war. The model is
anchored on several pillars. First, stabilisation support takes place in the
context of armed violence. And the violence serves as a barrier to the delivery
of humanitarian relief and peacemaking.
Second, stabilisation support entails the indirect
participation of an actor in the efforts to terminate a war by supporting the
military intervention of another actor. The support usually takes the form of
assistance with training, planning, the transporting of troops, and the
provision of equipment, logistics and intelligence. Importantly, the
‘supporting actor’ may use its military forces as the conduits for aiding the
‘engaged actor’.
Third, the ‘supporting actor’ collaborates with the ‘engaged
actor’ in the identification of the sources of the violence that undergirds the
war. Subsequently, the former helps the latter in bringing the intervention
assets to bear on halting the violence, and stabilising the environment. In
turn, this creates the conditions for the distribution of humanitarian relief
to civilians. Ultimately, this helps to restore hope to, and comfort for the
civilian population (Freedman 2007:248). Also, the mitigation of the violence
and the stabilisation of the environment provide propitious conditions for the
undertaking of peacemaking efforts to resolve the war and its underlying
conflict.
The Second Liberian Civil War
Background
Based on ECOWAS’ ‘exit strategy’,
post-conflict election was hastily organised when the conditions were not
propitious. The ‘exit strategy’ was informed by intervention-fatigue. That is,
the peacekeeping operation had exacted substantial human, financial and
logistical costs on the participating West African states, especially Nigeria
that provided the majority of the troops and the funding (Adebayo 2002). It is
estimated that the peacekeeping operation cost Nigeria in excess of $500
million (Hutchful 1999). Against this background, the
125
leaders of the sub-region led by President
Sani Abacha of Nigeria made the determination that the holding of election
would be the best ‘exit strategy’ (Interviews 1998a and 1999).
ECOWAS’ ‘exit strategy’ adversely affected the electoral
environment in various ways. One major way was that the disarmament and
demobilisation phases, which were critical to what Lyons (2001:1) calls ‘the
demilitarization of politics’, were incomplete (Ballentine and Nitzschke 2005).
By the time these two phases ended on 7 February 1997, only 21,315 of the
estimated 60,000 fighters had been disarmed (Human Rights 1998; Tanner 1998).
This worked to the advantage of the Taylor-led National Patriotic Party (NPP),
the political expression of the NPFL, the largest warring faction. With the
military and administrative machinery of the NPFL intact in the majority of
Liberia’s territory, the NPP had the machinery for waging the presidential campaign
through the use of intimidation and fear (Tanner 1998; Lyons 1999). With the
political space still militarised, voters were fearful that if they did not
support Taylor and the NPP, harm would either befall them personally or the
country as a whole (Lyons 1999; Lyons 2002). The fear was buttressed by
Taylor’s recurrent claim that if he did not win the Liberian Presidency, he
would revert to the waging of war (Lyons 1999).
Another advantage for the NPP was that the NPFL’s military
machinery was used to intimidate and make it difficult for the other
presidential candidates to campaign freely throughout the country (Lyons 1999;
Lyons 2002). Two cases are instructive. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the flag bearer
of the Unity Part (UP), was intimidated and harassed by NPFL operatives, while
she campaigned in Nimba County, the north central region of the country
(Interviews 1998b). Similarly, NPFL militiamen obstructed H. Boima Fahnbulleh,
the standard bearer of the Reformation Action Party (RAP), as he tried to
campaign in Grand Cape Mount County, his home region, in the western section of
the country (Interviews 1998b).
Additionally, Taylor had an overwhelming advantage over the
other political parties (mainly civilian-led) in the critical areas of
financial and material resources. Given the fact that Taylor used the war to
plunder and pillage Liberia’s rubber, diamond, gold and timber (Reno 1996), he
had a huge ‘election war chest,’ including money for vote-buying, a radio
station, automobiles, tshirts, posters and other resources that far exceeded
the combined resource bases of all of the other political parties(Lyons 1998).
Also, given ECOWAS’ plan to award Taylor the presidency, he was allowed to
begin campaigning in advance of the official commencement of the campaign
season (Harris 1999). Even though, this was clearly in contravention of the
electoral code, Taylor was never penalised.
126
From ‘Democratic’ Elections to Failed Peacebuilding
With the ‘electoral playing field’ not
levelled, and amid major security challenges, Liberians went to the polls en
masse to choose its new president. To the chagrin of some Liberians and
observers of Liberian affairs, the overwhelming majority of the electorate, for
a variety of reasons, gave Taylor and his NPP a landslide victory in the
presidential election – over 75 per cent of the votes (Independent Election
Commission, 1997a). Based on the proportional representation electoral formula,
Taylor’s political party was allotted 21 out of 30 seats in the Senate, and 49
of the 64 seats in the House of Representatives (Independent Election
Commission 1997b). This meant that Taylor was in complete control of the
government.
Clearly, Taylor’s victory was a great disappointment to the
Clinton administration, which despite its chequered involvement in peacemaking
efforts, showed considerable interest in the election. Specifically, the
Clinton administration was hopeful that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (now the incumbent
president), a member of the ‘old local wing’ of the Liberian ruling class
spanning the Tubman (portion) and Tolbert regimes, would have won the election.
As a member of what Prado (1966) calls the ‘bureaucratic wing’ of the local
ruling class, Madam Sirleaf held several positions, including assistant
minister of finance, deputy minister of finance for expenditure and debt
management, minister of finance and President of the Liberian Bank for
Development and Investment(LBDI). As well, she held positions at Citibank in
the United States, the World Bank and the United Nations (Sirleaf 2009). The
‘old local wing’ of the Liberian ruling class had a ‘patron-client
relationship’ with the United States and its ruling class (Lumumba-Kasongo
1999). Under this relationship, the ‘old local wing’ of the Liberian ruling
class performed an assortment of functions and services on behalf of the United
States and its ruling class, including creating propitious conditions for the
accumulation of capital by American multinational corporations like Firestone
(Mayson and Sawyer 1979; LumumbaKasongo 1999; Kieh 2007).
