On Christmas Eve in 1989 a band of more than 150 insurgents crossed the border into northern Liberia from Côte d’Ivoire. They were members of a newly formed group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), headed by a Liberian exile, Charles Taylor.
These attacks, which launched a campaign to oust the dictatorship of President Samuel Doe, effectively triggered a war that brought the almost complete destruction of Africa’s oldest republic.
Charles Taylor, their leader, was a relatively obscure figure at the time, but he was to become West Africa’s most notorious warlord. He had the singular honor of starting a bloody civil war on Christmas Eve 1989 and subsequently winning both the presidential and parliamentary vote in an election declared free and fair by the international community.
His story involves power, conflict, and a legacy that has had an indelible impact not just on Liberia, but on the entire West African region.
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Sources:
Charles Taylor and Liberia: Ambition and Atrocity in Africa’s Lone Star State – Colin M Waugh
The State of Africa – Martin Meredith
Africa, A Modern History – Guy Arnold
Liberian History :
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Music:
Harbor by Kai Engel Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
CC BY-SA 4.0
Meditation Impromptu 03 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
Source:
Artist:
Night Music – Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
Heartbreaking Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
Epidemic Music
Alone – Emmit Fenn
Allegro – Emmit Fenn
Somewhere Fuse – French Fuse
#CharlesTaylor #Liberia #SamuelDoe
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