Liberia - The Country

It's good to be king. In Liberia things have quieted down and Charles Taylor is now faced with trying to figure out how to run Liberia.

The war hogs in their Banana Republic jackets remember the old days fondly. Where else would one go to see a cast of outrageously wild characters dressed in odd-but-uniform military gear and going by names that would make a sailor blush? Back then Libyan-backed, self-proclaimed criminal Charles Taylor surrounded himself with the finest military men (all so competent that they were promoted directly from volunteer to general) Liberia could muster. General No-Mother-No-Father, General Housebreaker, General Fuck-Me-Quick and the gregarious General Butt Naked were just some of the colorful and oft-defeated warriors. General Butt Naked was particularly visible since he fought battles in his prime-evil buff-his only uniform was a pair of scuffed tennis shoes and his only armor the protective stench of stale liquor no bullet would dare penetrate. Ah, the good days. But them days is over. These days you'll find Butt Naked preaching the word of God on Broad Street in Monrovia as a born again preacher. Back then his choir was young children brandishing sticks and swearing like diseased sailors. They are just the finest examples of a century and a half of civilization in darkest Africa.

Well, there's always the next war. And war comes easy to a place like Liberia.

Founded in 1822, Liberia was an attempt-an experiment, really-by the American Colonization Society to create a homeland in West Africa for freed slaves from the United States. It became the Free and Independent Republic of Liberia in 1847.

It's interesting that a group of individuals so jaded by the racial strata system of 19th-century America chose to re-create the United States constitution on the other side of the Atlantic. As Africa's first "republic," Liberia's debut government was modeled directly after the one it sought to escape. With names like Joseph J. Roberts, William V. S. Tubman, Charles Taylor and William R. Tolbert Jr., the prominent figures in Liberian history read more like a Palm Beach polo team roster than a struggling, ragtag community of displaced slaves.

The attempt at creating a duplicate America in Africa, however, never came full-circle, namely because more than a century's worth of efforts at bringing the aboriginal population onto the same "playing field" as the emigrants proved unsuccessful. Instead of democracy, liberty and all that stuff, Liberia's course became marred by factional fighting, civil war, partitioning and bloody coups led not by men with sinister, nasty-sounding names like Stalin, Arafat, Noriega, Hitler or Amin, but with such innocuous, landed-gentryish handles as Doe, Taylor and Johnson. Sounds like a New York law firm.

Instead of freedom for all, Liberia became a free-for-all, reduced to primal clashes among rival clans, randomly slaughtering each other with old machine guns from the back of ancient, dented jeeps. Bands of marauders cut swaths across the rain forest plateau, donning Halloween masks and bolt-action rifles, as they rape and pillage in small villages before finally razing them. Calling the situation in modern Liberia a "civil war" is giving it too much status-crediting it with too much organization and purpose. The reality is villagers slaughtered by tribal-based militias that mark, like dogs pissing on a tree, their territory with the skulls of their victims.

One of the few Liberian leaders with any longevity was William V. S. Tubman, who was in his sixth term as president when he died during surgery in 1971. He was replaced by his longtime associate, William R. Tolbert Jr. Tolbert actually lasted nine years in office, before he was ousted by a mere master sergeant, Samuel Doe, in 1980. Yet another coup attempt was led by Charles Taylor, a senior official in Doe's government, in 1989. Leaving a bloody wake in capturing most of the nation's economic and population centers, Taylor failed by a whisker to wrestle power from Doe by mid-July 1990.

Shortly afterward, a six-nation West African peacekeeping force called the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) essentially partitioned Liberia into two zones. The first encompassed the capital of Monrovia and was led by President Amos Sawyer. The other half, run by Taylor and his National Patriotic Front (NPFL), amounted to about 95 percent of Liberian territory.

Reconciliation and peace agreements were signed and ignored like journalists' bar tabs. A March 1991 conference failed to get anything accomplished except for the reelection of Sawyer as interim president. Despite a peace agreement in 1991, fighting continued to flare. Another peace agreement and cease-fire in July 1993, which established an interim government and set up general democratic elections, crumbled a short time later in November.