Having achieved his ambition of becoming the President of
Liberia, the hope was entertained by Liberians and various actors in the
international community, including ECOWAS, the OAU (now the AU), the UN and the
United States, that Taylor would provide the requisite leadership for
shepherding the post-conflict peace building project, especially the exigency
of addressing the root causes of the first Liberian civil war. Unfortunately,
the Taylor regime undertook various actions that undermined the peace building
project and eventually led to its failure. At the vortex, the Taylor regime
refused to set into motion measures for addressing the taproots of the first
Liberian civil war. The
127
overarching failure was the refusal to
democratically reconstitute the neo-colonial Liberian state, the generator of
the crises of underdevelopment that occasioned the war. To make matters worse,
the performance of the Taylor regime was horrendous. For example, the social
and economic conditions of the members of Liberia’s subaltern classes grew
worse. By 1999, the poverty rate was 76.2 per cent, and the unemployment rate
stood at an alarming 85 per cent (United Nations Development Programme 2006).
During the same period, the Human Development Index (HDI) was 0.276, ranking the
country 174th out of 175 countries worldwide (United Nations Development
Programme 1999). Politically, Taylor reverted to authoritarianism as evidenced
by, among other things, the unmitigated violation of human rights (Freedom
House 2010). In the security realm, the Taylor regime reneged on its commitment
to undertake security sector reform as required by the Abuja II Peace Accord.
Instead, President Taylor transformed his militia into Liberia’s new military,
security and police apparatus (Lehtinen 2002). One of the major consequences
was the heightening of the sense of insecurity that had enveloped the leaders
of the various former militias, who were apprehensive about a Taylor
presidency, especially in terms of its impact on their security.
At the sub-regional level, President Taylor embarked upon a
campaign of destabilisation in the extended Mano River Basin of West Africa. At
the core was the continuation of his support for the Revolutionary United Front
(RUF) in Sierra Leone (Human Rights Watch 2006). Also, in Guinea, President
Taylor supported the Rally of Democratic Forces of Guinea (RFDG), a rebel
group, in its effort to depose the government of President Lasana Conte
(Ploughshares 2000). In Côte d’Ivoire, the Taylor regime provided military and
other support to the rebel outfit Movement for Peace and Justice (MPJ), which
was determined to overthrow the regime of President Laurent Gbagbo (Dukule
2002). Significantly, President Taylor’s sub-regional destabilisation project
was propelled by two major objectives: Taylor’s insatiable appetite for the
personal control of natural resources as the locus of his private accumulation
of capital project, and his penchant to become a sub-regional ‘power broker.’
Clearly,
President Taylor’s actions helped to fuel the antagonistic relationship between
his regime and the United States government. Particularly, the American
government was incensed by Taylor’s destabilisation campaign, especially in
Sierra Leone and Guinea, whose regimes were friendly toward the United States.
Accordingly, the United States government pursued three major sets of
interrelated measures as the cornerstones of its relations with Liberia. The
locus was the political and diplomatic isolation of the Taylor regime, although
as Human Rights Watch (2002:2) aptly observes, ‘The U.S. was less public in its
approach.’ Another measure was the imposition of sanc-
128
tions on the importation of Liberian rough
diamonds (Human Rights Watch 2002:2). Washington also pursued a humanitarian
assistance programme through the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID), which focused on the resettlement of refugees and
internally displaced persons, and a modest but less successful democracy and
governance programme (Human Rights Watch 2002:2).
The Return to Warfare
Despite its efforts to construct a ‘garrison
state,’ the Taylor regime was unable to dragoon the Liberian people into
supporting it. Hence, with the evaporation of the euphoria and the resultant
legitimacy which it enjoyed both prior to, and immediately after the 1997
election, the Taylor regime became vulnerable to insurgency. Accordingly, an
amalgam of some of the leaders of the former militias (Taylor’s adversaries),
their supporters and some of Taylor’s disgruntled supporters established LURD
as an insurgency movement with the sole goal of removing Taylor from power, and
assuming control of the state. Then, using Guinea as the ‘launching pad,’
LURD’s forces attacked the western and northwestern portions of Liberia in 1999
(Brabazon 2003). In return, the Taylor regime mobilised the full battery of its
military assets and sought to repel the attack. The resultant ‘tit for tat’
plunged the country into its second civil war.
As has been
discussed, for almost four years, the war was focused in the west and northwest
regions of Liberia. It was not until mid-2003 that the war progressed to the
outskirts of the capital city region. This development was helped in part by
the decision of LURD to split into two groups: LURD, the original militia, and
the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). As Joe Wylie, one of LURD’s
military advisors boasted, ‘MODEL [was] an integrated force of LURD’ (Global
Security 2005a:1). The decision to create MODEL was propelled by the
determination that a two-front war would exert enormous pressure on the Taylor
regime, especially its demoralised military. Accordingly, MODEL opened a
‘second front’ in the south and south-eastern regions of the country, while
LURD continued to focus on the west, north-western and capital city regions.
By May 2003, the Taylor regime had lost control over the
entire country with the exception of an enclave in Monrovia, the capital city,
where Taylor and the core of his fighters were ensconced. So, for about two
months, the residents of the capital city region were subjected to attacks from
LURD and the Taylor regime. And this resulted in the injury and death of
thousands of innocent civilians (Clapham 2003). The escalation of the violence
and the result-
129
ant injuries and deaths eventually led to a
humanitarian crisis. In turn, there were calls from various quarters for the
international community to intervene and halt the carnage.
The Bush Administration and U.S. Policy Responses to the Second Civil
War
The Phases of American Policy Responses
American policy toward the second civil war
went through various phases spanning the ‘wait and see’ to engagement through
the stabilisation mission. In this section of the article, the nature and
dynamics of the various phases will be examined.
The ‘Wait and See Phase’
The United States was cognizant of the
deteriorating security conditions in Liberia as a consequence of the outbreak
of the latter’s second civil war, long before the highly publicised siege of
the capital city region by LURD in mid 2003. This was evidenced by various
actions taken by the United States’ European Command (EUCOM), which then had
responsibility for American military and security activities in the African
region. In early 2003, EUCOM sent a survey and assessment team and a Naval SEAL
platoon to Monrovia (Ross 2005:1).
