The first in a series of submissions on the crisis in
Liberia.
I would not say that Charles MacArthur Taylor, president of
Liberia, is a political creation of the United States even though
in 1985 he mysteriously escaped from a high security prison in
Massachusetts, where he had been incarcerated for 15 months pending
extradition to Liberia for having stolen a considerable sum of
money from an agency in the Liberian government.
Returning to Africa, he obtained the backing of Moammar
Gadhaffi, the Libyan dictator, who schemed to destabilize Liberia
and its troubled neighbor, Sierra Leone, for his own purposes. By
1990, Taylor commanded a powerful militia that controlled large
sections of the Liberian countryside. He and less powerful militia
chiefs acquired fortunes by plundering Liberia’s natural
resources to finance their armies and personal ambitions. However,
the capital city, Monrovia, was protected by an American-aided West
African force consisting mainly of Nigerians.
In 1996, the rogue militias assaulted Monrovia with a vengeance
““ looting, killing, and maiming the residents for several
weeks. Only then did the Nigerian military government resolve to
end the conflict. With financial assistance from the United Nations
and the United States, the Nigerian-led West African army of
occupation enforced an agreement by the militias to surrender most
of their weapons and compete in an election instead.
Taylor’s immense advantage in funds and organization
virtually guaranteed his party would win. Most people voted for him
because they feared he would resume the war if he lost but could
keep the peace if he won.
In 1997, I was a member of the U.N. election observer mission
and remained in the country for several days afterward, lecturing
under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy. I quickly learned
Monrovians dreaded the prospect of Taylor’s impending
rule.
The American, Nigerian and international sponsors of that
dubious electoral exercise gambled on Taylor’s desire for
regional acceptance but underestimated the magnitude of his
political ambition. He soon reneged his agreement to permit
Nigeria’s military mission to recruit and train a new,
nonpolitical national army. Instead, he clandestinely fomented
rebellion in Sierra Leone, thereby prompting Nigeria to re-deploy
its forces in Liberia to that neighboring country. In time, both
Nigeria and the United States excoriated Taylor for his complicity
in the horrific slaughter and systematic mutilation of
non-combatants in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, by his
allies and military agents in January 1999.
Sadly, misguided U.S. envoys persisted in their belief that
Taylor could be relied upon to persuade his allies in Sierra Leone
to honor a constitutional settlement. U.S. and West African
conciliators pressured the elected president of Sierra Leone to
accept the notorious Foday Sankoh, famous for his brutal use of
drugged child-soldiers, as de-facto vice president, in charge of
the diamond fields. Sankoh paid Taylor in diamonds for military
assistance and supplies. His marauding bands captured unwary U.N.
peacekeepers and would have overrun the country were it not for a
decisive intervention by British forces in 2000.
Taylor then committed a fatal blunder. His own forces and those
of his Sierra Leonean allies invaded the Republic of Guinea to
secure a safe haven for their operations adjacent to the diamond
fields. In response, Guinea sponsored an anti-Taylor army of
insurrection, known as Liberians United for Reconciliation and
Democracy. Since the United States had displaced France as
Guinea’s main military patron, France returned the favor by
giving diplomatic and logistical support to Taylor.
But Taylor’s position in the region had been weakened by
the deposition of his staunch ally, the president of Côte
d’Ivoire. His attempt to meddle in the ensuing Ivoirian civil
war (2001 to the present) provoked retaliation by the French-backed
Ivoirian government in the form of support for a second front in
the insurrection against Taylor. France then abandoned Taylor in
deference to the wishes of the new leaders of Côte
d’Ivoire.
With decisive support from Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire,
Taylor’s Liberian enemies were victorious in the countryside.
Once again the residents of Monrovia were engulfed by lethal combat
and related spasms of mayhem. In June, Britain, France, the U.N.
Secretary General and the West African governments called upon the
United States to lead a peacekeeping and restorative mission in
Liberia consisting of 3,000 African troops and 2,000 Americans.
President Bush responded by making Taylor’s abdication a
condition of U.S. participation.
Meanwhile, Taylor had been indicted for crimes against humanity
by a U.N.-sponsored Special Court in Sierra Leone. When David
Crane, the U.S. chief prosecutor, unsealed the indictment in June,
Taylor, fearful of arrest, departed abruptly from negotiations
underway in Ghana. To resolve the impasse, President Olusegun
Obasanjo of Nigeria offered asylum to Taylor.
In Obasanjo’s presence, Taylor declared publicly that he
would accept Nigeria’s offer once peacekeepers arrived to
provide security in Monrovia, but not before. Obasanjo then
dispatched a “vanguard force” of some 1,500 Nigerian
troops to Monrovia, hoping thereby to satisfy the conditions of
both Bush and Taylor.
The political cost of this initiative to Obasanjo is
considerable. Nigerians are deeply divided by their reactions to
the expensive Liberian and Sierra Leonean expeditions ““
initiated by erstwhile military rulers, continued by elected
civilians, and estimated to have cost Nigeria more than $12
billion. One side affirms the necessity of responsible Nigerian
leadership in the region. The other side is preoccupied with
Nigeria’s internal problems and tired of sending soldiers to
anarchic countries where many of them get killed, wounded and
infected.
Moreover, a considerable body of opinion in Nigeria is opposed
to amnesty for Taylor, favoring his prosecution by the Special
Court in Sierra Leone. So they deplore the American-French-Nigerian
agreement on amnesty for Taylor. Others, like Obasanjo, believe
that the extra-territorial indictment should not be a barrier to
peace in Liberia.
How many Liberians will have to die before people of good will
conclude their diplomatic pirouettes and military preparations?
Sklar is an emeritus professor of political
science.