Weapons of Mere Destruction: ECOWAS and UN Policy Countering the Proliferation of Small Arms During and Immediatly After the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars

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MA Thesis

History of International Relations

written by

Lothar van Riel

Under the supervision of Ms. Prof. Dr. M. van Leeuwen

and

Mr. Prof. Dr. W. Klinkert 5th of August, 2015

WEAPONS OF MERE

DESTRUCTION

ECOWAS

AND

UN

POLICY COUNTERING THE PROLIFERATION

OF SMALL ARMS DURING AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE

F

IRST

AND

S

ECOND

L

IBERIAN

C

IVIL

W

ARS

.

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Introduction

On Christmas Eve 1989, a force of 150 militias led by Charles Taylor marched into Liberia in a bid to take control of the country. Within months, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), as the amateur soldiers called themselves, seized control of the entire Liberian hinterland. Within years, Taylor managed to cultivate a pseudo-government, creating ministries, a private bank and even his own currency.1 The secret to the NPFL’s rapid advance was the deadliest weapon of the past thirty years: an adolescent male equipped with an Avtomat Kalashnikova – the AK-47.

Of course, the AK-47 was not the only weapon that featured in the war. The small arms and light weapons (SA/LW) used during the war ranged from Belgian FN-FAL assault rifles, to American M-16’s to Chinese and Serbian made variants of the Kalashnikov. Unfortunately, these weapons were not limited to the Extended Civil War in Liberia either. Young men, women, and children brandished these arms not only in various conflicts in Africa, but also in Bosnia, Haiti, Cambodia and Colombia.2 According to a UN statement in 1997:

“The excessive and destabilizing accumulation and transfer of small arms and light weapons is closely related to the increased incidence of internal conflicts and high levels of crime and violence. It is, therefore, an issue of legitimate concern for the international community. Groups and individuals operating outside the reach of state and government forces make extensive use of such weapons in internal conflicts. Insurgent forces, irregular troops, criminal gangs, and terrorist groups are using all types of small arms and light weapons.”3

There are several critical reasons why assault rifles and other light weapons are the arms of choice in these intrastate conflicts. First and foremost, they are relatively cheap and easily accessible. Following the end of the Cold War, millions of these weapons have been declared surplus by the nations that owned them. Consequently, they often fell into the hands of corrupt brokers, who were more than ready to sell them to organizations like Taylor’s NPFL. Secondly, these weapons are durable and remarkably easy to use. Especially the assault rifles based on the Russian Kalashnikov architecture, and to lesser extent the American M-16’s left over from the Vietnam War, require very little and simple maintenance. Finally, small arms and light weapons are easy to carry, transport and conceal and are capable of inflicting enormous damage.

One of the conflicts that brought the destabilizing role of small arms to the attention of the international community was the First Civil War in Liberia. Their destructive capability was illustrated by the extraordinary amount of human suffering caused in the conflict: the war claimed the lives of over 200,000 people and displaced over a million. As these kinds of conflicts proliferate, the flood of small arms has become a relentless torrent.

The death toll from small arms dwarfs that of all other weapons systems and in most years greatly exceeds the toll of the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In terms of the carnage they cause, small arms, indeed, could well be described as “weapons of mass

destruction”. Yet there is still no global non-proliferation regime to limit their spread, as there is for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Small arms proliferation is not merely a security issue; it is also an issue of human rights and of development.4

1

Stephen Ellis, The mask of anarchy: The destruction of Liberia and the Religious dimension of an African civil war (London 1999) 171.

2

Michael Klare, “The Kalashnikov Age,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 55, No. 1 (January/February 1999).

3_{United Nations (UN), “General and complete disarmament: Small Arms,” A/52/298 (27}th_{of August 1997) 9-10.} 4

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The outbreak of violent civil conflict in Liberia marked the beginning of a change to the political and security configuration of the region, and attracted millions of illicit small arms.5 The easy accessibility of timber and diamonds provided non-state actors with the opportunity to barter these natural resources for weapons, fuelling the small arms scourge in the Mano River Basin.6 Extended Liberian Civil War posed a considerable security threat to the region; porous borders and large amounts refugees and displaced people put significant stress on the stability of the neighbouring countries. This spurred the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to intervene in the First and subsequently In the Second Liberian Civil War, with support from the United Nations.

Before the start of the 21st century the arms control and proliferation debate concentrated almost exclusively on the availability of major weapon systems and weapons of mass destruction. Research on arms production and transfers neglected the field of small arms as well.7 Only at the start of the year 1995 do we first see references to the problems small arms cause in official United Nations (UN) documents.8 In the eyes of an historian, it is safe to say that this field of research could be considered as being relatively young. The research pertaining to the First Liberian Civil War has focused on spiritualistic and ethnic violence, and to a lesser extent on the subsequent ECOWAS intervention. Research on the Second Liberian Civil War has focused on the role of small arms and on disarmament in particular, but has so far neglected to place it in a historic context.

The interventions by ECOWAS and the UN were officially concluded at a post-disarmament ceremony held on the 3rd of November 2004, after almost 15 years of war. Representatives of the warring factions signed a formal declaration disbanding their respective armed forces, which officially ceased to exist as military groups and signified their complete disarmament.9 The United Nations Mission in Liberia presented the disarmament programme as a success.10 But how did the ECOWAS

and UN interventions and the related policy attempt to curb the proliferation of small arms and light weapons during and immediately after the First and Second Liberian civil wars?

This question signifies the principal theme of this research. In order to sufficiently answer this question, the way in which the SA/LW are used by the various actors, the tactics surrounding their usage, and the modes of acquiring the weapons need to be identified and analysed. Furthermore, the role these weapons have played in the conflict need to be set within a greater historical

framework. This will allow for an explorative conclusion pertaining to the exact role of the weapons as a root cause or a catalyst.

The research is subsequently divided into three sections, all of which will present a preliminary conclusion. The first section offers a chronological account of the First Liberian Civil War with a special focus on the role small arms and light weapons played in the conflict. It is preceded by a short summary of the historiography surrounding the conflict and its historical context. The second section deals with the events that leading up to the eruption of the Second Liberian Civil War and the conflict itself. The two chronological sections both end with a short analysis of the disarmament programs and the possible origins of the weapons. The final chapter consists of a thematic analysis of the international policy on the proliferation of small arms and light weapons during the two conflicts.

5

Alhaji Ms Bah, “Micro-disarmament in West Africa,” African Security Review Vol. 13, No. 3 (2004) 33.

6_{The Mano River Basin is comprised of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire.} 7

Peter Lock, “Armed conflicts and small arms proliferation: Refocusing the research agenda,” Policy Sciences 30 (1997) 117.

8_{UN, Supplement to an agenda for peace: Position paper of the Secretary-General on the occasion of the fiftieth}

anniversary of the United Nations, A/50/60-S/1995/1, (United Nations 3rd of January 1995).

9

United Nations Mission in Liberia, “Liberia’s warring factions disbanded as disarmament of ex-combatants ends,” UNMIL/PIO/PR/142 (3rd of November 2004).

