LIBERIA

Liberia, situated on the West Coast of Africa, is the continent’s first republic. Endowed with tremendous natural resources capable of making the nation and its people prosperous and happy, corrupt dictatorial political leaderships have relegated the 157 year old country to the level of one of the poorest in the world. Recent UNDP development index did not mention the country at all.

The social and economic backwardness of Liberia has been worsened by the over two decade of political turmoil and physical upheavals. The first major crises erupted in 1980, when non-commissioned officers of the Armed Forces of Liberia overthrew an oligarchic regime, a 133-year rule of what is called “settler hegemony” of predominantly resettled Africans, ex-slaves from the Plantation of the Americas and the Caribbean, which dictated the country’s political and economic scene based on the policy of exclusion and repression against the native aborigines.

The revolutionary People’s Redemption Council, which replaced the True Whig Party one party rule, in spite of the people’s overwhelming reception, also failed miserably to improve the living standards of the vast majority of Liberian due to endemic corruption and mal-governance, which characterized its nearly 10-year autocratic rule. Popular dissension against the Samuel K. Doe regime matured into a bloody insurgency in late 1989, an insurgency which degenerated into a full-blown civil war which brought the nation to its kneels.

The general and presidential elections of 1997, which was intended to broker lasting peace, produced as winner the head of the largest warring faction in the war, Mr. Charles Taylor, who subsequently perpetrated a regime of terror that culminated into another round of bloodletting.

Through the period of conflict, Liberians, particularly the impoverished majority found themselves attacked, maimed and murdered by various armed factions. They lived in fear and subjugation, as their life was constantly disrupted. Many fled the country, while others were internally displaced.

In August 2003, as a result of the signing of a major peace agreement by belligerent factions and stakeholders, hostilities ceased and a giant-size international stabilization force is currently consolidating the peace following nearly nine months of disarmament. Concurrently, Liberians are returning to their original homes and have begun to reckon with the magnitude of the war.