Liberia was founded as a colony by free African-Americans and freed slaves from the United States in 1822.  In 1980, a military coup led by Samuel Doe ushered in a decade of authoritarian rule. In December of 1989, Charles Taylor launched a rebellion against Doe's regime that led to a prolonged civil war in which Doe himself was killed. A period of relative peace in 1997 allowed for elections that brought Taylor to power, but major fighting resumed in 2000. But how was such instability even possible? The answer lies in the original makings of Liberia itself. The fact that the Americo-Liberians constituted an ethnic minority in their country and the fact that there was no real system of checks and balances gave rise to the eventual power struggles of the late 20th century.

     From the outset, even though Americo-Liberian settlers viewed Liberia as the “promised land”, they did not assimilate into the “traditional society”. Instead, they called themselves “Americans”, and were recognized as such by local Africans and British colonial authorities in the region. After all, the settlers who were free African-Americans and freed slaves were essentially from the American South, and thus carried with them a far different culture than that of the “indigenous people”. Ironically, Liberia's constitution denied indigenous Liberians equal rights with the lighter-skinned American emigrants and their descendants. And thus, as it was expected, conflict frequently arose between the “Americans” who lived on the coast and the “indigenous people”. One needs to look no further than the beginning of the First Liberian War to find evidence of these prejudices and their disastrous effects. The military coup d’etat of 1980, led by Samuel Doe claimed marginalization from the hands of the minority Americo-Liberian settlers. Thus, Samuel Doe became the first Liberian head of state who was not a member of the Americo-Liberian elite. Doe's rule was characterized by corruption and brutality. A rebellion led by Charles Taylor, who posed as a defender of justice, led to the 1st Liberian Civil War.

     Even though the Americo-Liberians had based their government on that of the United States, they lacked the inherent system of checks and balances that the founding fathers of America had put into place. The result was a semi-democracy, which is known to be prone to initiate or become embroiled in a war. “After 1877, the True Whig Party monopolized political power in the country, and competition for office was usually contained within the party, whose nomination virtually ensured election”. The True Whig Party was considered the first of such single-party systems. The “indigenous people” of Liberia were excluded from voting or being part of the True Whig Party.

     After the dust kicked up by Liberia’s government flaws had settled and the country had endured two civil wars, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was democratically elected as president of Liberia, becoming the first woman to be a head of state in Africa.

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     In 2006, former president Charles Taylor, who ruled during the 2nd Liberian war, was turned over to an international court in The Hague to face trial on charges of crimes against humanity for supporting rebel troops in Sierra Leone's brutal civil war that claimed the lives of about 300,000 people in the 1990s. However, due to the current state Liberia is in, ex-combatants returned to the country and continue to terrorize the civilian population. The deployment of UN soldiers has begun to gradually remove weapons from the ex-combatants; thirty-one percent of the ex-combatants are now said to be disarmed.  The current reforms of Sirleaf’s government have ensured peace in the near future of war-torn Liberia.

© 2010 Gregory Markov

Read More About Liberia's History, and other events in Africa's History:

Origins of Liberia: Birth of a Nation

A Study Of The Biafra War In Nigeria: Causes, Development, And Aftermath

Conflict Diamonds And Oil: The Perpetuators Of War In Africa