10

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Historiography and historical context

Historiography

One of the conflicts that helped propel the problem of small arms to the global stage is the extended civil war in Liberia. It actually consisted of two separate intrastate conflicts, the First Liberian Civil War starting in 1989 and ending in 1996 and the Second Liberian Civil War, which would begin a mere three years after the end of the first civil war and only ended in October 2003. These two conflicts would become two of Africa’s bloodiest wars, claiming the lives of nearly half a million people and destabilizing the entire region. The use of child soldiers, the war atrocities and the ritualistic mutilation of people in the wars between 1989 and 2003 defined Liberia as the epitome of a collapsed state and the epicentre of the West African wars. 11

Because the Liberian extended civil war is one of the more well-known post-Cold War conflicts, it has garnered a considerable amount of academic attention from various fields of study. Disregarding any possible differences between these various fields, there are several views on the wars discernible in the historiography. The first reaction to the Liberian conflict was to dub it as one of the ‘new wars’.12 The primary explanation for the violence was the so-called ‘greed and grievance’ thesis, drawing attention to both the economic motives and the global character of the conflict.13 The global connections between local conflicts and international (often illegal) market based-actors is often cited by proponents of the ‘new war literature’ as the most important characteristic of the violence around the turn of the millennium.

This ‘new war’ interpretation is spearheaded by Mary Kaldor, in her book ‘New and old wars: Organized violence in a global era’, with the Liberian extended civil war as a primary example.14 A more socially grounded explanation that is still in line with the ‘new war literature’ has been put forward by Ibrahim Abdullah, who focuses his attention on socially marginalised youth.15 Other notable examples of explanations offered include authors such as Thandika Mkandawire, William Reno, Robert D. Kaplan and Martin van Creveld.16

On the other side of the ‘new war literature’ is a more historic approach to the wars by authors such as Morten Bøås, Amos Sawyer and Sinisa Malesevic.17 They argue that there is nothing ‘new’ about the wars, and often use the Liberian civil war as an example. This conflict is deeply entrenched in history and, according to Morten Bøås, the only way to fully understand the Liberian war is to come to terms with this history and the ramifications it holds.18 In my research, I will attempt to view the Liberian conflicts in this exact way, with an historic perspective.

11

Christof Kurz, “Review of ‘Liberia’s civil war: Nigeria, ECOMOG, and regional security in West Africa’,” Journal of intervention and statebuilding Vol. 3 No. 3 (November 2009) 366.

12_{Mary Kaldor, New and old wars: Organized violence in a global era (Oxford polity press 2001).} 13

Morten Bøås, “The Liberian civil war: new war/old war?”, Global Society Vol. 11 No. 1 (October 2010) 74.

14

Kaldor, New and old wars (Oxford 2001) 20.

15_{Ibrahim Abdullah, Between democracy and terror: The Sierra Leone civil war (Dakar 2004) 280.} 16

Thandika Mkandawire, “The terrible toll of post-colonial “rebel movements” in Africa: Toward an

explanation of the violence against the peasantry” Journal of modern African studies Vol. 40 no. 2 (2002) 181-215. William Reno, “Reinvention of an African patrimonoal state: Charles Taylor’s Liberia”, Third World Quarterly Vol. 16 No. 1 (1995) 109-120. Robert D. Kaplan, “The coming anarchy”, Atlantic Monthly Vol. 277 (1994) 44-76. Martin van Creveld, The transformation of war (New York Free Press 1991).

17_{Bøås, “The Liberian civil war,” Global Society Vol. 11 No. 1 (2010) 74. Amos Sawyer, “Violent conflicts and}

governance challenges in West Africa: The case of the Mano River Basin Area,”Journal of modern African studies Vol. 42 No. 3 (2004) 437-463. Sinisa Malesevic, “The sociology of New Wars. Assessing the causes and objectives of contemporary violent conflicts,” International political sociology No. 2 (2008) 97-112.

18

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This distinction within the secondary literature is important for a research into the policy surrounding small arms in the West African conflicts. The historic view in particular has garnered more support the last few years, and is especially useful in the research of small arms policy over a longer period of time. The role and recognition of small arms in academic literature has changed over the years, just like the interpretation of the causes of violence. Whereas proponents of the ‘new war literature’ often disregarded the role of small arms or did not acknowledge it as an important destabilizing factor, the historic perspective has started to shift more of the blame onto SA/LW.

When it comes to small arms, three different, consecutive currents can be discerned in most of the academic work on the Mano River Basin wars. The first current paid no significant attention to the role of small arms in these conflicts. A good example is the early work of Stephen Ellis, who has made significant steps in advancing our understanding of the spiritual dimension of the violence in the Liberia civil wars.19 His work, however, definitely belongs to the ‘new war literature’ and as such has offered limited insight into the role of small arms; SA/LW are mentioned, but their role is not analysed any further. 20

The second academic current is characterized by noticing the destabilizing influence of small arms and light weapons, but regarding it as something entirely new; an affirmation of the author’s interpretation that these wars presented an entirely different set of attributes than from before.21 The most noticeable example is Mary Kaldor, also one of the main protagonists of the ‘new war literature’, and Mats Berdal.22 These include the abundance of small arms and light weapons as destabilizing factors, but argue that the ‘greed and grievances’ thesis takes precedence as a possible explanation.23

The final wave of academic publishing surrounding the small arms proliferation in the Mano River Basin wars is more historic in nature. It roughly coincides with the historic reaction to the ‘new war literature’ in both timing and general message. Most of the recent work into the larger West African regional war zone now adheres to this perspective on the wars in for instance Liberia and Sierra Leone.24 The authors in this field of study acknowledge the potential destabilizing threat that SA/LW pose, but put it in a more historic context. They recognize that the use of the weapons is not particularly new and are often able to point to the origins of the weapons as well; earlier conflicts in

19

Stephen Ellis, “Liberia 1989-1994: A Study of ethnic and spiritual violence, “African Affairs Vol. 94 No. 375 (April 1995) 165-197. Ellis, The mask of anarchy (London 1999).

20_{Other notable examples include Yekutiel Gershoni, “War without end and end to war: The prolonged wars in}

Liberia and Sierra Leone,” African studies review Vol. 30 No. 3 (1997) 55-76; and Arie M. Kacowicz, “’Negative’ international peace and domestic conflicts, West Africa, 1957-96,” Journal of modern African studies Vol 35 No. 3 (1997) 367-385. Finally, Quentin Outram does mention SA/LW in his article on the first Liberian Civil War, but also fails to analyse the ramifications further. Quentin Outram, “’It’s terminal either way’: An analysis of armed conflict in Liberia 1989-1996, “ Review of African Political Economy Vol. 24 No. 73 (1997) 355-371.

21_{William D. Hartung, “The new business of war: Small arms and the proliferation of conflict,” Ethics &}

international affairs Vol. 15 (2001) 79-96.

22

Mary Kaldor, “Cosmopolitanism and organized violence,” Paper prepared for conference on ‘Conceiving cosmopolitanism’ (Warwick, 27-29th of April 2000). Mary Kaldor, “Old wars, cold wars, new wars and the war on terror,” International politics Vol. 42 (2005) 491-489. Mary Kaldor, New and old wars – organized violence in a global era (Cambridge polity press 2006). Mats Berdal and David M. Malone (eds.), Greed and grievance: Economic agendas in civil wars (Boulder 2000). Mats Berdal, “How ‘new’ are the ‘new wars’? Global economic change and the study of civil war,” Global governance Vol. 9, No. 3 (2003) 477-502.

23

Kaldor, New and old wars (Cambridge 2006) 14-16.