Few months later, with the security situation in Liberia
deteriorating at a fast pace, EUCOM increased the security at the US Embassy in
Liberia with a Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team Platoon (Ross 2005:1). Also,
EUCOM deployed a humanitarian and assistance survey team to determine the
extent of the humanitarian crisis (Ross 2005:1). Then, in late July 2003, EUCOM
pre-positioned the 398th Air Expeditionary Group in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and
Dakar, Senegal (Ross 2005:1). EUCOM also placed Special Operations Forces (SOF)
in neighbouring countries, in preparation for a possible noncombatant
evacuation of US citizens (Ross 2005:1). In late July 2003, a Joint Task Force
for Liberia was established. The force trained in case a military operation in
Liberia was ordered by the President of the United States.
The Nonchalance Phase
Despite being cognizant of the reign of
violence and its associated consequences of injuries and deaths in Liberia, the
Bush administration decided that the United States would not intervene
militarily in the civil war. Two major factors accounted for this. First,
consistent with the United States’ realpolitik foreign policy framework,
Liberia was of no strategic value to the United States;
130
hence, a military intervention and its
attendant risks were unwarranted. As Beinart (2003:1) laments, ‘In countries
that lack oil and strategic location, rescuing suffering people still falls
into the Clintonian category of ‘foreign policy as social work’.’ Second, the
Bush administration was still suffering from what has been referred to as the
‘Somalia overhang’ (Crocker 1995). This mindset, which is based on the failed
American-led peacekeeping mission in Somalia in 1992, militates against any
American ‘armed humanitarianism’ in civil war ravaged African countries that
are enveloped by humanitarian crisis.
Accordingly, like the administration of ‘Bush 41’ did during
the first Liberian civil war in 1989, the regime of ‘Bush 43’ chose to watch
the Liberian civil war and its deleterious consequences. Thus, the US Joint
Task Force Liberia, which was organised in the case of an eventuality, was
ordered to change its former stance, since no American military intervention in
the conflict was in the offing. So, as the second Liberian civil war raged on,
the United States took a nonchalant attitude toward the conflict. In fact, as
thousands of Liberians besieged the US Embassy for help, the Marines stationed
at the American Embassy simply protected the facility (Beinart 2003:1). This
attitude on the part of the Bush administration disappointed many Liberians,
who expected the United States to intervene in their country’s civil war. To
express their anger at the Bush administration’s indifference, some people of
Monrovia lined up bodies of civilians killed during the fighting in front of
the US Embassy (Cherin 2003:1).
The Engagement Phase
Riveted by an avalanche of domestic and
international pressure amid the ‘killing fields’ in Liberia, the Bush
administration finally decided to get involved in the efforts to help end the
civil war and its attendant human suffering. Several factors contributed to the
policy shift. Within the Bush administration, some officials of the Department
of State led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, pressed the case for American
involvement (Matthews 2003:1). Another factor was that several civil society
groups in the United States pleaded for American intervention on humanitarian
grounds. In making the case, the New York Times (2003:A18) asserted, ‘Swift
American intervention could help end two decades of carnage that has destroyed
Liberia and crippled several of its neighbours. It can save lives, stabilise
the region, and prove that America’s commitment to Africa is real.’ As well,
the Liberian Diaspora community pressed for American intervention (Africa Focus
2003:1). At the global level, ECOWAS, the AU, the EU and the UN exerted
pressure on Washington (O’Connell 2004).
Yet, another major factor revolved around American security
interests, especially against the backdrop of the post-9/11 international
environment. In
131
this vein, the United States is concerned
about so-called ‘failed states’ being used as ‘terrorist beachheads.’ In
accentuating this point in the context of the second Liberian civil war,
Condolezza Rice, the then National Security Advisor to President Bush noted,
The President does believe
that Liberia and the stability of West Africa [are] important to U.S. interest.
In addition to the humanitarian situation there, we’ve also recognized since
9/11 that one wants to be careful about permitting conditions of failed states
that could lead to greater sources of terrorism (Freeman 2003:1).
Specifically, President Taylor was accused
of having ties to Al Qaeda. For example, a confidential investigation by the
Special Court for Sierra Leone found that there were links between Taylor and
Al Qaeda (Global Witness 2003; allAfrica.com 2004:1-2; O’Connell 2004).
Similarly, according to Farah and Shultz (2004:A19), ‘American security agencies
like the FBI found that Al Qaeda was involved in the diamond trade under the
protection of President Taylor.’ Against this background, ‘the U.S. was
planning strikes against Al Qaeda operations in Liberia, but the intervention
was called off’ (allAfrica.com 2004:1-2).
However, the puzzle remained the instrument through which
the United States’ involvement would be channelled. Hence, several options were
considered by the Bush administration, including American involvement in a
multilateral peacekeeping operation that would require deploying thousands of
troops (Steams 2003:1). With regards to the peacekeeping option, Bush
administration officials were divided over the risks of American involvement in
such a military operation (Steams 2003:1).
Ultimately, President Bush decided that the United States’
involvement in helping to end the second Liberian civil war would be through
the provision of support for a stabilisation project undertaken by the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Against this background, the Bush
administration’s ‘stabilization promotion strategy in Liberia’ was based on
three interlocking tenets. First, ECOWAS would establish a peacekeeping force,
and the United States would provide financial, logistical, training and operational
assistance for the stabilisation mission. Second, prior to the ECOWAS
peacekeeping force’s intervention into the conflict, President Charles Taylor
had to resign and leave Liberia. The rationale was that this would help create
a conducive environment for both peacekeeping and peacemaking, especially the
termination of the war and the formulation of a peace building project embodied
in a peace settlement. Third, a ceasefire agreement needed to be negotiated and
implemented among the belligerents. This would then provide the
132
requisite space within which the ECOWAS
peacekeeping force would operate. Subsequently, a stabilised environment would
serve as the terra firma for the intervention of a much larger United Nations
peacekeeping force.
