{
  "id": "RL30933",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL30933",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 100364,
      "date": "2003-12-31",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-08T14:31:32.071544",
      "title": "Liberia: 1989-1997 Civil War, Post-War Developments, and U.S. Relations",
      "summary": "This report covers Liberia's first civil conflict (1989-1997), post-war developments until roughly\n2001, and the history of U.S.-Liberian relations and U.S. policy toward Liberia. Subsequent, more\nrecent events are covered in  CRS Report RL32243 ,  Liberia: Transition to Peace .\n  The modern Liberian state was founded by \"Americo-Liberians,\" black freemen and former\nslaves from the Americas who settled in Liberia beginning in 1821. State structure and society in\ncontemporary Liberia reflect a blending of indigenous and Americo-Liberian cultural and political\ninfluences, but the latter historically exercised extensive control over Liberia's economy and central\ngovernment. Americo-Liberian rule persisted until December 1989, when after nearly a decade under\nthe corrupt rule of Samuel K. Doe, who seized power in a 1980 coup, Liberia plunged into civil war.\nFactional conflict raged for 7 years, despite the signing of multiple peace agreements, the presence\nof U.N. observers, and the deployment of a regional intervention force dispatched by the Economic\nCommunity of West African States. The conflict caused between 150,000 and 200,000 deaths, and\ndisplaced much of the population. The warring factions committed numerous atrocities and forcibly\nenlisted thousands of children as fighters. Throughout the conflict, Congress and successive\nadministrations provided humanitarian assistance for the Liberian people. The United States had\nbeen Liberia's leading pre-war trading partner and a major aid donor. A peace process, initiated in\nmid-1996, resulted in the July 19, 1997 election of former faction leader Charles Taylor as president\nof Liberia. \n  As the new government began the tasks of reconstruction and reconciliation, Liberia appeared\nto have entered a period of normalcy. The killing and harassment of prominent opposition leaders\nand the new administration's closure of a newspaper and radio stations, however, raised widespread\ndoubts about its commitment to good governance and support for basic human rights. Such incidents\nprompted strong expressions of U.S. and international concern, but reports of human rights abuses,\ncorruption, and lack of democratic progress under the Taylor administration persisted, as did\ncriticism of it. International concern, particularly in 1999 and subsequently, increasingly centered\non the Taylor government's on-going military assistance to the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)\nrebels fighting neighboring Sierra Leone's government. This aid, which Taylor denied providing,\nnotably involved the exchange of military aid for diamonds from Sierra Leone and prolonged its\nconflict. To counter these actions, the U.S. and other governments supported a series of U.N.\nSecurity Council resolutions aimed at ending the trade in \"conflict diamonds\" and sanctioning the\nTaylor government. The United States also pursued unilateral sanctioning the Taylor government. \n  Eventually, poor political and human rights conditions and residual civil war resentments and\nrivalries gave rise to series of limited armed incursions into Liberia by anti-Taylor dissidents in 1999,\nwho continued their efforts in the following year, giving rise to a broad and sustained armed\ninsurgency that eventually developed into a second full-scale civil war (covered in  CRS Report RL32243 , as noted above).",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
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          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/RL30933",
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      ],
      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "African Affairs",
    "Foreign Affairs"
  ]
}