24_{James Hentz (ed.), Routledge handbook of African security (Routledge 2013). Mary Kaldor, “In defence of}

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different African regions.25 One of the earliest authors to have placed the wars in an historic context was Morten Bøås. 26

This final current is also characterized by the role the ECOWAS and UN intervention played in the conflict, specifically with regards to small arms and light weapons.27 The UN and the military part of ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) made policy specifically to counter the proliferation of small arms during the conflicts.28 The wars in the Mano River Basin refocused the international research agenda to SA/LW, and eventually place them in a historic context.29 However, the effectiveness of the policy by supranational organizations like ECOMOG and the UN has not yet been placed in a comprehensive, historic context. It has only recently entered the academic fray and has mainly been analysed by the social studies; there is still a lot of ground to be covered.

25

Lock, “Armed conflicts and small arms proliferation,” Policy Sciences (1997) 117-132. Bah,

“Micro-disarmament in West Africa,” African Security Review (2004) 33-46. David Todd Kinsella, “The illicit arms trade: A social network analysis,” Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations Paper 12 (2008) 3-4.

26

Bøås, “’Hunting ghosts of a difficult past’,” Third World Quarterly Vol. 35 No. 4 (2014) 652-668.

27_{Idem, 85.} 28

Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (eds.), West Africa’s security challenges: Building peace in a troubled region (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2004).

29_{Lock, “Armed conflicts and small arms proliferation,” Policy Sciences Vol 30 (1997) 119. Denise Garcia (ed.),}

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Figure 2.1: Liberia

Source: Nicolas Florquin and Eric Berman, Armed and Aimless: Armed groups, guns, and human security in the ECOWAS region (Small Arms Survey, 2005).

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The historical context of the Liberian conflict

In order to provide causal explanations, historians and social scientists alike have been quick to emphasize the antecedent factors to conflicts in general. This approach has attracted newfound attention as an alternative to the ‘new war literature’, championed by scholars like Mary Kaldor.30 When it comes to the first period of the Republic of Liberia, founded by emancipated

African-American slaves in 1847, there is a general consensus regarding the state of politics at the time. Ever since its founding, the country had been governed by an exclusivist oligarchy imbued with a sense of “the civilizing mission.”31 According to David Wippman:

“The Americo-Liberians […] recreated the social hierarchy they had experienced in the antebellum South [of the United States], but with themselves as the socially dominant, landowning class. They considered the indigenous population primitive and uncivilized, and treated it as little more than an abundant source of forced labor.”32

The oppression was so ruthless and spiteful, that some scholars, such as Monday Akpan and Yuketiel Gershoni, have called it “black imperialism” or “black colonialism”.33 The Americo-Liberians

dominated the country’s political, social, and economic life, even though they only constituted about 5 percent of the entire population.34

From the founding of the Liberian state to the death of William Tubman, who reigned from 1944 to 1971, there was relatively little social upheaval. After the Second World War, Tubman introduced several social programs to alleviate the poverty and illiteracy of the masses. These programs were designed to integrate the native population into Liberia’s political economy. Consequently, by the start of the 1960s, this gave rise to a corps of educated natives who began to climb the social ladder. As is the case for many African colonies, the struggle for socio-economic space by the elites took on a national character as each group returned to its social base for

support.35 The kinship and ethnic group served as a natural constituency for the native Liberian elites in this scenario. When William Tolbert, the last of the Americo-Liberian Presidents, inherited the reign from Tubman, he was saddled with a rapidly deteriorating national and global economy and mounting socio-economic tension. This tension was a consequence of Tubman’s educational reform, which had resulted in the emergence of an articulate native middle class.36

Tolbert’s reign was marked by popular discontent. The “Rice Riots” which took place in Monrovia in April 1979 serve as a prime example. Under increased financial pressure following yet another oil crisis caused by the Iran-Iraq war, the Tolbert government announced its plans to

dispense with the state subsidy of rice, the staple food of Liberia’s urban poor. The resulting increase of food prices set off a series of mass riots in Monrovia throughout the spring of 1979.37 The

government responded by swiftly cracking down on the rioters and their perceived leaders in the

30_{Mary Kaldor, New and old wars: Organized violence in a global era (Oxford polity press 2001).} 31

See, among others, G.S. Boley, Liberia: The rise and fall of the First Republic (London: Macmillan Press, 1983); Yuketiel Gershoni, Black colonialism: The Americo-Liberian scramble for the hinterland (Boulder, Colo.:

Westview Press, 1985); and D.E. Dunn and S.B. Tarr, Liberia: A national policy in transition (Metuchwen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988).

32

David Wippman, “Enforcing the Peace: ECOWAS and the Liberian Civil War”, in Lori Fisler Damrosch (ed.), Enforcing restraint: Collective intervention in internal conflicts (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1993) 160.

33

Monday Akpan, “Black imperialism: Americo-Liberian rule over the African peoples of Liberia, 1841-1964”, Canadian Journal of African Studies Vol. 7, No. 2 (1973) 217-236; Gershoni, Black colonialism (1985).

34

Wippman, “Enforcing the peace” in Fisler Damrosch (ed.), Enforcing restraint (1993) 160.

35

Gershoni, Black colonialism (1985) 30-31.

36_{Boley, Liberia (1983) 80-86.} 37

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native elite. This repressive environment is what set the stage for the native members of the presidential guard, led by Master-Sergeant Samuel Doe, to stage a coup d’état on the 12th of April 1980.

By most accounts, Doe’s reign was marked by extreme and bizarre acts of violence and brutality. Next to the gruesome murder of Tolbert, thirteen of the country’s most prominent opposition were murdered during a series of televised executions.38 Doe himself belonged to the Krahn tribe, which, like the Americo Liberian community, constituted about four percent of Liberia’s population. After fortifying his power, Doe proceeded to supplant the Americo-Liberian imperialism with his own native-Liberian version, or “Krahn-imperialism”.39

The resulting oppression of Liberia’s populace led to a failed coup attempt in November 1985 by Brigadier-General Thomas Quiwonpka, Doe’s second-in-command. In the aftermath of the coup, Doe ordered the public execution of Quiwonpka and “took immediate reprisals against Quiwonkpa’s ethnic group, the Gio, and against a closely related group, the Mano. Hundreds were executed after being subjected to “blood-curdling brutality”.40 A period of unguarded pursuit of real and imaginary enemies followed, leaving Doe’s army exhausted, demoralized and badly depleted.41

In this state, the army was unable to contain or repel an insurrection launched from the northern Nimba towns of Khanple and Butuo by a couple of “ill-trained recruits, many of them in their early teens,” belonging to Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).42 By May 1990, what began as a hit-and-run attack against government forces by Taylor’s guerrillas had metamorphosed into a well-coordinated, traditional military assault on Doe’s Armed Forces of Liberia. Due to an internal power struggle within the NPFL, Prince Yormie Johnson broke off from the movement to form the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). This would lead to a three-way politico-military stalemate between Doe, Taylor and Johnson.43

The root cause of the Liberian civil war was the exclusionary, predatory, exploitative neo-colonial Liberian state, which generated a number of multidimensional crises of underdevelopment. These crises were economic, political, and social in their nature, and also related to individual security. Socially, the settler state created by the Americo-Liberians, excluded the sixteen indigenous ethnic groups, until 1951, when full citizenship was granted. Similarly, the various national symbols such as the flag, the seal and the motto, only reflected the historical and cultural experiences of the Americo-Liberians. The Doe regime only exacerbated these ethnic differences, by portraying the personal rivalry between Quiwonkpa and Doe as an ethnic feud. Following the failed coup attempt in 1985, the Doe regime targeted the members of the Gio and Mano ethnic groups, hundreds of whom were subsequently killed.44

The economic crisis was illustrated by the decline in real income, inequities in income and wealth, as well as structural unemployment, especially amongst youngsters. When Doe’s military

38_{John Inegbedion, “ECOMOG in comparative perspective”, in Timothy M. Shaw and Julius Emeka Okolo (eds.)}

The political economy of foreign policy in ECOWAS (London: Macmillan, 1994) 224-226.