War Termination and Stabilisation Support Activities
The Bush administration undertook various
steps to support efforts to terminate the second Liberian civil war and
stabilise the country. First, as a demonstration of American support for the
stabilisation mission, three warships with 2,300 marines were initially
deployed off the Liberian coast (Pham 2006:38). Then, following President
Taylor’s resignation, and subsequent departure from Liberia for exile in
Nigeria, the warships were brought in full view closer to the Liberian coast.
This was designed to show support for the stabilisation mission, and to send a
signal to the belligerents that the United States was determined to help
terminate the war, and stabilise Liberia (Lawson 2007).
Second, the Bush
administration helped to pressure President Taylor to resign and leave Liberia.
In framing his administration’s position on the matter, President Bush
insisted, ‘President Taylor needs to step down so that his country can be
spared further bloodshed’ (Law 2008:1). Subsequently, President Bush and some
of his senior foreign policy advisors recurrently urged President Taylor to
resign and leave Liberia. The resignation refrain made President Taylor to
believe that if he failed to comply, the United States would use military force
to oust him from power. President Taylor’s position was informed by the widely
held perception that the Bush administration did not hesitate to use military
force inducing compliance. As well, the leaders of ECOWAS played a pivotal role
in negotiating the agreement that led to Taylor’s resignation as the President
of Liberia on 11 August 2003, after the
expiration of his term of office, and his subsequent departure for Nigeria.
Third, the Bush administration collaborated with ECOWAS in
the brokering of a ceasefire agreement among Liberia’s warring parties.
Consequently, a formal ceasefire agreement was signed on 17 June 2003. The
signing of the ceasefire agreement provided the requisite space for the
intervention of the Economic Community of West African States’ Military Mission
to Liberia (ECOMIL), the sub-regional peacekeeping force. The Bush
administration had insisted that its support for the peacekeeping force and the
broader war termination and stabilisation project was contingent upon the
signing of a ceasefire agreement.
Fourth, the U.S. Joint Task Force Liberia (JTFL) provided
assistance to ECOMIL, the peacekeeping force, in the prosecution of the war
termination and stabilisation project. One critical area was the provision of
assistance with
133
troop readiness. Moreover, the JTFL assisted
the peacekeeping force with the deployment of its troops in the various
strategic zones in Liberia’s capital city region. Another was the provision of
equipment and logistics. In the area of intelligence, the JTFL assisted with
the gathering of information on the security situation, including the
activities of the belligerents. The locus of the intelligence collection
dimension was the conduct of daily aerial patrols over Liberia by JTFL.
The Dividends of the United States’ War Termination and
Stabilisation Activities
The various war termination and
stabilisation activities undertaken by the United States produced several
benefits. First, President Taylor resigned, and left for Nigeria. This helped
removed one of the major obstacles to the termination of the war. Both LURD and
MODEL had recurrently insisted that the sine qua
non for the termination of the war was
the resignation of President Taylor, and his departure from the country.
Second, American assistance was pivotal to the deployment of
ECOMIL, the peacekeeping force, and the subsequent stabilisation activities.
For example, ECOMIL was able to secure Roberts International Airport and the
Freeport of Monrovia, two strategic assets. In turn, this helped to facilitate
the flow of humanitarian assistance from various countries and non-governmental
organisations. Similarly, the peacekeeping force established security corridors
through which food, medicine, clothing and other items were delivered to
civilians, especially in the capital city region. Additionally, the
peacekeeping force removed the forces of the warring factions that were
occupying various locations around the capital city region. Subsequently, the
peacekeeping force established various ‘buffer and security zones.’ The
resultant effect was that the various warring factions were confined to
specific zones, especially in the capital city region. This enabled the
peacekeeping force to monitor their activities more effectively.
Third, the mayhem and the resultant humanitarian crisis were
reduced, particularly in the capital city area. However, the size of the
peacekeeping force (3,600 troops) militated against ECOMIL’s capacity to police
the entire country. Hence, the peacekeeping force was only able to effectively
reduce the rate of the wanton killing of civilians, and to halt the emergent
humanitarian crisis principally in the capital city region. Although the
peacekeeping force eventually extended its activities to various regions of
Liberia that were closer to the capital city, its limited size vis-a-vis the
forces of the three warring factions – the total size of the combined forces of
the Liberian government, LURD and MODEL was estimated at 40,000(Global Security
2005b).
134
Fourth, the stabilisation project helped to create
propitious conditions for the undertaking of the ‘Akosombo/Accra Peace
Process,’ and the eventual brokering of the ‘Accra Peace Accord’ or the
‘Comprehensive Peace Agreement by ECOWAS. The agreement, among other things,
embodied the ceasefire agreement signed on 17 June 2003, the modalities for the
termination of the war, the composition, mandate and term of office of the
interim government, and some of the major rubrics for post-conflict peace
building. The subsequent signing and promulgation of the peace accord
fundamentally altered the security environment in Liberia by shifting from war
to post-conflict peace building.
Fifth, the stabilisation activities were central to the
creation of an enabling security environment for the deployment of the United
Nations Peacekeeping Force. That is, with American assistance, ECOMIL was able
to create the requisite space for the UN peacekeeping force to assume the
security functions in Liberia. Also, ECOMIL, drawing from the lessons of its
intervention, was able to provide the UN peacekeeping force with valuable
information covering a broad range of issues. Clearly, this has been critical
to the success of the UN peacekeeping force over the past five years.
US–Liberia Relations during the Post-Taylor Era
Taylor’s Resignation and Departure to, and Arrest in Nigeria
As earlier discussed, ECOWAS brokered an
agreement that led to the resignation of President Taylor (BBC News 2003).
Although Taylor’s term of office expired on 2 August 2003, under the Liberian Constitution, he
would have remained in office until January 2004, when the new president was
sworn in (Constitution of Liberia 1986). Taylor resigned on 11 August 2003, and departed for Nigeria, where he was
granted political asylum (BBC News 2003). The locus of the plan, according to
Femi Fani-Kayode, the Presidential Spokesperson for former President Obasanjo,
was that ‘Taylor reached an agreement with the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS to
trade prosecution at the hybrid court in Sierra Leone for exile in Nigeria’(The
Analyst 2010:1). Vice President Moses Blah was sworn in as President on 11
August 2003. Under the terms of the ECOWAS brokered agreement, Blah served
until 14 October 2003, when the National Transitional Government of Liberia
headed by Gyude Bryant assumed power.
