‘It's terminal either way’: an analysis of armed conflict in liberia, 1989–1996

Abstract

The wars which have wracked Liberia since the end of 1989 have reduced a country which was once regarded as one of the more fortunate in Africa to a state of long‐term aid dependency. Perhaps 150,000 or more have been killed and at many points over the last seven years a third of the country's pre‐war population has been living as refugees in neighbouring states and another third has been internally displaced by the conflict. The continuing warfare has made it difficult to address the large‐scale humanitarian problems inevitable in such circumstances: rates of undernutrition have sometimes reached very high levels and on at least one occasion have reached heights which rival the worst recorded in any part of the world (Outram, 1997).

This article seeks to advance our understanding of the causes of this suffering. It does so not primarily by examining the experiences of the victims, important though this is, but by investigating the political economy of the Liberian wars including the circumstances and the actions of the warring factions. In this I follow Keen's call to understand the actions of oppressor groups involved in humanitarian emergencies, as well as those of their victims (1994:232).