39

Amos Sawyer, Effective immediately: Dictatorship in Liberia, 1980-1986 – A personal perspective. Bremen: Liberia Working Group Papers No. 5. (1987) 23-25.

40

41

Clement Adibe, “Managing arms in peace processes: Liberia,” Disarmament and conflict resolution project (New York: United Nations, 1996) 10.

42

43

Adibe, “Managing arms”, Disarmament and Conflict Resolution (1996) 11.

44_{Patrick Seyon, The results of the 1985 elections in Liberia,” Liberian Studies Journal Vol. 12, No. 2 (1988)}

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coup occurred, 60 percent of the labour force earned wages below the official poverty line.45 During Doe’s regime the real income for civil servants declined as well with 16.7 percent in 1981 and 25 percent in 1985.46 The decline in income led to people’s inability to buy essential commodities such as rice. Meanwhile, the income and wealth inequity increased; in 1980 Liberia’s upper class consisted of approximately 4 percent of the entire population, but it accounted for about 65 percent of the national income.47 Similarly, it controlled about 60 percent of the wealth.48 In 1985, the subaltern classes made up around 75 percent of the population while they only accounted for approximately 20 percent of the national income, while the ruling class secured around 68 percent. In 1989, the upper class grew to 6 percent and owned just over 70 percent of the national wealth.49 In 1988, the unemployment rate levelled out around 36 percent.50

Politically, the major problems of the Liberian state were the recurring human rights violations, from the Tubman to the Doe regime. The Doe regime in particular was authoritarian and oppressed the opposing political parties and civil society organizations.51 The political systems carried consequences for physical well-being of many Liberians. During the Tolbert regime, political

detainees were subjected to various forms of physical torture and regular beatings.52 Doe´s reign was also marked by the hunting and killing of real and perceived opponents of the regime, in particular by the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SATU).53

Finally, the Liberian state has never made any form of social development a priority.54 Although it was paid lip service on several occasions, a coherent policy was never formed. This has thrown Liberia into a social development crisis for the larger part of six decades.55 According to the United Nations Development Program, “Liberia’s human development index has, for some time, been at the bottom of the list of countries with the lowest human development indices.”56 The country’s literacy rate was relatively high and even increased from 65 percent in 1980 to 77 percent in 1985. Approximately 65 percent of the population had no structural access to health care, most of who lived in the rural areas of Liberia.57

45

The official poverty line at the time was defined as being $125 a month for an urban family of four people. Togba Nah Tipoteh, “Crisis in the Liberian economy, 1980-1985,” Liberian Studies Journal Vol. 11, No. 2 (1986) 126.

46

Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs, Liberia, Liberia’s Economic Recovery Plan (Monrovia: Government Printing Office, 1985) 3.

47

Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs, Liberia, Economic Survey of Liberia (Monrovia: Government Printing Office, 1986) 75.

48_{Movement for Justice in Liberia, The situation in our country (Monrovia: MOJA, 1980) 2.} 49

George Klay Kieh, Jr., Liberia’s First Civil War: The crises of underdevelopment (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008) 27.

50_{United Nations Human Development Program, Human Development Program (New York: Oxford University}

Press, 1990) 156.

51

Freedom House, Freedom in the World Country Ratings, 1972-2006 (New York: Freedom House, 2007).

52_Idem. 53

Human Rights Watch, Africa Watch, Liberia: Flight from terror (New York, Human Rights Watch 1990) 6.

54

Kieh, Jr., Liberia’s First Civil War (2008) 107

55_Idem. 56

United Nations Development Program, Liberia’s national human development report (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) 38.

57_{Idem, 1; Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs, Liberia, Economic Survey of Liberia (Monrovia:}

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The First Liberian Civil War

Acquire arms, acquire power

At the start of the conflict, when Taylor’s troops attacked the border town of Butuo, Taylor’s forces were not only “ill-trained and in their early teens”, but also badly supplied.58 The attack seemed to have been designed to procure firearms for the rebels. Eyewitness reports state that the rebels initially fought with a large variety of weapons, including agricultural tools, weapons and machetes.59 Acquiring weapons was of the utmost importance for Taylor in the early days of insurgency, but apparently not all that easy.

The initial attempts to acquire arms from sympathetic soldiers were unsuccessful. In January 1990, three men were arrested in Monrovia because they tried to acquire arms for the rebels. They allegedly confessed their involvement in the insurgency and confessed to receiving training in Libya.60 The training was provided by the World Revolutionary Centre (WRC) just outside the city of Benghazi. Dubbed the “Harvard and Yale of a whole generation of African revolutionaries” by Stephen Ellis and Douglas Farah, the recruits from various countries were provided with training in weapons and intelligence techniques. A few of the most prominent alumni included Idriss Déby, current president of Chad; Foday Sankoh, founder of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone; Ibrahim Bah, one of the leaders of the RUF, Blaise Campaoré, president of Burkina Faso from 1987 to 2014; and finally Charles Taylor, founder and leader of the NPFL.61

At first the rebels were not organized under a central command of any kind. Charles Taylor quickly took up a position of leadership and subsequently sought to unify the scattered forces under a central command and single banner; the national Patriotic Front of Liberia. Taylor was instrumental in acquiring training in Libya as well as the logistics and provision of arms.62 Where the bulk of these arms came from remains unclear. Considering basic training seems to have been provided by Libya and Burkina Faso’s president Blaise Campaori, a Libyan Protégé, it seems likely that they provided arms and military supplies too.63 Taylor is said to have visited Libya several times between 1986 and 1989, and is reported to have met with a number Gambians rebels who had taken part in a coup attempt in Banjul in 1981.64 Due to a clear lack of sources, the exact origins of the weapons during this time will have to remain in the realm of speculation.

While Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea were said to support Taylor with military equipment, light weapons and ammunition too, Guinea is not likely to have supplied arms.65 Several of the rebels crossed over into Guinea, only to be expelled later. Guinea’s President Conte was allegedly concerned that the overthrow of the Doe regime could perhaps encourage attempts by possible rebels in his own country. President Conte thus developed a zero tolerance policy toward Liberian rebels. 66 The conflict erupted before the international research agenda was focused on small arms

58

59

Jean-Baptiste Placca, “Liberia, Journey into the rebel stronghold,” Jeune Afrique (12th of March 1990).

60_{Africa Watch, Liberia: Flight from terror; testimony of abuses in Nimba County (New York 1990) 5-6.} 61

Ellis, The mask of anarchy (1999) 69.

62

Jonathan C. Randall, “Army rampage said to spark resistance,” Washington Post (19th of March 1990).

63_{Jenny Kuper, Military training and children in armed conflict: Law, policy and practice (Boston: Martinus}

Nijhoff, 2005) 33; Jeremy Levitt, The evolution of deadly conflict in Liberia (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2005) 22-23.