Interestingly, on 29 March 2006, Taylor was arrested by the
Nigerian Police in the State of Borno on the border with Cameroon (Associated
Press 2006; Reuters 2006). There are several explanations for Taylor’s arrest.
One of them is that the United States pressured President Ellen Johnson
135
Sirleaf, the new Liberian chief executive,
to request that Nigeria revokes Taylor’s asylum status and return him to
Liberia, so he could be sent to the Special Court for Sierra Leone to face
trial for war crime charges (The Analyst 2010). The related point is that
during a state visit to the United States in March 2006, President Bush
‘refused to see [President Obasanjo] until Taylor was produced’ (The Analyst
2010).
On 29 March 2006,
Nigeria returned Taylor to Liberia. After a very brief stay, on the same day,
Liberia sent Taylor to Sierra Leone to face war crime charges at the Special
Court for Sierra Leone for his alleged involvement in the Sierra Leonean civil
war (Soares 2006). About a month later, Taylor was sent to the Hague,
Netherlands to stand trails at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which was
moved from Freetown (Afro News 2006). Taylor’s trail commenced in the Hague in
January 2007 (The Guardian 2009).
The Transitional Period
The end of the Taylor regime occasioned a
shift in US–Liberia relations from a state of hostility back to the traditional
amity. During the Taylor regime (1997-2003), an adversarial relationship
developed between the two countries (US State Department 2010). From the
American perspective, the situation was caused by the confluence of three major
factors: 1) Taylor did not improve the lives of Liberians (US State Department
2010); 2) Taylor supported the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the insurgency
group, to destabilise Sierra Leone (US State Department 2010); and 3) Taylor’s
misrule led to the second Liberian civil war (US State Department 2010).
Accordingly, the US cut direct financial and military aid to Liberia, imposed a
travel ban prohibiting Taylor and his senior officials from visiting the United
States, and recurrently criticised the Taylor regime for human rights
violations (US State Department 2010). With one exception – the charge that
Taylor supported the RUF –, all of the US’ client regimes in Liberia – Tubman
(19441971), Tolbert (1971-1980), and Doe (1980-1990) – neglected the needs of
the subaltern classes in Liberia as well. And overtime, this created the
contradictions and crises that led to the first Liberian civil war in 1989.
Without holding brief for Taylor, the point is that the welfare of ordinary
Liberians has never been a concern of US foreign policy toward the country. If
this were the case, then the US should not have supported its aforementioned client
regimes.
Against this backdrop, an assessment of some of the claims
that Taylor has made at his war crimes trial indicate that the ruptured cordial
relationship between Taylor and the United States prior to, and during, the
first Liberian
136
civil war could be the critical causative
factor for the development of hostile relations between the United States and
Liberia during the Taylor presidency. It seems that Taylor may have
‘double-crossed the United States’ at some point. In this vein, two important
assertions by Taylor are noteworthy. First, Taylor claims that the US
government freed him from prison in 1985, while he was awaiting extradition to
Liberia on embezzlement charges (Keating 2009:1). Second, according to Taylor,
during the first Liberian civil war, ‘The NPFL [his militia] provided
information to the CIA… And there was information from the CIA to the [NPFL]’
(Sesay 2010:1). In addition, Taylor asserts that the CIA provided sophisticated
communications equipment to the NPFL (Sesay 2010:1). As I have argued, it
appears that there were factors related to the ‘US-Taylor relationship’ that
shifted the tenor of the relationship from friendship to enmity, beyond the
official American government position.
The National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL)
During the tenure of the National
Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL), US–Liberia relations returned to its
normal complexion based on friendship and cordiality. Two clusters of actions
that were undertaken by the United States demonstrated the return to normalcy.
The US supported the United Nations Mission in Liberia, as it undertook various
peace building activities.
At the bilateral level, from 2004-2006, the United States
contributed over US$1 billion to the reconstruction of Liberia (US State
Department 2010). As well, both the National Democratic and National Republican
Institutes played pivotal roles in the development of the modalities for
holding Liberia’s second post-conflict elections in October and November 2005.
In addition, the United State Agency for International Development
commissioned, as well as undertook various studies on economic, political and
social issues in Liberia.
The Sirleaf Regime
The election and subsequent inauguration of
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as the new President of Liberia on 16 January 2006,
witnessed the resurgence of increased American involvement in Liberia. The
process was set into motion by then First Lady Laura Bush and then Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice attending President Sirleaf’s inauguration as official
representatives of the United States government. About three months after her
inauguration, President Sirleaf was invited to the United States to meet with
then President Bush and to address a joint session of the United States’ Congress
(allAfrica.com 2006). In November 2007, President Bush awarded President
Sirleaf ‘The Presidential Medal of Freedom,’ the United States’ highest
civilian award (Executive
137
Mansion 2007). In February 2008, President
Bush visited Liberia during his second tour of selected African states (US
State Department 2010). As well, Liberia is currently the second largest
recipient of US bilateral development aid in Africa (US State Department 2010).
Under the Obama administration, the cordial relationship between the two
countries has continued. For example, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has
visited Liberia, and held several other meetings with President Sirleaf.
Similarly, President Obama met with President Sirleaf at the White House on 27
March 2010.
In appreciation for the unprecedented American support for
her regime, President Sirleaf, amid widespread opposition from her fellow
African leaders, mounted a ‘full court press’ in strongly supporting and
defending the establishment of AFRICOM, the US African Command, and offered to
host the command’s headquarters in Liberia (Nhamoyebonde 2010). Moreover, the
Sirleaf regime has been courting American businesses to invest in Liberia under
very generous investment terms, including the right to repatriate profits. So,
the Sirleaf regime has emerged as a reliable advocate for the expansion of
American imperialism on the African Continent.
