Liberia’s Piecemeal Peace

Abstract

Seeking to overthrow Liberia’s president Samuel K. Doe, Charles Taylor, leader of a group of one hundred combatants calling themselves the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), entered Liberia from its border with Côte d’Ivoire on Christmas eve in 1989. Ironically, Doe himself had wrested power from William Tolbert through a coup d’état in 1980. Over the course of his nine years in office, Doe, an ethnic Krahn, constructed political power around the Krahns, which constituted about 4 percent of the population.¹ Essentially, Doe perpetuated the political marginalization that had occurred during the rule of William Tolbert and his Americo-Liberian predecessors— former slaves repatriated from the United States in the 1800s. Americo-Liberians, composing about 5 percent² of the population, had ruled the country exclusively since their settlement in the 1820s.³ Perhaps, most significantly, Doe cultivated a circle of patronage and used the state’s enterprises such as the Forestry Development Authority and the Liberian Produce Marketing Corporation to support his network and himself.⁴ Ostensibly for the repression and hollowing out of the country, Taylor claimed he sought to overthrow Doe.⁵