Liberating Liberia Charles Taylor and the Rebels Who Unseated Him Nicole Itano SECURITY ISS Paper 82 • November 2003 STUDIES Price: R10.00
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INSTITUTE FOR Liberating Liberia Charles Taylor and the rebels who unseated him Nicole Itano SECURITY ISS Paper 82 • November 2003 STUDIES Price: R10.00 INTRODUCTION has elapsed makes it possible to generate a more comprehensive picture of what occurred and to come The resignation and departure of Charles Taylor on to some understanding of the forces that contributed Monday 11 August 2003 came suddenly and to Charles Taylor’s fall. While Taylor’s decision to unexpectedly to the outside world, which had long accept exile may have shocked much of the viewed Liberia’s president as one of the continent’s international community, who believed the Liberian most wily and intractable troublemakers. For almost president would hold on to power until the bitter end, 14 years, first as a rebel and later as Liberia’s at home it was greeted with less surprise. By the time democratically elected president, Taylor had been rebels advanced to Monrovia in June, spurred on by waging war in his own country and in those of his the indictment issued against Taylor by the United neighbours. Nothing—not sanctions, elections or the Nations Special Court in Sierra Leone, his government arming of rebels—seemed able to weaken his grasp was crumbling from the inside. The siege of Monrovia on power. is only part of the story. Yet on 11 August, with three powerful The new This paper also examines the African presidents sitting at his side, a transitional ramifications of Taylor’s departure from bitter Charles Taylor handed power to Liberia and its prospects for peace. Even his deputy, Vice-President Moses Blah. government has with Taylor gone, the country’s Just hours later, he headed into exile on been given the problems run deep and the peace there a Nigerian plane, setting the stage for an is still extremely fragile. Throughout the extraordinary week that saw the task of governing recent conflict, both rebel groups withdrawal of rebels from Liberia’s Liberia and maintained their primary goal was the capital, Monrovia, the arrival of the first removal of Charles Taylor, but ethnic- American peacekeepers in Africa since preparing the based dissatisfaction and Somalia, and the signing of a peace deal country for fresh disempowerment lie at the root of their that includes a two-year transitional elections grievances. Neither group is likely to government followed by elections in accept any long-term political scenario 2005. that does not give them a substantial share of power. Much will also hinge on the On 14 October, Moses Blah handed over the effectiveness of demobilisation and disarmament, and Presidency to Gyude Bryant, a 54-year-old especially the repatriation of the country’s thousands businessman who was chosen by delegates to the of child soldiers. The failure of such programmes in Liberian peace talks in Ghana to head the new broad- the run-up to Liberia’s 1997 elections—largely due to based transitional government of national unity. interference from Taylor—was what had set the stage Under the peace agreement signed on 18 August by for the present conflict. Liberia’s lost generation will Moses Blah and the two rebel movements, the not simply disappear. Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the new Movement for Democracy in Most of the information in the followings pages, unless Liberia (MODEL), the new transitional government otherwise noted, is drawn either from interviews with has been given the task of governing Liberia for the people in Monrovia during August 2003 or from next two years and preparing the country for fresh direct, first-hand experience of the events during elections in 2005. more than three weeks of reporting in the city. An attempt has been made throughout to explain what Events moved so quickly that it was difficult at the ordinary people—refugees, soldiers and local time to place them into much of a context. Although community workers—thought about the events taking Liberia’s future is far from settled, the short time that place around them. Where historical information has INSTITUTE FOR Itano • page 1 Paper 82 • November 2003 SECURITY STUDIES been used to help put events into context, the facts was not in any way analogous to that of Somalia in presented are widely accepted and uncontroversial, 1993, when 18 soldiers died in a single botched unless otherwise noted and cited. mission, but the memory of that disastrous intervention still looms large in the memory of many Americans and no doubt influenced the scope and BACKGROUND scale of American involvement in Liberia. The crisis in Liberia came under the international I arrived in Monrovia on 31 July, to a city under siege. spotlight in June 2003, when rebels from the Liberians Most of Monrovia’s outlying areas had been United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) abandoned, both