64_{Arnold Hughes, “The attempted Gambian coup d’etat of 29 July 1981”, in Arnold Hughes (ed.), The Gambia:}

Studies of society and politics. African Studies Series No. 3 (Birmingham, 1991) 80, 90-106.

65

Berki, Gbanaboma, “’Enfant terrible’ explains,” West Africa (4th-10th of May 1992) 753-755.

66_{Human Rights Watch (HRW), Africa Watch, Liberia: Flight from terror (New York, Human Rights Watch 1990)}

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and light weapons, translating into an unfortunate lack of sources surrounding the role of these weapons in the early stages of the war.

Figure 3.1: NPFL advance across Liberia

Source: James Hart Lidow, Violent Order: Rebel organization and Liberia’s civil war (Stanford University, 2011).

During the early part of 1990, however, the NPFL advanced rapidly. The “ill-trained recruits” were replaced by a core group of guerrillas, Libyan trained and supplemented by mercenaries from Burkina Faso. These mercenaries were supplied by President Blaise Compaoré and by internationalist revolutionaries from Gambia and Sierra Leone.67 It is likely that these mercenaries also brought small arms with them. According to a report written by a US human rights’ monitoring group, the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights, the hatred of the Krahn was so extensive, that the prospect of massive reprisals was very likely to become reality.68 The NPFL made ready use of this hatred by distributing arms to the Gio and Mano villagers of Nimba County. The NPFL knew these weapons would be used indiscriminately to attack Krahn and anyone suspected of cooperating with the Doe government. Armed bands claiming allegiance to the NPFL launched pogroms against people suspected of being Krahn or Mandingo, whom the armed bands regarded as supporters of the Doe government.69

67

Lawyers’ Committee on Human Rights, Liberia: A promise betrayed (New York, 1986) 23.

68_{Idem, 22-24.} 69

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Doe responded by distributing weapons to Krahn and Mandingo civilians in the capital of Monrovia and Grand Gedeh County, the Krahn heartland. At this point, the bulk of Doe’s weapons and ammunition were being supplied by Nigeria, despite denials by the then President Ibrahim Babangida.70 President Babangida was a close friend of Samuel Doe. They were business partners and at one point Babangida even went as far as paying a Liberian government debt with Nigerian public funds, claiming a gesture of pan-African solidarity.71 Another source of weapons might have been the government of Gambia. According to Charles Taylor, Doe was also in business with Sir Dawda Jawara, president of Gambia.72 Regardless of their origin, these weapons enabled Doe to hold several key areas of Monrovia for a prolonged period of time, transforming the capital to the site of a protracted battle.

In July 1990, Prince Yormie Johnson broke away from the NPFL to form the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). Johnson himself was a former soldier in Doe’s army who had fled in the early 1980s and subsequently received military training in Libya.73 Johnson had been the NPFL training officer and took with him the core of experienced fighters, most notably the Libyan trained Special Commandos.74 This meant Taylor’s force now consisted mainly of civilians who joined the NPFL on its progress towards Monrovia and were armed in the process. By the end of July, six months after the invasion began, Taylor’s NPFL controlled more than 80 percent of Liberia, including Liberia’s second largest port, Buchanon, and all of Liberia’s iron ore and timber resources.75 Monrovia itself was now effectively divided into three zones, each belonging to a different group. The NPFL held the zone with access to key resources and port facilities, offering a significant advantage over the INPFL, which held the zone where daily life was least affected.

The use of ethnic differences by Taylor, Doe and later on Johnson for their own political or personal motives was characteristic of the first phase of the Liberian conflict. Doe had used the hatred of the Americo-Liberians by the various ethnic groups within Liberia to topple the Tolbert regime, and had subsequently supplanted the Americo-Liberians with his own ethnic group, the Krahn. This in turn led to a general sense of resentment of the Krahn and the closely related Mandingo. Taylor similarly used this resentment to stir up ethnic violence against the Krahn and Mandingo, mainly by arming the Gio and Mano ethnic groups. When Prince Yormie Johnson broke off from Taylor’s NPFL, the newly created INPFL catered mainly to Gio interests, while the NPFL remained a mixture of Gio, Mano, and various other ethnic groups. 76

In a sense, the first phase of the Liberian conflict can be seen more as a continuation of the conflict orchestrated by Doe to topple the Tolbert regime. Tribal and racial animosity was

instrumental in the eruption of violence. Consequently, Taylor’s NPFL entered Liberia to redress grievances by Gio and Mano groups against the Krahn and Mandingo political elites. This situation was exacerbated by the presence of SA/LW, and indeed access to these weapons proved vital, but it was not caused by the availability of small arms, as is argued by proponents of the “new war theory”.

70

Clement Adibe, “Coercive diplomacy and the Third World: Africa after the Cold War,” Paper presented to the workshop on coercive diplomacy , King’s College London (7th-9th of June 1995) 14; Press release from the Campaign for Democracy, Lagos, Nigeria (20th of May 1992); Frank Aigbogun, “Strikers predict disaster, seek aid to Nigeria.” Associated Press (26th of August 1994).

71

Margaret Vogt and E. Ekoko, Nigeria in international peace-keeping 1960-1992 (Malthouse Press, 1993) 199; Mobolade Omonijo, Doe: The Liberian tragedy (Sahel Publishing and Printing 1990) 53.

72

‘Face to face with Charles Taylor’, interview by Baffour Ankomah, Ghanian Chronicle (12-18th of October 1992) 6-7.

73_{Ellis, The mask of anarchy (1999) 33.} 74

Eric Schmitt, “Man in the news; A foe to be feared: Prince Yormie Johnson,” New York Times (11th of September 1990).

75_{See figure 3.1.} 76

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International context

There was a general expectation that the USA would intervene in what had long amounted to an unofficial US colony. Indeed, there were numerous calls for international intervention to stabilize the situation.77 In June 1990, US warships anchored off the coast of Liberia with 2,000 marines on board, but contended themselves with just evacuating US citizens. There were no attempts to restore order, despite the widespread agreement that most Liberians would have accepted a US intervention.78 The US might have staged an intervention if it were not for a crucial event elsewhere in the world. In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, demanding all of America’s attention and ruling out any possibility of US intervention in Liberia. As S. Neil MacFarlane and Thomas Weiss have observed: “[...] the fact that some 1.5 million persons were displaced, the same number that had led to the humanitarian intervention in Kurdistan, was seemingly not enough to trigger a response from outside the [West African] region.”79 Moreover, the situation in the Gulf region was more appealing to the dominant geostrategic paradigm than the civil war in Liberia, at least for the United States.

Other countries in West Africa were becoming increasingly alarmed by the situation in Liberia. President Babangida of Nigeria wanted to support his friend Samuel Doe and saw himself as the regional hegemon. Moreover, he wanted to establish Nigeria as the principal regional peace-keeper in the Post-Cold War era; as opposed to its francophone rival, Côte d’Ivoire. Since Taylor’s NPFL had the backing of the francophone bloc, consisting of Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and (allegedly) Guinea, Nigeria felt itself politically challenged.80 Taylor also kept relations with rebels from Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Gambia with whom he likely met during his time visiting Libya.81 Factoring in the Libyan involvement, a country that had a history of political and military adventurism in West Africa, this led other English-speaking countries to believe that Taylor’s victory in Liberia could cause insurrections or coups elsewhere.

