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Much like Sierra Leone, Liberals Inhabitants originally insisted of ex-slaves from the united States of America. In spite of this, Liberia was no exception to the cycle of African conflict and warfare. Initially a prosperous democracy, by the sass Liberia was virtually a dictatorship under regime of Samuel Doe, and a country that would soon see war on its soil. The war which accounted for over 200,000 lives lost and the displacement of millions was a culmination of years of mismanagement, corruption and poor decision-making by then president Samuel Doe.
Before going Into the Orleans of the war It Is Important to determine the type of AR the Albertan Civil War truly was. There Is little disagreement that the war was a civil war as it was between the people of the nation and the goal was clearly to overthrow the government and reform the country. It can also be determined that the Librarian Civil War was a guerrilla war because much of the opposition to Doe’s government was guerrilla parties such as the National Patriotic Front of Liberia which was a rebel unit that had Invaded from the Ivory Coast.
Finally, when classifying the war against Doe’s regime, It Is Important to note that the war was by all definitions. Total war as it was contained within the nation state and all sides of the conflict, civilian or otherwise, put forth all their resources to win. When it comes down to it the war did not take place in battlefields, but in village roads and city streets, the deaths we see from this war were not all soldiers, in fact a good percentage were civilians without any formal training at all.
Of course, the aforementioned conflict did not spring up In a day. Liberia was established by freed American slaves with the Idea that former slaves would have further freedom and equality there. When developing the blueprint for the state the early founders had a choice to build a united Liberia or to form a civilized state with the mission to civilize and Christianize the “savage and barbaric” indigenous population as a precondition for citizenship and land ownership in the land of their birth and nativity.
By adapting a Euro-American style of civilizing and Christianizing, over time their mission dominated political discourse and served as the foundation of the Librarian state. The second historical root cause of the Librarian conflict finds basis in the intimidating SE of force and authority to sustain the settlers’ control as it relates to culture, the acquisition of land and the corresponding issues of identity and trade. The American Colonization Society and settlers’ mentality dominated the natives culture and practices as being inferior and uncivilized.
In order to be employed or conduct trade one had to be civilized which meant indefinitely assuming a new identity. Natives were required to change their name, religion, social orientation, and their dress code if they wanted to function within society which was a means of living. This mandated practiced enraged natives because they were forced to strip unique personal aspects of their life in order to survive. William Delbert was an America-Librarian who belonged to one of the largest America-Librarian families in Liberia.
The former vice president took control of Liberia in 1972. During his presidency Delbert tried to strengthen relations abroad to try to fulfill his promises of a more democratic government, this caused him to loose the support of his conservative base. Delbert gained even more opposition when the price of rice rose from $22 to $30 which engaged citizens because the country was already in a bad economic state. This led to the April Rice Riots in 1979. Delbert favored nepotism by appointing those close to him in his family to positions in his cabinet.
Although the America-Librarian never constituted more than five percent of the population of Liberia for nearly one and half centuries they kept all the political and economic leadership within their group. Samuel Doe lead the bloody takeover in the name of the indigenous people. The government of Samuel Doe and those preceding him did many things to turn the entry in the direction of civil war. One of the major factors was the loss of economic support from the United States of America.
Liberia had always been reliant on its connection to America. In fact, one of the main reasons why Liberia was never colonized by European powers was because of the potential possibility of conflict with the United States. During World War 2, reliance on American economic might came to a forefront, a trend that would continue after the war until the government of William R. Delbert, Jar. During Teller’s administration, Liberia established political sees with the Soviet Union, leading the United States to withhold foreign aid.
The rampant corruption, nepotism and abuse of human rights by Doe’s government spurred foreign nations such as the United States to cut off foreign aid, following the diminishing of the Cold War. Doe’s regime only intensified already existing tension between the many ethnic groups that composed the Librarian population and made Liberia a catalyst for violent conflict. Samuel Doe, for example, was notable because he did not belong to the America-Librarian elite that had dominated Librarian politics since the conception of the Librarian State.
Samuel Doe’s nemesis in the ensuing struggle, Charles Taylor (An America-Librarian), would be sure to utilize ethnic tensions in his own strategy. Preexisting ethnic rivalries gave the various factions in the Librarian Civil War an easy and willing source of recruits. It also lent itself well to the individual motivation of each soldier. Charles Taylor is a graduate of Bentley College in Massachusetts. Tailor’s National Patriotic Front Rebels (NEFF) rapidly gained the support of Librarian because of the repressive nature of Samuel Doe and as the dominant political force in Liberia.
On December 24th, 1989 Taylor backed by his rebels invaded the Ivory Coast. The NEFF lead by Charles Taylor directed the conquest in the name of trying to right the wrong for the native Gigs and Man’s peoples. They targeted specific ethnic groups who were supporters of President Doe’s government and were responsible for the deliberate killings of thousands of civilians between 1989 and 1993. During this time the warlords exploited their country’s abundance of natural resources such as diamonds, rubber, gold and iron ore as a source of revenue.
