Brief History of Liberia's Civil War

• In 1980, Samuel Doe, a Liberian Army Master Sergeant seized power through a bloody coup by assassinating President Tolbert and executing thirteen of his cabinet members.
• In 1989, Charles Taylor, a military man who was part of Doe’s cabinet entered Liberia through Cote D’Ivoire seeking to overthrow Samuel Doe’s regime. This resulted in a civil war which was brought to an end by African peacekeepers in 1996.
• In 1996 Charles Taylor was elected as president of Liberia in an election against Ms. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
  
• In 1999, a second civil war was started by a rebel group called Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy in Northern Liberia. Taylor’s actions provoked this war which lasted for seven years.
• In 2003, a second rebel group surfaced in southern Liberia further escalating the conflict. The combined rebel forces shut down the country.
• In the midst of this chaos, Charles Taylor fled the country to Nigeria.
  
•  During the summer of 2003, Nigerian peacekeeping forces under the United Nations and U.S. Marine expeditionary forces secured the country.
• The Govervance Reform Commission was set up in June 2003 as part of the deal to end the civil war. This commission was chaired by Ms. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf until 2005 when she ran for president.
• This fourteen-year civil war produced one million refugees and destroyed 200,000 lives.