The obvious power vacuum left by a disinterested United States, created a tremendous opportunity for a regional initiative. The regional organization most fit to handle the situation was the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The organization was established on the 28th of May 1975 as a consequence of the Treaty of Lagos, signed by fifteen different West African states.82 The primary objective of this Union was improving intra-regional trade and securing

favourable terms of trade from their western trading partners. However, underlying these economic goals was a strong desire for some form of security integration.83 There was (perceived) context of regional insecurity, what Emmanuel Aning refers to as “the preponderance of violent military takeovers in the sub-region with probable spill-over characteristics.”84 It was in this context that the members of ECOWAS signed the Protocol of Non-Aggression (hereafter: the Protocol) on the 22nd of April 1978.

77_{Ellis, The mask of anarchy (1999) 41-43.} 78

George Klay Kieh Jr., “United States Foreign Policy and the Second Liberian Civil War,´ African journal of international affairs Vol. 12 No. 1-2 (2010) 121-144.

79_{S. Neil MacFarlane and Thomas G. Weiss, “Regional organizations and regional security,” Security Studies}

Vol. 2, No. 1 (1992) 18.

80

Idem.

81_{Arnold Hughes, “The attempted Gambian coup d’etat”, in Hughes (ed.), The Gambia (1991) 80.} 82

These states included: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. The former Portuguese colony of Cape Verdé, joined in 1977 and became the sixteenth member. See Figure 3.2.

83

Olatunde Ojo, “Nigeria and the formation of ECOWAS,” International Organization Vol. 34, No. 4 (1980) 577 (571-604).

84_{Emmanuel Kwezi Aning, “Managing regional security in West Africa: ECOWAS, ECOMOG and Liberia,”}

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Figure 3.2: ECOWAS Member States, 1989

The Protocol ensured signatories refrained from “committing, encouraging or condoning the acts of subversion, hostility or aggression against the territorial integrity or political independence of other Member States.”85_{Because the protocol did not provide any institutional mechanism for} responding to such aggression, it was widely criticized as a mere idealistic injunction, and did little to allay the fear of regime insecurity. At the 1981 ECOWAS Summit in Freetown, the Protocol was expanded upon by ratifying the Protocol Relating to Mutual Assistance on Defence (hereafter: the Defence Protocol). The Defence Protocol entered into force in September 1986 and emphasized that “any armed threat or aggression directed against any Member State shall constitute a threat of aggression against the entire Community.”86

Furthermore, the treaty envisioned an elaborate response mechanism, including the creation of the Allied Forced of the Community (AAFC), a Defence Council of the Community, and a Defence Commission.87 The Defence Protocol makes no distinction between internal and external sources of threat to the signatories, signified by the use of the word “any” in article two.88 This is further emphasized in article 3, which obliges the Community to “give mutual aid and assistance for defence against any armed threat or aggression.”89 What the Defence Protocol fails to define, however, is what types of conflict within a Member State constitutes a threat; this is left open to interpretation. The remaining provisions only define the institutional framework that is to be created in the event of a threat.

85_{Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Protocol on Non-Aggression 1978), article 2.} 86

ECOWAS, Protocol Relating to Mutual Assistance on Defence (1981), article 2.

87

Idem, articles 5-18.

88_{Idem, article 2.} 89

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It was in this context that Doe appealed to ECOWAS to introduce a “peacekeeping Force into Liberia to forestall increasing terror and tension […].”90 On the 30th of May 1990, during a meeting in Banjul, The Gambia, ECOWAS called for an end to hostilities and established a Standing Mediation Committee (SMC) with a mandate to with the Liberian crisis. The SMC consisted of The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo, but in reality it was led by the Nigerian president Babangida.91 The SMC was subsequently able to produce a comprehensive peace plan that focused on a number of key objectives, including a call for an immediate cease-fire, the establishment and deployment of an ECOWAS Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), and the establishment of an interim

government.92 The plan had the support of the USA, the UN, as well as Doe, but was rejected by Taylor and the francophone bloc in ECOWAS, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso.93

The greater francophone block in ECOWAS, consisting of Mali, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo, could be characterized as non-interventionist. It consistently opposed any form of intervention in what their leaders described as a strictly domestic matter.94 While ECOWAS had previously been characterized by a divide imposed by colonial and linguistic differences; the main factor now appeared to be political. The francophone block rallied behind public support to the doctrine of non-intervention in domestic affairs of sovereign member states of ECOWAS.

ECOWAS intervenes

The Banjul Summit Resolution calling on the warring parties to agree to a cease-fire and stop the destruction of their motherland was seen as consistent with the tradition of African multilateral diplomacy.95 The creation of the SMC to deal with the conflict by the authority of ECOWAS was seen as little more than an appeal to the rebels and the Liberian government. The plan did not feature any guidelines towards or reference to disarmament, nor did it specify whether the Member States had to stop weapon shipments to the warring factions. That meant that for a few months, there was an awkward situation wherein the Member States stated their intent to broker a peace-fire, while they might have still supplied the different factions with arms.96 Unfortunately, the suppliers did not keep detailed records of the shipments, making this a purely speculative assumption. However, during the inaugural meeting of the SMC, which was held in Banjul from the 6th to the 7th of August, it was clear that the politics of ECOWAS would constitute a shift from the traditional passivity to actual

multilateral intervention and disarmament.

The SMC described Taylor’s NPFL as the main party to the armed conflict together with the government.97 As such, they tried to mediate a peaceful end to the conflict with these two parties, not with Johnson’s INPFL. Taylor opposed most of the conditions for ECOWAS mediation, in particular the Nigerian element, which he did not consider to be sufficiently neutral.98 Despite Taylor’s opposition, however, ECOWAS was determined to bring the conflict to a peaceful end. The

90_{Marc Weller, “Letter addressed by President Samuel K. Doe to the Chairman and Members of the Ministerial}

Meeting of the ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee. 14 July 1990,” supra note 20, p. 60.

91

The committee also invited Liberia’s two direct neighbours, Sierra Leone and Guinea, to participate in its deliberations. See: Rasheed Draman and David Carment, “Managing chaos in the West African sub-region: Assessing the role of ECOMOG in Liberia,” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 2003) 4-6.

92

ECOWAS, “ECOWAS Peace Plan, Banjul Communique, (7th of August 1990).

93

Clement Adibe,”The Liberian conflict and the ECOWAS-UN partnership,” Third World Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 3 (1997) 471-488 478-479.

94

Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: Sub-Saharan Africa (9th of August 1990).

95

96_{Nkem Agetua, Operation Liberty: The story of Major General Joshua Nimyel Dogonyaro (Lagos: Hona}

Communications Limited, 1992) 6.

97

Idem.