Beyond War Termination and Stabilisation: The Imperative of Rethinking
US–Liberia Relations
There is no doubt that the United States
played a pivotal role in helping to terminate the second Liberian civil war,
and to subsequently stabilise the country. Although these efforts are
commendable, they however only addressed the consequences or effects of the
underlying civil conflict that occasioned Liberia’s two civil wars. Hence, in
order for the American efforts to contribute to the construction of durable
peace and the building of a new democratic and prosperous Liberia, it is
imperative that US–Liberia relations be rethought. Overall, the overarching
framework in which the bilateral relations are conducted needs to be changed.
That is, the realpolitik model, which casts Liberia and other developing
countries simply as objects of American foreign policy to be exploited for the
benefits of the United States, needs to be rethought. This is because the
resultant ‘realist trap’ would make it difficult for the United States to
support the democratic reconstitution of the Liberian state, the generator of the
crises of underdevelopment that led to the country’s two civil wars. Instead,
the United States would continue to support any regime in Liberia, irrespective
of whether it is authoritarian or otherwise, on the basis of the latter’s
support for American national interests.
138
Such a myopic
realist calculation would make the United States to continue to ignore critical
problems such as human deprivation, ruling class-led pillage and plunder,
political corruption, the lack of transparency, and the lack of accountability
in Liberia. Over time, these problems could generate crises that could again
lead to a violent conflict. Thus, in order to forestall such an outcome, the
United States needs to use a new framework based on an equitable partnership
with Liberia that advances political rights, civil liberties, accountability,
transparency, the rule of law, serious efforts to combat political corruption,
and policies that seek to address basic human social and economic needs such as
jobs, education and health care in the latter.
Drawing from the
new framework, the relations need to be anchored on several core pillars.
First, the United States needs to encourage the Sirleaf regime to
democratically reconstitute the Liberian state. This is the principal precondition
for setting into motion the process of addressing the civil conflict that
undergirded Liberia’s two civil wars. Clearly, the state that was established
in 1847, and subsequently transformed from a settler to a neo-colonial
construct in 1926 is of the wrong type. This is because as the repository of
evidence shows, this state construct has been anti-people, anti-democracy and
anti-development. For example, the various regimes have asphyxiated political
human rights (Freedom House 2010). On the social and economic fronts, the
subalterns have lived in a state of abject poverty, deprivation and destitution
(United Nations Development Programme 2006).
Additionally, the nature of the Liberian state does not
reflect the historical and cultural experiences of the amalgam of Liberia’s
various ethnic groups. Since the Liberian state was primarily established to
help ‘resolve the race problem in the United States’(Smith 1972; Beyan 1991;
Kieh 2008), the vision and national symbols, such as the national emblem, the
motto and the flag reflect the experiences of the freed Black slaves, who were
repatriated to Liberia beginning in 1820 (Dunn and Tarr 1988; Kieh 2008). In
order for durable peace to be established, the vision and national symbols need
to be changed, so that they can represent the collective historical-cultural
experiences of Liberia’s various indigenous ethnic groups, the repatriated
Africans, as well as immigrants from other African countries, and the
Caribbean.
Historically, the state’s mission has been to create
propitious conditions for the prosecution of the profit-seeking agenda of
multinational corporations, and the predatory accumulation process of the
members of the local Liberian ruling class (Mayson and Sawyer 1979). This has
exposed the ‘Janus-faced’ complexion of the neo-colonial Liberian state: on the
one hand, the Liberian state has created the conditions for the members of the
local wings of the
139
ruling class and their relations to have
their basic human needs, including jobs, education, health care, housing and
food. However, on the other hand, the Liberian state has visited deprivation on
the subalterns (Kieh 2007; Kieh 2008).
Similarly, by its character, the Liberian state is, among
other things, exclusionary, predatory, criminalised, privatised, prebendal,
exploitative, and non-hegemonic. Hence, it is controlled by the particular
faction or fraction of the Liberian ruling class that has control of state
power. Alternatively, Liberia needs a new democratic state type that is based
on holistic democracy – cultural, economic, political and social. By this I
mean the establishment of a comprehensive form of democracy that transcends political-centric
nature of liberal democracy. To paraphrase Ake (1996), holistic democracy
entails a ‘real democracy’ in which ordinary people have real decision-making
powers, and the thrust is on the welfare of the people, and the associated
investment in jobs, education, public health care, food security, public
housing and public transportation. Such a construct would be inclusive and will
serve the interests of all Liberians. It is critical to note that an exclusive
focus on political restructuring would be inadequate, given the nature of the
civil conflict that underpinned Liberia’s two civil wars.
The other major issue
is that American policy toward Liberia needs to transcend regimes or the
so-called ‘big man’ or now ‘big woman’. This is because such an approach in the
past has made the United States to ‘look away’ as incumbent Liberian regimes
violated political rights and civil liberties, and neglected the basic human
needs of the members of the subaltern classes. Accordingly, a new approach is
needed that emphasises the promotion of democratisation in concrete ways not
simply by rhetoric. In other words, the United States must make the support for
democratic principles a cornerstone of its new relationship with Liberia. The
major advantage of such an approach is that it would help to cage the
‘authoritarian demon’ that has perennially terrorised Liberia, by promoting the
institutionalisation of both procedural (political) and substantive
democratisation (basic human needs, social justice, equitable power
relationships, etc.).
Furthermore, the
United States needs to support the rights of Liberian workers to receive decent
pay and humane working and living conditions, and to use its influence in
encouraging the Liberian government and Western and Japanese multinational
corporations such as Firestone to do likewise, and to balance the need to get
returns on their investments with the imperative of making concrete and
meaningful contributions to the reconstruction of Liberia. Such an approach is
exigent, because the history of private investment in Liberia is replete with
evidences of collusion between the Liberian government
140
and Western multinational corporations with
the acquiescence of the United States government in the exploitation of
Liberian workers and the country as a whole. Clearly, the transformation of the
dynamics of private foreign investment in Liberia would help to provide the
financial resources that are exigent for reconstructing Liberia.