Gambia, Nigeria, Mali, Ivory Coast, Switzerland and Benin are among the venues that have hosted Liberian peace talks since Taylor launched the civil war the day before Christmas in 1989. Some ended with agreements hailed at the time as historic. All proved to be failures.

The 12th agreement, signed in Benin with UN guarantees, seemed the most likely to succeed. It ended up in tatters. Only 3,000 of Liberia's estimated 60,000 fighters-many of them teenagers addicted to drugs along with killing and raping civilians-were disarmed.

At least a third of Liberia's prewar population of 2.5 million fled the country after fighting broke out on December 24, 1989, when Taylor invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast. In 1993, the UN estimated 150,000 had died, but stopped counting after that. (As of mid-1997, most estimates put the death toll at nearly 200,000.) It became nearly impossible for relief workers to operate in rebel-controlled areas. A peace accord signed in August 1995 called for countrywide ECOMOG deployment and disarmament of factional fighters, but 10 months later neither of these processes had gotten off the ground.

In April 1996, Monrovia was again launched into lawlessness. Fighting resumed in earnest between the rival factions. In only three days, Monrovia toppled into anarchy. Thousands fled the capital city in panic. As many as 20,000 Liberians descended upon the residential annex of the U.S. embassy. U.S. military commandos evacuated about 2,000 frightened American citizens and other foreigners by chopper to the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown, starting in the middle of the night on April 8, as Monrovia's airport was destroyed in the fighting. Evacuations continued for at least two months.

Yet a disarmament program, part of an ambitious transition program (and the war's 14th peace agreement) developed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)-designed to dissolve Liberia's armed factions-became tremendously successful only nine months after Monrovia's anarchy. By February 1997, more than 10,000 fighters had been demobilized and 5,000 weapons recovered.

Up until July 24, 1997, Liberia was run by a six-member interim Council of State led by charismatic chairwoman Ruth Perry, who replaced Taylor stooge Wilton Sankawulo in this, Liberia's 14th, peace accord since 1989.

Before the Perry-led Council of State, the country was terrorized by up to 60,000 young (sometimes under 15), brutal, drunken and armed thugs who dressed up in masks, wigs and ballroom gowns and wielded rusty guns and vicious tempers to steal food and rape and butcher people. Bandits and terrorists continue to wax and dismember each other in the countryside, although the overall level of violence has dropped considerably.

In July 1997, Charles Taylor was elected with an impressive margin (even though earlier he swore he wouldn't run for office and he would go into business instead). Things are eerily calm in Monrovia outside of the odd gunfight and his countrymen and many enemies are waiting to see what Chuck and his All-Stars will do now that they have center court.

Fly the Friendly Flag

Ever notice that small type that follows those cool cruise ads? It usually says Liberian Registry. Yes, you read right, Liberia, the country without a postal system, phone network or even a government, sells a lot of flags and registrations. Over 1,600 ships totalling 59.8 million gross tons fly the Liberian flag. In fact, the $50 million in fees paid to the Liberian government comprises 90 percent of the revenue to the government in tough times. It is called a flag of convenience, and shipping lines escape many of the taxes and restrictions imposed by more sedate countries. Liberia maintains that it spends 10 percent of its earnings training ship inspectors and says they are second to none in safety. The government of Liberia is run by a six-member council that includes tribal chiefs, warlords and politicians. Charles Taylor, a former civil servant and now lead member in the council who started the civil war in 1989, now says that none of the funds is used for the military, but instead go towards schools, travel and payroll.

The checks are cashed by an American company called International Trust Company, which manages the registration business for the government of Liberia. The International Maritime Organization is permanently based in London, England.

The second most popular country to register ships? Why, the conflict-, crime- and drug-free country of Panama, of course. To register your ship contact: Bureau of Maritime Affairs, P. O. Box 10-9042, 197 Ashmun Street, 1000 Monrovia 10, Liberia