98_{ECOWAS, “Final report of the ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee Ministerial Meeting,”}

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President of Guinea and summit member of the SMC, General Lansana Conté, was quoted on record responding to Taylor’s indisposition: “We do not need the permission of any party involved in the conflict to implement the decisions reached in Banjul. So, with or without the agreement of any of the parties, ECOWAS troops will be in Liberia.”99

This signifies the clear intent of ECOWAS towards a military intervention. The decisions Conté refers to, were made without any of the parties involved during the meeting of the SMC in Banjul on the 6th and 7th of August. The summits resolution, known as Decision A/DEC.1/8/90, contained five key elements.100 The first, that relates to an “immediate cease-fire”, is arguably the most important. It stipulates seven different requirements that “the parties to the conflict shall” adhere to.101 Most importantly, they shall “cease all activities of a military or para-military nature [...]”.102 Next to that, they shall also refrain from any activity that prejudice the establishment of an interim government, release all prisoners of war, and fully cooperate with ECOMOG, among others things.103 Furthermore, they shall also “surrender all arms and ammunition to the custody of the [ECOMOG]” as well as “refrain from importing or acquiring or assisting or encouraging the importation and acquisition of weapons or war materials”.104

ECOWAS mandate regarding SA/LW

The fact that out of nine provisions, two specifically featured arms and ammunition, tells us that the role small arms played was at least recognized. But how did ECOWAS envision the process of

surrendering arms? How did they plan to enforce the ban on arms import? The second article of the resolution stipulates that in order to “arrive at a peaceful and lasting settlement of the dispute”, a Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) will be created.105 This intervention force shall be “composed of military contingents” drawn from the Member States of the SMC as well as from Guinea and Sierra Leone.106 The second article further defines the mandate and the mission of ECOMOG, but does not make any further reference to small arms of the disarmament process. It does stipulate the duration of the force that “shall commence forthwith” (7th of August 1990) and “shall remain in Liberia, if necessary, until the successful holding of general elections and the installation of an elected

government.”107 Again, the primary goal of ECOMOG’s mission was, at this point in time, to install an interim government and ensure democratic elections in a peaceful environment. It does not say anything specific about disarming and dismantling rebel groups like the NPFL and the INPFL. It was clear, however, that Doe and Taylor would not head this interim government, which also became the reason for them to reject ECOMOG’s mission. 108

It is also not clear whether the resolution’s provision that forbade rebel factions from “importing, acquiring, assisting, or encouraging the importation of weapons” was actually an objective.109 The subjects of the resolution are “all parties to the conflict”. However, it is unclear if this includes the ECOWAS Member States, or whether it just refers to the different factions active in the Liberia civil war; Samuel Doe’s National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL), Taylor’s NPFL and

99

Quoted in Africa Research Bulletin (15th of September 1990) 9802.

100_{ECOWAS, “Decision A/DEC.1/8/90 on the cease-fire and establishment of an ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring}

Group for Liberia,” Decision A/DEC.1/8/90 (Banjul, 6th – 7th of August 1990).

101 Idem, article 1.1, 1.2. 102_{Idem, article 1.2} 103 Idem, article 1.2. 104 Idem, article 1.2.b, 1.2.c. 105_{Idem, article 2.} 106 Idem, article 2.1. 107 Idem, article 2.4.

108_{Adibe, “Managing arms,” Disarmament and Conflict Resolution (1996) 26-27.} 109

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Johnson’s INPFL. This is a significant distinction to be made, considering the fact that Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria had been known to supply the various parties with military bases, logistics, supplies, light weapons, and ammunitions.110 There is no material or archival source left that show whether these shipments continued or not. The only thing that can be objectively concluded is that no specific embargo has been placed on supplying these weapons, only that it was illegal for the parties involved in the conflict to receive them.

ECOMOG lands

Barely one week after the Banjul summit of the 6th and 7th of August established ECOMOG, a military contingent was assembled in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to deploy in Monrovia. The contingent

consisted of some 3,000 soldiers, the bulk of which supplied by Nigeria.111 Under the command of Ghana’s General Arnold Quainoo, ECOMOG troops landed on the beach of Monrovia on the 24th_of August, assigned to the operation now called “Operation Liberty”.112 The operation commenced without a prior cease-fire agreement and without the consent of all the warring parties. Without the consent of Taylor’s NPFL there was no peace to keep and thus, when ECOMOG’s flotilla landed on Liberian shores, they were met with an instant attack by the NPFL.

“On landing, nothing had changed at the diplomatic level to raise bright hopes for ECOMOG in the task ahead. And so, the force had to inch ahead against all the persistent odds. The fierce fighting we sensed on the high sea between the NPFL rebels of Charles Taylor and the INPFL forces of Prince Johnson did not subside. Even as sea men struggled to anchor the ships and off-load their contents, heavy gunfire cracked interspersed with booms from mortar, lasting for an hour.”113

The initial response to this baptism by fire was defensive. ECOMOG was to consolidate its hold by establishing a defensive perimeter surrounding its initial headquarters located within the Free-port area of Monrovia.114 During these weeks, ECOMOG was confronted by three contending factions. Whereas Taylor’s NPFL went on the offensive, the INPFL and Doe’s Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) eagerly offered their cooperation. According to Herbert Howe, the INPFL and the AFL

cooperated with ECOMOG because each was too weak to challenge ECOMOG directly, but they could both benefit from its protection and any damage inflicted upon the NPFL.115

Doe’s murder

The INPFL readily took advantage of the situation. During a lull in the fighting on the 9th of September 1990, President Doe, who had been holed up in the Executive Mansion for weeks, ventured to Monrovia’s port for an unscheduled meeting with General Quianoo. While he was at the ECOMOG base, Doe was captured by Prince Johnson’s INPFL and transported to their headquarters.116 Video footage chronicles the events that followed: a visibly drunk Prince Johnson orders his men to torture Doe, who lays sobbing and bleeding in a corner of the room. The soldiers cut off Doe’s ears before

110

See note 61, 62, 68, and 69.

111

Adibe, “Managing arms,”Disarmament and conflict resolution (1996) 32.

112_{Nkem Agetua, Operation Liberty (1992) 25.} 113

Segun Aderiye, “ECOMOG Landing,” in: M.A. Vogt (ed.), The Liberian Crisis and ECOMOG (Lagos: Gabumoh Publishing Co., 1992) 106. (95-122).

114_{Nkem Agetua, Operation Liberty (1992) 25-27.} 115

Herbert Howe, “Lessons of Liberia: ECOMOG and Regional Peacekeeping,” International Security Vol.21, No. 3 (Winter 1997) (145-176) 165.

116_{Ellis, The mask of anarchy (1999) 19-24; John-Peter Pham, Liberia, Portrait of a failed state (New York: Reed}

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finally shooting him to death. The triumphant INPFL men then loaded Doe’s body into a wheelbarrow and paraded his corpse through the streets.117

Doe’s murder changed the general perception of ECOMOG as a traditional peacekeeping mission to a complex peace-building operation; there was no “peace to keep”.118 Subsequently, ECOMOG’s original mandate and strategy were completely transformed. The Ghanaian General Quainoo was replaced as force commander by the Nigerian General Dogonyaro, who was said to report directly to the Nigerian presidency.119 In the face of stiff opposition from Taylor’s forces and in the context of a complete paralysis of social order, the mandate was transformed to adopt a strategy of ‘limited offensive’.120 This resulted in a series of deadly encounters between ECOMOG and the various warring factions, further strengthening the perception of ECOMOG to that of another faction in the conflict.

This perception of ECOMOG and the nature of the mission and its mandate are essential to the way it handled the question of small arms. Even though ECOMOG was referred to as a

‘peacekeeping force’, the NPFL’s resistance, the lack of active cooperation by the government forces and the inability of ECOMOG to stop the murder of Samuel Doe by INPFL forces, are a clear indication of an absence of consent. The consent of the warring parties, however, is a key ingredient of

conventional peacekeeping.121 As one senior UN official put it, “Pushing Taylor out of Monrovia by force is hardly peacekeeping.”122 It is in this context that Nigeria´s president, Ibrahim Babangida, instructed ECOMOG´s Force Commander, General Dogonyaro, to “stabilise the chaotic situation, end the bloodletting and create an enabling atmosphere for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.”123

Dogonyaro received additional reinforcements of troops and materiel from ECOWAS, in particular Nigeria and Ghana, and proceeded to reorganize the force’s structure. Subsequently, he launched the ‘limited offensive’ in an attempt to impose any form of social order in Monrovia and encourage the warring factions to yield to political negotiations led by ECOWAS.