because of actual insecurity and made a rapid advance towards the capital, Monrovia, because government troops had demanded that eventually seizing part of city, including the port, and people leave or be considered rebel collaborators. placing the rest under virtual siege. Although the Incidents of rape and looting, often by government current conflict has been running since at least 1999, soldiers, were common and another factor that led just two years after Charles Taylor was elected many families to flee deeper into the city. In one president, little international attention was given to refugee centre, the Samuel Doe Stadium where at the situation in Liberia until the LURD reached the least 50,000 people had taken refuge, more than outskirts of the capital on 5 June. In fact, for almost a 1,000 women came forward saying they had been year after the 1997 elections, many international raped during the current conflict. On the government observers speculated that Taylor and his National side of the city, hundreds of thousands of people had Patriotic Party government had invented the taken refuge in neighbourhoods like the Mamba conflict—which at this point was confined to largely Point, a diplomatic quarter near the sea, because inaccessible areas in Liberia’s north—to put pressure those neighbourhoods were near the UN offices and on the international community to drop arms and the US Embassy, from which they expected help, and diamond embargos on the country. Even as recently because they were older neighbourhoods that as 2003, although the existence of a rebel group was contained more concrete buildings, which are less acknowledged, almost nothing was known about the susceptible to mortar attacks and stray bullets. group, its aims or leadership. Nor was the Ironically, the areas to which people fled were among international community much inclined to help the hardest hit by rebel shelling and many were close Taylor, who was accused of arms smuggling, human to, or even on the front line. rights abuses and robbing his country blind. By 31 July, although there was still fierce fighting on By mid-2003, however, three factors intersected to the front line, the frequency of mortar attacks had put the issue firmly in the pubic eye. First, there was decreased and people were beginning to leave their the indictment of Charles Taylor by a UN-backed war places of refuge for the first time in almost two weeks crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone on 4 June, the same to search for food and water, both of which had day peace talks opened in Accra, Ghana. Second, the grown critically scarce. Although the security situation dramatic and quick-moving advance of the LURD on improved in the days that followed, food and fuel Monrovia created a visible humanitarian crisis in the remained in short supply until two weeks later when capital. Tens of thousands of displaced people took the rebels handed over control of the port, where refuge in buildings near the US Embassy, at one point most of the city’s supplies were stored, to West piling the bodies of war casualties near the gates of African peacekeepers. The price of rice rose to almost the building in a macabre protest that was broadcast $2 a cup, far beyond the reach of most people, and around the world. many people resorted to swimming across a swamp to reach rebel territory where the markets were full of Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in late June looted food aid. It was not possible to gain access to 2003, US President George W Bush called for Charles the rebel side of the city until 5 August, after the first Taylor to step down and began hinting, in the run-up peacekeepers arrived, although later assessments to his long-awaited trip to Africa, that the US might indicate that the humanitarian situation on the rebel send troops to help stabilise the situation. In the side was never as bad as on the government side, in aftermath of the conflict in Iraq, the fact that Bush was part because there were fewer people there. even considering deploying troops in Liberia was regarded domestically as an indication that the US The LURD advance can be divided into three main saw an increased threat from “failed states”, even in offensives, called “the three world wars” by residents on areas of the world not normally considered part of the government side. The first, beginning on 5 June— America’s strategic interest. Such an intervention, it one day after Taylor was indicted for war crimes and was thought, would mark a major policy shift, peace negotiations began in Accra, Ghana—brought the especially for a president who was elected on an rebels to the outskirts of the city. A ceasefire was signed isolationist international agenda and had repeatedly on 17 June, but held for less than a week before the called on the memory of America’s intervention in launch of a second attack that brought rebels into Somalia as a warning against interventionism.