Prince Johnson allied himself with Charles Taylor and the NEFF to come one of the most famed warlords the country has known to date. Johnson was infamously responsible for the killings of anyone who showed opposition to his forces or criticized his coup. Perhaps one of his most inhumane doings was the execution of Holding devil dais who was a school teacher that addressed a letter to Johnson asking him to cease the slaying of people who were distributing food to the starving people of Monrovia. Africans place in modern world history has always run coexisting with the course of conflict.
Certainly, most notable in the European story of Africa is the limitation and dismemberment of the continent. However, long after the great European powers had left Africa, the taste for war remained. Liberia, as far as African nations go, is, along with Sierra Leone, unique in that it was never under the domination of a European country. Remarkable about the nature of African conflicts is the savagery with which they are fought. In this regard, the Librarian Civil War shares many characteristics with the various conflicts that Africa witnessed.
It is worth noting that the various factions and armies involved in the conflict did not eave, at their disposal, sophisticated precise weaponry, and the heaviest of weaponry being the occasional self-propelled gun. Far more common among the combatants were assault rifles, machetes and otherwise benign farming tools. Still, the intense savagery with which the Librarian Civil war was conducted could not be simply attributed to the equipment and weapons utilized. In fact, deeper motives and principles mixed to make the Librarian civil war one of exceptional brutality.
One underlying motive was the intense ethnic hatred that was present to fuel the conflict. Throughout history, ethnic conflicts have always had a trend of being extraordinarily bloody, violent and merciless. Additionally, much of the Librarian population subscribed to a certain level of belief in the supernatural. Thus, mutilation, the desecration of human remains or even the consumption of a fallen enemy would not have the strange alien connotation it does within the Western history of modern warfare.
Still, perhaps the largest contributing factor to the savagery of the Librarian civil war was the same one that plagued many African nations in the late 20th century; absolute anarchy. The Librarian Civil War was not simply one of reactionary and revolutionary forces battling each other for control. It was one of multiple, separate and independent factions fighting each other for domination with no other vein of commonality than their desire to win. In such an insane atmosphere, armies could be characterized in little other fashion than gangs as warfare degenerated into simple daughter, rape and murder.
Liberia is a reflection of the wounds left by civil war. Ellen Johnson, winner of the first elections held after the end of the war (2005), inherited a country ravaged by 14 years of bloody fighting. Much of the population continent’s oldest black republic tries to leave behind its recent past. As of early 2002, the conflict resulted in thousands of internally displaced civilians and refugees fleeing to neighboring countries to escape death, torture and brutal atrocities committed by the security forces of Charles Taylor.
After spending a season in exile Taylor was arrested and is currently on trial in The Hogue for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The situation in Liberia remains, nevertheless, of great hostility. Organizations like The Human Rights Watch warned that the parties involved levered only one-third of their weapons, infant 40-60% of the world’s small arms are in the hands of illicit organizations. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, instead of millions of weapons being destroyed they were dumped onto the world market and sold for as little as $8.
Not only is there an issue of violent disturbance but also the use of children in their war was at risk. The operating forces compelled the use of innocent children, boys and girls to work for them in the great battle; however the inclusion of the humanity rights were insane. It is said that 23% of the unarmed organizations in the world use children age 15 and under in combat roles. Hundreds of thousands of Librarian children were abducted by rebel groups because it is a cheap strategy of recruits. Forces would ambush churches, schools, and entire villages at a time to build their assembly.
If a child is physically big enough to bear a weapon in the palm of their hand or have two molar teeth they are fit to serve. Children are preferred because they can move swiftly and undetected due to their small stature. During the Librarian Civil War children were forced to participate, and n overwhelming amount did so in fear of being brutally murdered. Beside the fact that in year 2006, Taylor was arrested and his trial currently underway in The Hogue, for war crimes and crimes against humanity was followed.
Faced with major inter-ethnic conflicts and civil war, Liberia has little time to develop a complex linguistic politics. The state does absolutely nothing legally, or in practice. He simply continued the colonial policy, leaving English as official language, while no one spoke English. The Librarian government apparently has no education policy in regard to language. It prohibits nothing, but does nothing. Such an attitude is not surprising in a context of civil war and widespread corruption. Inevitably, small communities are marginalia.
It is possible that in the years to come, a government develops a more “native”, but for now we do not see how it could happen. So the war came and the war went. ‘ It would be convenient to characterize the Librarian Civil war, like most other wars, passed in this fashion. Still, this is not entirely true. To say that the First Librarian Civil War ended is a bit of a stretch; the war merely petered out as time went on. In 1994, at the capital of Benison, a peace accord was signed but nearly immediately forgotten by the warring factions that kept the war moving (Hancock, up. 224-229).