This limited offensive also featured orders “to try and prevent arms and ammunition

continuing to come into the rebel forces, who were still not subscribing to a cease-fire.”124 This is the first real evidence of any attempt being made to enforce parts of the first article specified in

ECOWAS’ original resolution (known as Decision A/DEC.1/8/90).125 At the very least, ECOMOG was ordered to actively try and prevent small arms from falling into enemy hands. There is no evidence of an order actually coming down the command chain to actively start disarming the rebels, as the first article of the resolution stipulates.126 This makes sense; it would be difficult to disarm a faction that actively and violently opposes ECOMOG, without any form of consent.

Furthermore, it is doubtful whether General Dogonyaro believed and supported the disarmament program. He attributed the assassination of President Doe to the former Force

117_{Bootlegged versions of the video were widely available on the streets of Monrovia until 2005. The video is}

now widely available on the World Wide Web.

118

The Guardian, “10-year reign in the shadow of brutality” (14th of September 1990) 1; The Independent, “Civil war in Liberia threatens to divide West African Neighbors” (20th of July 1990) 2.

119_{Adibe, “Managing arms”, Disarmament and Conflict Resolution (1996) 33.} 120

Aderiye, “ECOMOG Landing,” in: Vogt (ed.), The Liberian Crisis and ECOMOG (Lagos, 1992) 110. (95-122).

121

Voetnoot theorie peacekeeping

122_{Colin Scott, Larry Minear, and Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian actions and security in Liberia, 1989-194,}

Occasional Paper No. 20, Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University (1995) 9.

123

General Ibrahim Babangida, “Foreword,” in: Nkem Agetua, Operation Liberty (1992) xiii.

124_{M.A. Vogt, “The problems and challenges of Peace-Making: From peace-keeping to peace enforcement,” in}

The Liberian Crisis and ECOMOG 155

125

ECOWAS, “Decision A/DEC.1/8/90 on the cease-fire and establishment of an ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group for Liberia,” Decision A/DEC.1/8/90 (Banjul, 6th – 7th of August 1990).

126

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Commander Quainoo’s “softness”. He was critical of Quainoo’s faith in the warring parties and actively questioned the wisdom of the disarmament initiative.127 Dogonyaro’s main focus shifted from diplomatic talks and disarmament to actually defeating the warring parties in combat. Hence, ECOMOG continuously fought battles during Dogonyaro’s time as Force Commander. Any prospects of a negotiated solution to the conflict as well as the disarmament process thus suffered.

Preventing the spread of small arms

Still the question remains how ECOMOG planned to enforce the part of the first article that required the parties to the conflict to “refrain from importing or acquiring or assisting or encouraging the importation and acquisition of weapons or war materials”.128 It would seem that this is

impossible to achieve without consent. Not only that, but the order given to ECOMOG’s new Field Commander Dogonyaro, “to try and prevent arms and ammunition continuing to come into the rebel forces […]”, would be next to impossible to achieve within the boundaries of the nation state of Liberia.129 ECOMOG’s mandate only extended to Liberia, but the import and export of small arms cannot be trapped within a national container. This is further emphasized by the fact that weapons were supplied by ECOWAS Member States like Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire, nations that did not supply any troops to the peace-keeping mission either.130 There is no evidence that reveals any meaningful attempts by the ECOWAS to stop these nations from supplying the NPFL with weapons; although that does not mean that it could not have been discussed.

The difficulty in enforcing the parties to refrain from importing small arms and light weapons is highlighted during the year of 1991. During this period the ECOWAS attempted to put end to the war through several cease-fires and peace initiatives. Indeed, several cease-fire agreements were struck and subsequently broken. It seems, however, that most of the warring parties used these cease-fires to replenish their arsenal. This holds true especially in the case of the AFL and the NPFL. 131

While the AFL, ECOMOG, and INPFL were largely confined to Monrovia, the NPFL controlled most of the hinterlands. This also meant that it controlled the key resources and port facilities, acquiring significant funds through partnerships with foreign iron and timber corporations.132 These funds are likely to have been spent on the procurement of small arms and light weapons. Thus, any actions the ECOWAS took towards active disarmament in Liberia would have been offset by the relative ease with which the NPFL could import weapons from for instance the neighbouring countries. There was no comprehensive policy formulated towards prohibiting the neighbouring ECOWAS Member States from exporting war materials.

127_{Agetua, Operation Liberty (1992) 35.} 128

Idem, article 1.2.b, 1.2.c.

129

M.A. Vogt, “The problems and challenges of Peace-Making: From peace-keeping to peace enforcement,” in The Liberian Crisis and ECOMOG 155

130

See note 61, 62, 68, and 69.

131

132_{UN, “Report of the Panel of Experts on Liberia submitted in accordance with Resolution 1343 (2001),”}

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Table 3.1: Yamoussoukro IV timetable

Date Description of Activities

D-Day: 15th of Nov. 1991

Issue Orders

D-Day +7

- Confirmatory reconnaissance completed of all encampment areas and forward patrol bases.

- Border guards in place including buffer zones along Sierra Leone/Liberia border.

- Roadblocks and checkpoints removed in collaboration with administrative authorities.

- Reception centres for encampment opened. - ECOMOG patrols commence.

- NPFL encampment and documentation.

- Receiving, crating and storage of weapons at designated points completed. - Resettlement programme commences.

- Robertsfield International Airport reactivated.

- Consolidation of Border Areas in collaboration with the administrative authorities.

- Appropriate light Air Detachments deployed in Liberia (including helicopters).

- Routine patrols recommence

- Permanent presence and supervision of all airports and seaports. - International flights into Robertsfield commence.

- No movement of heavy weapons belonging to ECOMOG where not necessary.

D-Day + 60 Assignment completed by 14 January 1992.

The operation itself will be conducted at small unit and subunit levels but there is an overriding need to keep border security forces as long as necessary. Command and control will be exercised at Force Headquarters.

Source: ECOWAS, Final Communique of the Fourth Meeting of the Committee of Five on the Liberian Crisis held in Yamoussoukro, 29-30 October 1991 (1991), annex.

Active disarmament did emerge as a primary ECOMOG objective in the following year, however. At the Yamoussoukro peace meeting in October 1991, which later came to be known as Yamoussoukro IV, the ECOWAS Member States formulated a detailed disarmament programme that was to be fully implemented within a timeframe of two months.133 Generally speaking, the program, which was signed by Charles Taylor and Amos Sawyer, was aimed at dismantling Liberia’s irregular militias. It included diversifying the ECOMOG ground troops with soldiers from Mali, Ghana and Gambia.134 In addition, the agreement stipulated that a number of weapon depots would be erected, designed to store all typed of weapons and ammunition belonging to the militias. These depots

133_{See table 3.1.} 134

The force now included 150 troops from Gambia, 1,500 from Ghana, 600 from Guinea, 6 from Mali, and 700 from Sierra Leone. Nigeria still provided the bulk of the force, with 9,000 soldiers. Inegbedion, “ECOMOG in comparative perspective”, in Shaw and Okolo (eds.), The political economy of foreign policy in ECOWAS (1994) 231.