As well, the United States needs to tailor its foreign aid
to Liberia to the critical areas of education, health care, and the rebuilding
of the infrastructure – schools, hospitals, clinics, roads, bridges,
electricity, running water, etc. Given the current pervasiveness of political
corruption in Liberia (Frontpage Africa 2010), the American government should
devise modalities for ensuring that the Liberian government spends American aid
on human needs projects. One of the major contingent modalities that could be
used by the American government is the contracting of projects directly to
private companies. This would help circumvent the constraints that are imposed
by political corruption.
Conclusion
The article has attempted to examine the
role of the Bush administration in the termination of the second Liberian civil
war, and the subsequent stabilisation of the country. Clearly, the evidence
shows that the United States played a pivotal role in the twin processes of war
termination and stabilisation. For example, the exertion of pressure by the Bush
administration on President Taylor to resign as part of the process of ending
the war helped to remove a major obstacle. Similarly, the support provided by
the Bush administration to ECOMIL, the peacekeeping force of ECOWAS, in the
areas of troop preparation, troop transportation, intelligence collection,
equipment and logistics was critical to stabilising Liberia. In turn, the
termination of the war and the subsequent stabilisation of the country produced
several dividends, including the delivery of humanitarian assistance to
civilians, the brokering of a peace agreement, the deployment of the UN
peacekeeping force, the establishment of a transitional government, the holding
of the 2005 national presidential and legislative elections, and the creation
of an enabling environment for setting into motion the arduous process of
post-conflict peacebuilding.
However, the study argues that the United States needs to
transcend its role in the termination of the civil war and stabilisation by
rethinking the framework that provides the tapestry for the conduct of its
relations with Liberia. Overall, this would require the changing of the
realpolitik Weltanschauung. As the derivatives, the United States needs to
build an equitable partnership with Liberia that is based on the support for
the democratic reconstitution of the Liberian state, the support for democratic
principles over a regime or a ‘big
141
man’ or ‘big woman’, the transformation of
the nature and dynamics of private foreign investment by Western multinational
corporations, and tailoring its foreign aid to Liberia to human needs-based
projects, and the reconstruction of the infrastructure. If these can be done,
the United States would then be making a lasting contribution to the building
of durable peace in Liberia based on ‘real democracy’ (Ake 1996).
References
Adebayo,
Adekeye, 2002, Liberia’s Civil War: Nigeria, ECOMOG, and Regional Security,
Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
AfricaFocus,
2003, ‘Liberia: War Escalates, White House Indifferent to Crisis.’ 26 June,
p.1.
Afro News, 2006, ‘Charles Taylor
Arrested’, 30 March, p. 1.
Ake, Claude,
1996, Development and Democracy in Africa, Washington DC: The Brookings
Institution Press.
allAfrica.com,
2004, ‘West Africa: Debate over Al Qaeda’s Connection to West Africa’s Diamond
Trade Takes New Turn’, 5 August, pp. 1-2.
allAfrica.com,
2006, ‘President Sirleaf Thanks U.S. Congress, Asks for Continuing Support’, 15
March.
Associated Press (2006), ‘Nigeria:
Fugitive Ex-President Taylor Arrested.’ March 29.
Ballentine,
Karen and Heiko, Nitzschke, 2005, The Political Economy of Civil War and
Conflict Transformation, Berghof Handbook, Berlin: Berghof Center for
Constructive Conflict Management.
Brabazon,
James, 2003, Liberia: Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD).
Armed Non-State Actors Project Brief No. 1, London: The Royal Institute for
International Affairs.
BBC News, 2003, ‘Taylor Leaving to
End Bloodshed’, 10 August.
Beinart, Peter, 2003, ‘Ugly
Stepfather’, New Republic, 23 June, pp. 1-2.
Beyan, Amos, 1991, The American
Colonization Society and the Creation of the Liberian State: A Historical
Perspective, 1822-1900, Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Cherin, John,
2003, ‘End of Civil War’, Frontline, Vol.20, No. 18, pp. 1-4.
Clapham,
Christopher, 2003, ‘Liberia’, in Africa South of the Sahara, London: Routledge,
pp. 601-611.
Coalition to
Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, 2004, Child Soldiers Global Report, London:
CSCS International Secretariat.
Government of
Liberia, 1986, Constitution of Liberia, Monrovia: Government Printing Office.
142
Crocker,
Chester, 1995, ‘The Lessons of Somalia: Not Everything Went Wrong’, Foreign
Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 3, pp.2-8.
Dukule,
Abdoulaye, 2002, ‘West Africa and the Taylor Cancer (II)’, The Perspectives, 29
September, pp. 1-2.
Dunn, D.
Elwood and Byron, Tarr, 1988, Liberia: A Polity in Transition, Methuen, NJ:
Scarecrow Press.
Executive
Mansion, Liberia, 2007, ‘President Sirleaf Receives Presidential Medal of
Freedom’, 5 November.
Farah,
Douglas and Shultz, Richard, 2004, ‘Al Qaeda’s Growing Sanctuary’, The
Washington Post, 14 July, p. A19.
Freedman,
Lawrence, 2007, ‘Using Force in an Age of Terror’, in Chester Crocker et al,
eds, Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World,
Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace.
Freedom
House, 2010, Freedoms in the World: Comparative Data, New York: Freedom House.
Freeman,
Linda, 2003, ‘Is U.S. Inching Toward Intervention?’ Christian Science Monitor,
7 July, p.1.
Frontpage
Africa, 2010, ‘Corruption Watch’ .(www.frontpageafrica.com). 14 October 2010.
Global
Security, 2005a, ‘Movement for Democracy in Liberia.’ Military-Liberia. 27
April, pp. 1-2.
Global
Security, 2005b, ‘Liberia—Post-Taylor Ceasefire—11 August 2003’,
MilitaryLiberia, 22 September, pp. 1-2.
Global
Witness, 2003, For a Few Dollars More: How Al Qaeda Moved into the Diamond
Trade, Report, London: Global Witness.
Harris,
David, 1999,. ‘From ‘Warlord’ to Democratic President: How Charles Taylor Won
the 1997 Liberian Election.’ Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3,
pp. 431-455.
Human Rights
Watch, 1998, ‘Liberia: Human Rights Developments,’, World Report, New York:
Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights
Watch, 1999, ‘Liberia: Human Rights Developments’, World Report, New York:
Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights
Watch, 2000, ‘Liberia: Human Rights Developments’, World Report, New York:
Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights
Watch, 2001, ‘Liberia: Human Rights Developments’, World Report, New York:
Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights
Watch, 2002, ‘Liberia: Human Rights Developments’, World Report, New York:
Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights
Watch, 2006, Charles Taylor and the Wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, New York:
Human Rights Watch.
143
Hutchful,
Eboe, 1999, ‘ECOMOG’s Experience with Peacekeeping in West Africa’, in Malan,
Mark, ed, Whither Peacekeeping in Africa? ISS Monograph, No. 36, Pretoria:
Institute for Security Studies. Available at: www.iss.co.za.
Independent
Election Commission, 1997a, The Results of the 1997 Liberian Presidential
Election, Monrovia: IECOM.
Independent
Election Commission, 1997b, The Allocation of Legislative Seats to Political
Parties in the 1997 Election Monrovia: IECOM.
Interviews,
1998a, ‘Interviews Conducted with a Sample of the Leaders of the Former Warring
Factions in the First Liberian Civil War’, Monrovia, Liberia.
Interviews,
1998b, ‘Interviews Conducted with a Sample of the Leaders of Liberian Political
Parties that Participated in the 1997 Election’, Monrovia, Liberia.
Interviews,
1999, ‘Interviews Conducted with a Sample of the Leaders of the Former Warring
Factions in the First Liberian Civil War’, Monrovia, Liberia.
Keating,
Joshua, 2009, ‘Charles Taylor Says U.S. Helped Him Break Out of Jail,’, Foreign
Policy, 17 July, pp. 1-2.
Kieh, George
Klay, 2007, ‘The United States and the First Liberian Civil War’, Africa
Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 24-35.
Kieh, George
Klay, 2007, ‘The Human Development Crisis in Liberia’, Journal of Sustainable
Development in Africa, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 78-94.
Kieh, George
Klay, 2008, The First Liberian Civil War: The Crises of Underdevelopment, New
York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Law, Cvlle,
2008, ‘August 11, 2003—Taylor Resigns as President of Liberia’, Democratic
Central, 11 August, pp. 1-2.
Lawson,
Letitia, 2007, ‘U.S. Africa Policy Since the Cold War’, Strategic Insights,
Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1-14.
Lehtinen,
Terhi, 2002, ‘Liberia: From Bloody War to a Warlord State’, in Kivimaki, Timo
and Laasko, Liisa, eds, Agents, Motives and Instruments: An Atlas of African
Con-
flicts, Helsinki: Conflict
Transformation Service.
Lumumba-Kasongo,
Tukumbi, 1999,. The Dynamics of Economic and Political Relations between Africa
and Foreign Powers, Westport, CT: Prager.
Lyons,
Terrence, 1999, Voting for Peace: Post-Conflict Elections in Liberia,
Washington DC: The Brookings Institution Press.
Lyons,
Terrence, 2002, Postconflict Elections: War Termination, Democratization, and
Demilitarizing Politics, Working Paper No. 20. Fairfax, VA: Institute for
Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, 2002.
Mayson, Dew
Tuan-Wleh and Sawyer, Amos, 1979,. ‘Labor in Liberia’, Review of African
Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 14, pp. 3-15.
Matthews,
Mark, 2003, ‘White House Weighing Options for U.S. Involvement in Liberia’, The
Seattle Sun 1 July, p.1.
New York Times, 2003, ‘America’s
Role in Liberia’ 24 July, p A18.
144
Nhamoyebonde,
Tichaona, 2010, ‘AFRICOM: Latest U.S. Bid to Re-colonize the Continent’, The
Herald, 7 January.
Pham, John
Peter, 2006, ‘Re-inventing Liberia: Civil Society, Governance, and a Nation’s
Post-War Recovery’ The International Journal of Not-For-Profit Law, Vol. 8, No.
2, pp. 38-54.
O’Connell,
Jamie, 2004, ‘Here Interest Meets Humanity: How to End the War and Support
Reconstruction in Liberia, and the Case for Modest American Leadership’,
Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 208-247.
Ploughshares,
2000, ‘Guinea.’ Armed Conflicts, 2000, Waterloo, ON, Canada: Ploughshares.
Prado, Caio, 1966, The Political
Evolution of Brazil, Sao Paulo, Brazil: Editoria Brasiliense. Reno, William,
1996, ‘The Business of War in Liberia’, Current History, Vol. 95, No. 601, pp.
211-215.
Reuters,
2006, ‘Ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor Arrested on Nigeria-Cameroon
Border’, 29 March.
Ross, Blair,
2005, ‘The U.S. Joint Task Force Experience in Liberia’, Military Review, Vol.
85, No. 3, pp. 60-67.
Sesay, Alpha,
2010, ‘Liberia: Charles Taylor Did Not Work for the CIA, He Did Not Manipulate
Prosecution Witnesses, He Says’.(allAfrica.com). 16 February.
Sirleaf,
Ellen Johnson, 2009, The Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life By
Africa’s First Woman President, New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Smith,
Robert, 1972, The American Policy in Liberia, 1822-1971, Monrovia: Providence
Publications.
Soares,
Claire, 2006, ‘Liberia’s Ex-President Captured and Sent for War Crime Trial’,
30 March.
Steams, Scott, 2003, ‘Bush Sends
Assessment Team to Liberia’, VOA News, 4 July.
Tanner,
Victor, 1998, ‘Liberia: Railroading Peace’, Review of African Political Economy,
Vol. 25, No. 75, pp. 133-147.
The Analyst, 2010, ‘Liberia: Who
Betrayed Taylor?’ 11 August, p.1.
The Guardian
(London), 2009, ‘Lawyers for Liberia’s Charles Taylor Begin War Crimes Defense
at the Hague’, 13 July.
United
Nations Development Programme, 2006, Liberia: Human Development Report, New
York: Oxford University Press.
United
Nations Development Programme, 1999, National Human Development Report of
Liberia, 1999, New York: Oxford University Press.
United States
State Department, 2010, ‘Liberia: Background Notes’,
(www.usstatedepartment.gov). 18 September 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment