Operation Jungle Fire: The Consolidation of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy

Abstract

Drawing on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this article investigates the cooperative consolidation of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), a rebel movement that in 1999-2003 sought to rid Liberia of President Charles Taylor. The LURD faced many obstacles to consolidation, including a history of ethnic fragmentation and infighting, leadership conflicts, lack of territory inside Liberia, and a paucity of resources. Yet, despite these hurdles, the LURD succeeded in forging a coalition that lasted just long enough to oust Taylor. It did this by adopting three maxims that emphasized institutional learning, interethnic power sharing, and Guinean sponsorship.

The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) formed in 1999. Five factions consolidated forces in Operation Jungle Fire to topple Charles Taylor, the rebel leader who had been elected Liberian president in 1996. The LURD offers an interesting case for studying rebel consolidation because its organization was from the start designed to overcome ethnic fragmentation. Past experiences show that ethnic divides form a major barrier to interethnic cooperation. Even those who sought to dispose of Taylor remembered the traumatic fate of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO), a rebel movement that formed in 1991 during the first Liberian civil war. ULIMO lasted for three years, before it violently fragmented along ethnic lines.

The LURD was in many ways a successor to the ULIMO, and a result of organizational learning. The LURD involved many of the same people, consisted of heterogeneous forces, and faced many of the challenges that contributed to ULIMO’s failure. Liberia remained ethnically fragmented, its politics characterized by competition and conflict to the extent that leadership struggles flared immediately even within the LURD. At the outset, the rebels controlled no territory inside Liberia, let alone resources to wage a protracted war against Taylor’s Government of Liberia (GoL) forces. Unsurprisingly, the rebels’ prospects of success were completely dependent on later Guinean sponsorship.

Despite these challenges, the LURD succeeded in uniting five fractious factions for four years, or long enough to topple the incumbent Taylor regime. For a diverse coalition to unite while navigating a complex factional landscape, hold together for several years, and eventually achieve its conflict objectives—and to do so through cooperative means—is truly puzzling. The aim of this article is to explain this puzzle—how the LURD managed to consolidate its forces and force Taylor into exile.

Much of the rebel success depended on the simple notion that “Taylor must go.” This common goal provided sufficient common ground to hold these forces together, and allowed an inclusive cooperative mode of consolidation.¹ The LURD also instituted a power sharing agreement to counteract ethnic fragmentation and organizational splintering. This power sharing agreement facilitated the initial cooperative consolidation of the various anti-Taylor forces. The unification nevertheless merely provided a fighting chance for ousting Taylor. It took direct territorial and military support from a determined state sponsor to tilt the balance of forces in favor of the rebels.

The case of the LURD shows how cooperative consolidation can occur despite ethnic fragmentation, and how a coalition without a single dominant group can prevail against past expectations.² While scholars generally associate ethnic fragmentation with non-cooperation,³ the LURD case illustrates how organizational learning and external state sponsorship enable cooperative consolidation. The rebels deemed conflictual consolidation counterproductive because victory depended on uniting various anti-Taylor factions and mobilizing members from several of Liberia’s ethnic groups against GoL forces. Competition and coercion risked dividing, not consolidating, the rebel forces. That said, cooperative consolidation only became viable because the LURD leadership had learnt from the ULIMO’s fate about the futility of ethnic dominance and strife.

Operation Jungle Fire also emphasizes the importance of resources in efforts to consolidate rebel forces. Resources constitute a pressing issue especially for nonstate armed actors, who typically begin as underdogs and struggle to mobilize means against state forces. Foreign state sponsorship offers rebel forces safe haven, arms and ammunition, food and medical supplies, training and possibly transportation. No less than four-fifths of rebel groups that waged war in 1946-2015 received external support.⁴ With two-thirds of rebel groups which enjoy great power support emerging as victors, state sponsorship appears a crucial factor behind victory in war.⁵ External sponsorship is thus a crucial factor that influences civil war dynamics, including the internal organizational dynamics of the armed groups involved.⁶

Previous research has shown that rebels, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, coalesce because of foreign intervention.⁷ Rebels in resource-stricken contexts, where nonstate armed actors face states with a relative preponderance of material wealth and power, often depend on foreign sponsors. For foreign patrons, delegating war to nonstate armed groups can be cost-effective and limits reputational costs through denial of participation.⁸ Sponsorship, in turn, is critical to armed actor consolidation. Those who seek to change the status quo are highly incentivized to bandwagon with armed groups that have dedicated foreign patrons.⁹ External sponsorship does not guarantee armed group unity. Some of the worst battles the LURD fought were not against the government forces, but within the rebel organization itself. Nor does external sponsorship guarantee rebel victory. It took LURD forces four years of fighting to drive Taylor into exile. Understanding dynamics of consolidation thus require considering the complex interplay of both internal and external factors that shape rebel conduct.¹⁰

The following sections build on information collected during 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork with former combatants in Liberia in 2012-2017, and a few days of work in Sierra Leone in 2018.¹¹ I have interviewed over 300 former combatants, with the LURD featuring as the main armed group to which these combatants belonged. My interviewees include two chairmen, politicians, a Chief of Staff, several frontline commanders, and numerous combatants from various ethnic, geographic, and socio-economic backgrounds. I have also interviewed hundreds of civilians who witnessed the war in order to triangulate events and to reduce bias in combatant narratives. I have promised anonymity to all informants, but would like to acknowledge the assistance of Mohamed Sparo Tarawalley – a General, force commander and military wing chairman of the Special Forces of the Sierra Leonean Civil Defence Forces and later the Deputy Secretary General for Operations of the LURD – in fact-checking some of the claims below. While interviews with frontline commanders and fighters are valuable, I have further cross-checked information with secondary sources, when available. Unfortunately, a definitive history of the Second Liberian Civil War does not yet exist. As a result, interviews still constitute the main information sources about the war.

The next section introduces the First Liberian Civil War, focusing especially on its ethnic dimension that brought Taylor’s forces and the ULIMO to a collision course. The first war ended in a peace agreement that paved way to Liberia’s first democratic elections, overwhelmingly won by Taylor. The third section discusses the formation of the LURD, an armed coalition based on three maxims. Firstly, Taylor could only be forced to leave Liberia through the occupation of the capital city of Monrovia. This required joint effort. Secondly, joint effort would have to learn from the lessons derived from the ULIMO split. This could be avoided through an inbuilt power sharing structure. Thirdly, ousting Taylor necessitated support from a state actor; a safe haven and resources were necessary for victory. The fourth section discusses the LURD in conflict. The armed group was not only waging war against Taylor’s forces, but also suffered from internal fights and quarrels. The fifth section looks at the end of the war, and how the LURD soon fragmented, suggesting that consolidation is not an enduring condition. After establishing its mission, the least common denominator of the armed group vanished. With not enough spoils to go around and with the loss of the Guinean support, the LURD soon fell apart. The concluding section emphasizes the importance of state sponsorship to the LURD and how the rebel movement defies the expectation that ethnic fragmentation is a major barrier to interethnic cooperation within armed groups.

The First Liberian Civil War

The nature of the war in Liberia changed over time and was influenced by dynamics on the local, regional, and international levels. Like all wars, the one that started on Christmas Eve 1989, when some 100 fighters led by Taylor entered northeastern Liberia from Côte d’Ivoire, was fought for political ends. Taylor’s “freedom fighters” targeted officials, as well as the two ethnic groups—the Krahn and the Mandingo—perceived to have sided with the government of President Samuel Doe. In a 1974 census, the Krahn constituted 4.7% and the Mandingo 3.9% of Liberia’s population, which recognized 14 other Liberian “tribes.”¹² The Krahn largely inhabit the southeastern Grand Gedeh County as well as western Côte d’Ivoire. The Mandingos in turn form a larger Muslim group concentrated in the border region between Liberia (especially the Lofa and the Nimba Counties) and Guinea, as well as western Côte d’Ivoire.

Local and regional dynamics and grievances, not least over land, had a major influence on who Taylor’s rebels targeted. Looming over these grievances was the increasingly ethnically aligned political landscape, which Taylor exploited to the fullest. Following the coup that brought him to power in 1980, Doe installed many fellow Krahn in state service. His regime cemented the connection between the state and his ethnic group. Doe also continued to rely on the Mandingo because of their commercial power, but also because they were less threatening as their claim to Liberian citizenship was contested. Simultaneously, the relationship between the Gio (and to a lesser extent the Mano – both of whom live in the Nimba County) and the Krahn had become polarized.

The first round of violence between the groups came in the form of the so-called Nimba raid in 1983, where Doe’s soldiers killed hundreds as a reprisal for an attack against Yekepa, a mining town in the Nimba County. In the meantime, the United States pressed Doe to return Liberia to civilian and democratic rule. A new constitution, modeled after the American one, was adopted to pave the way for the country’s first presidential elections in 1985. In these elections, President Doe suspiciously claimed victory with the absolute minimum majority of 50.1% of votes against the Gio former minister of education Jackson Doe (not related), and his vice-presidential candidate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Two decades later she would become the first elected female African head of state.

Soon after this failure to oust Doe without violence, Thomas Quiwonkpa – a Gio general who had fled to the U.S. after accusations of plotting against Doe in 1983 – attempted to do so via another coup. This gambit failed. Further pogroms against Nimba County followed, with government forces killing hundreds, if not thousands of civilians. After the domestic opposition to Doe failed, foreign governments played a key role in removing him from power. Governing elites in Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and most importantly Libya supported Taylor’s attempt to topple the Doe regime, and provided his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) with manpower, money, training and weapons, as well as a staging area before his forces entered Liberia.¹³ The mystery of how Taylor had escaped from prison in Massachusetts and somehow made his way to Ghana in 1985 made some believe he had links to the United States Central Intelligence Agency.¹⁴ In any case, Taylor’s enemies later followed his example and cultivated foreign support after fleeing abroad.

Ethnicity remained one of the main factors that affected the dynamics of the first war, not least through mobilization of armed groups. Taylor claimed to follow the path set by Quiwonkpa to the extent that he too called his movement the NPFL. It was not surprising that Krahn and Mandingo ethnic groups fought back. In September 1990, President Doe was killed by Prince Johnson, a Gio who led an NPFL splinter group. Subsequently, a foreign-supported interim regime gained control of the capital, while ethnic polarization continued to define the ongoing fighting in the interior. Soon after, the war spread beyond Liberia’s borders. After West African peacekeepers received the permission to use airfields in Sierra Leone to bomb Taylor’s forces, he responded by supporting the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a Sierra Leonean armed group whose leader had also been trained in Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.

Taylor’s support prompted the Sierra Leonean government to mobilize an infantry battalion of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) that had fled across the border to fight against the rebel threat. This Liberian United Defense Force (LUDF) was led by General Albert Karpeh, a Krahn General and Doe’s last ambassador to Sierra Leone. Simultaneously, many Mandingo who had fled to Guinea formed another armed group, the Movement for the Redemption of Muslims (MRM), led by Alhaji Kromah. In May 1991, the LUDF joined forces with the MRM, ostensibly with the blessing of the Conakry and Freetown governments, and formed the ULIMO. Another, smaller armed group called the Liberian Peace Council was supported by Nigeria and its peacekeeping contingent in Liberia. International backers would continue to influence subsequent events in the war that had now spread beyond Liberia’s borders to the wider Mano River region.¹⁵

With Guinean and Sierra Leonean support, the ULIMO began to capture terrain from Taylor’s NPFL. In 1994, the ULIMO violently split according to ethnic lines because of internal power struggles: the Krahn formed the ULIMO-J(ohnson); the Mandingo, ULIMO-K(romah). The two bitterly fought, with the ULIMO-K even entering into an agreement with the NPFL against the ULIMO-J. This traumatic split fragmented the anti-Taylor forces, and contributed to the power sharing agreement signed in Abuja in 1996 that ended the first war. General and presidential elections were organized a year later, with Taylor and his supporters emerging as the undisputed winners in an environment characterized by uncertainty.¹⁶

The Second Liberian Civil War and the Consolidation of the LURD

If there was a narrow window of opportunity for peace, Taylor missed it. Taylor’s electoral victory had hardly made the grievances of the first war disappear. He soon began to harass real and perceived rivals, not least former ULIMO members. When he downsized the military, whose ranks had been filled by Doe, many Krahn especially became infuriated.¹⁷ While some of Taylor’s enemies joined his forces, many more fled the country. In September 1998, in what became known as the Camp Johnson Road incident, Taylor’s forces attacked many Krahn in the capital, including the head of the now defunct ULIMO-J. Johnson and some of his closest supporters escaped to the U.S. embassy, from which they were evacuated abroad. Scores of others fled for their lives to Sierra Leone. Simultaneously, local conflicts between Loma and Mandingo in the northern Lofa County had escalated into massacres. Mandingo in particular perceived that Taylor favored the Loma over them, causing many Mandingo to flee across the border to Guinea. By 1999, there was thus a strong anti-Taylor sentiment, much of it based on ethnicity, fear, marginalization and political exclusion. Many felt that they had no future in Liberia as long as Taylor remained in power.¹⁸

At the outset of the Second Liberian Civil War, there were at least five anti-Taylor groups operating in Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and the United States. As Sierra Leonean government prohibited Liberian dissidents from establishing themselves on its territory due to the ongoing conflict with the Taylor-backed RUF, Guinea was deemed the only plausible site of military operations. While there is no evidence that Guinea initially provided any material support for Liberian dissidents, neither is there any indication that the government tried to disrupt their activities. Considering Guinea’s past support to the ULIMO-K, it is possible that the government or parts of its security forces continued to view the dissidents as a tool to be used against Taylor. Cross-border attacks also provided opportunities for local actors, including security forces posted to the border, to benefit from items looted in Liberia. In any event, the dissidents enjoyed a safe haven in Guinea, and chose to operate from there. It is however likely that the LURD felt it wise to keep as low a profile in the country as possible, lest the Guinean authorities intervene. The LURD’s lack of territorial control inside Liberia removed one of the major factors that causes armed groups to compete and fight against each other.¹⁹

The dissident armed groups that made international news included the Justice Coalition for Liberia, LURD, New Horizons, Organization of Displaced Liberians, and the Union of Democratic Forces of Liberia (UDFL). Several of these organizations were led by elites who had fought against Taylor in the first war, and were dominated by either the Krahn or the Mandingo. Because of real or perceived threats from the Taylor government, all felt that the only way for them to return home was in arms. These anti-Taylor sentiments were shared at all levels of the rebel movement. These sentiments, however, combined with individual ambitions to replace Taylor, which formed the main driver of fragmentation preceding the period of the LURD’s consolidation. Lacking developed ideas of an ideal polity that should follow Taylor, the elites focused on simply replacing him as the future leader of Liberia. This caused them to view each other more as rivals than allies.

Sporadic fighting between dissidents and Taylor’s forces began in the northern Lofa County on the Guinean border in 1998. Four military operations of note were launched against Taylor’s GoL forces in Lofa County by one faction or the other. All these attacks were repelled. The small scale of these operations becomes clear from the way several observers believed them false flag operations carried out by Taylor in order to justify his persecution of the opposition, and to help him lift the arms embargo and sanctions set by the United Nations.²⁰

These early failures cemented the first premise held by the anti-Taylor forces that contributed to the formation of the LURD: they could only win together. As a result, the five factions consolidated in Sierra Leone around mid-1999.²¹ With relatively symmetrical strength, the top positions of the new organization were divided between their leaders. The name LURD itself was chosen through ballot from the five names of the joining organizations mentioned above.

Further recruitment commenced in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Sierra Leone. In Sierra Leone, mobilization was encouraged by Maxwell Khobe, the Nigerian Chief of Staff of the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces. Before coming to Sierra Leone, Khobe had served four tours of duty in Liberia.²² In 2000, he publicly stated that he considered Taylor’s regime unconstitutional.²³ After Khobe unexpectedly died of encephalitis in April 2000, members of the so-called Special Forces – Liberians whom Khobe had recruited in Sierra Leone to fight the RUF, many of whom had fled Liberia after the Camp Johnson Road incident – ended up in LURD ranks.²⁴ Later recruitment from Sierra Leone focused especially on the Civil Defense Forces – pro-government militias – as well as other armed groups, including the RUF.²⁵ Guineans also joined the LURD, although foreigners are rarely mentioned in the narratives of Liberian LURD combatants.

Many LURD elites had personally experienced the traumatic split of the ULIMO, which they believed had secured Taylor’s victory. They were big personalities, which exacerbated rivalries between them. Their heterogeneity alone risked cohesion, but their personal ambitions intensified their rivalry as they opportunistically sought power.²⁶ While many of the LURD elites knew each other, their past histories were more conflictual than cooperative.

Cautious about the kind of factionalism that doomed the ULIMO, the LURD was from the start devised around a power sharing agreement between the Krahn and the Mandingo. A Mandingo would lead the political wing or the National Executive Council (NEC), with a Krahn deputy. A Krahn in turn would lead the military wing led by the Defense, with a Mandingo deputy. The same arrangement was instituted in the two LURD “brigades,” one of which was led by a Krahn and the other a Mandingo. Not surprisingly, the structure was proposed by the Krahn and Mandingo members of the NEC. Their votes were enough to pass the proposal despite opposition from members of other ethnic groups that were minorities in the NEC. As the LURD later expanded and increasingly recruited from other ethnic groups, the NEC leadership structure was amended. The so-called “second government” established in late 2002 gave positions to members of other ethnic groups after they became well represented in the organization.

LURD members describe the NEC as a group of “investors” who financed the revolution in exchange for government positions following regime change. LURD’s Secretary General, in his 2008 testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, went so far as to repeatedly note that the idea of LURD was “sold” in several countries and “bought” everywhere.²⁷ Even the rank-and-file understood the political wing as rent-seekers. The legacy of the ULIMO was also used by the LURD leadership to exclude old warlords, including Kromah, the former head of the ULIMO-K.²⁸ While this decision was justified to avoid past mistakes and associations with internationally ill-reputed elites, the exclusion was also a way for the LURD leadership to shield itself from better-known rivals. In practice, the relationship between the political and the military wings remained strained. In October 2002, the power sharing agreement ended abruptly when the Krahn Chief of Staff was replaced with an “acting” Mandingo one. This power grab, however, did not immediately result in a split.

A look at the instability of the LURD chairmanship reveals the urgent need of consolidation among the rebels. The first chairman of the LURD was Vamba Kanneh, who had briefly sat at the Council of State of the interim government that governed Liberia until the 1997 elections, and had since headed the UDFL. Kanneh nevertheless failed to satisfy the criteria of financial means associated with chairmanship. A leader was expected to be able to bankroll military operations or hold international connections to do so. Kanneh had to go after he failed to deliver. The second chairman was George Dweh, the cousin of President Doe who reportedly achieved the position through manipulating documents. After these were discarded Dweh was replaced by the first Liberian to be admitted to the Harvard University Law School, Americo-Liberian former Secretary of State and businessman Rudolph Grimes. It was hoped that he not only possessed resources, but that he could furthermore mend the Krahn-Mandingo tension among the dissidents, as well as to broaden the dissidents’ appeal among other groups. It appears that Grimes was not consulted before his nomination: He declined the position upon notification.²⁹ The third chairman was Mohammed S.K. Jumandeh, a Liberian businessman who had settled in Brussels. While he claims that he came to Guinea after he was called by his brothers to lead them, most fighters say that he arrived in Conakry to assert his political leadership over the revolution with $160,000. He reportedly collected support from diaspora Mandingo in Guinea, Europe and the United States, which he channeled to the anti-Taylor forces. Jumandeh’s fate was sealed after his money ran out, allegedly because of mismanagement by LURD elites. He had to sell his car to return back to Brussels. While it is claimed that he was replaced by Sekou Damate Conneh in December 2001, Conneh claims that he took over the movement in 2000 in Voinjama.³⁰ Before the headquarters were moved to Voinjama they had been located in Guéckédou and Macenta. Several LURD informants have suggested that Conneh arrived in early 2001. Whatever the case, Conneh became the chairman in the aftermath of the failed fourth dissident offensive that escalated the war and resulted in Guinean support for the Liberian rebels.³¹

The fourth dissident offensive in Lofa led to momentary gains, as the rebels held the county capital Voinjama for three months from July 2000 onwards. It was at this time Taylor had had enough. In order to end the problem with dissidents across the border, his militias crossed into Guinea to support a former usurper and his rebel force and to establish control over the border region. This strategy backfired. The Taylor-supported forces found scant support in Guinea, and their advance soon fizzled.³² To make matters worse, Guinea’s response was to start sponsoring the LURD.

The Mandingo domination of the LURD has been explained by their proximity to Guinea, as there are no native Krahn in that country. There is some truth to this explanation, but the Mandingo connection was initially problematic for the Guinean-based dissidents due to local politics. The Guinean president Lansana Conté had long favored his Susu peers.³³ His main political rival Alpha Condé was a Mandingo, whom Conté in 2000 accused of supporting the invading rebels.³⁴ Condé would assume presidency in 2010.

While Conté did not initially want to support the Liberian dissidents, the situation changed with Taylor’s attack on Guinea. Finding his army politically unreliable, small, and poorly trained and equipped, Conté early on relied on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to guarantee border security against Taylor and the dissident forces.³⁵ Delays in deployment and the uncertainty about its effectiveness against the rebel threat caused Conté to begin arming and supporting the LURD (whom he had so far tolerated but not supported), as well as local militias. These forces fought against the invaders until they were finally defeated in March 2001, and when the LURD captured Voinjama.³⁶ In this way, Conté sought to protect Guinea in the short-term by securing the border, and in the long-term by getting rid of Taylor. Despite Conté’s official denials, the LURD formed the means to achieve both aims. Of note is that however implausible they were, the Guinean denials limited the forms of available support. While Guinea provided artillery support to the LURD close to Guinean border, it did not contribute troops to fight in Liberia.

It was this Guinean support that propelled Conneh to leadership. Like Jumandeh, but unlike most LURD leaders, Conneh had no history of fighting against Taylor. His rise to chairmanship was because of the insistence of Conté, who was close to Conneh’s wife Aisha.³⁷ This Liberian refugee had reportedly divined the Guinean military coup of 1996 and thus saved Conté’s life. Their relationship had been close ever since. During Jumandeh’s leadership, Aisha Conneh had financed the dissidents’ efforts. When Jumandeh’s influence began to wane, LURD members increasingly courted her. It is also possible that Aisha Conneh – the “Iron Lady” – convinced Conté to support the dissidents in the first place, and then played a central role in their coordination.³⁸

Several LURD officials felt that Aisha Conneh could not manage frontline activities. She is described as illiterate, stuck in Conakry as she was pregnant, or simply inappropriate for the premier position because of her gender. None of the top elites in the LURD were female. The fact that Sekou Conneh – a former tax collector and trader of used cars – lacked both military experience and political acumen may only have made him more appealing to the Guinean sponsors, who could more easily control him. Considering that he could not even speak French,³⁹ the official language of Guinea, the suggestion that he was less the leader and more a liaison between his wife and the rest of the LURD appears plausible. This view also confirmed by the LURD politicians interviewed. As Sekou Conneh held his position due to his wife’s relationship with Conté, the chairman initially lacked loyal following.

Sekou Conneh embodies the third premise of the LURD, or the crucial role of foreign sponsorship. Considering that the LURD operated in parts of Liberia already looted and ravaged by years of fighting, the rebels faced considerable difficulties in living from the land, let alone setting up sources of supply necessary for waging war. With most LURD elites accepting the premise of foreign sponsorship, they had little choice but to follow and obey the chairman in order to access the Guinean support channeled through Aisha Conneh, which far surpassed that from Liberian diaspora.⁴⁰ While the Guinean support allowed the chairman to outbid his rivals, it is important to emphasize that Guinean support ebbed and flowed, and that Conté did not necessarily support Sekou Conneh’s presidential ambitions in Liberia.⁴¹

The LURD in Conflict

Despite the LURD’s success in consolidating various anti-Taylor forces and receiving Guinean support, the armed group had to weather constant conflict of both external and internal nature. As a result, the LURD remained fragile and in a precarious state throughout the war. In addition to waging war against the GoL forces that led to the deaths of important commanders and loss of morale, the LURD suffered from several conflicts, including those between the Krahn and the Mandingo, between individual commanders and politicians and between the married Conneh couple. These will be investigated in turn.

Beginning with the war, the Second Liberian Civil War differed markedly from the first. While ethnicity continued to matter, it was not nearly as important a factor as during the decade before. Despite exploiting ethnicity for mobilization during the first war, after assuming presidency Taylor had sought to curb “tribalism,” or favoring one ethnic group at the cost of others. Several members of his militias noted how Taylor operated within a national, rather than an ethnic framework.⁴² As even its name suggests, the LURD followed suit. With the five original factions containing elites from various ethnic groups, the LURD framed its struggle not as a “tribal war,” but one against Taylor alone.⁴³ This deescalated violence, especially against civilians, but also against combatants. The personification of the struggle also allowed broad mobilization of force and its unification around a single conflict framing, and for GoL fighters to desert and join the rebels. Ultimately, the war was about seizing the state, but getting rid of Taylor would also allow the dissidents to return home. Yet at the same time, the discourse about the war was also about opportunity and labor.⁴⁴ Combatants on each side talked about the “business of war.”

As always, the strains of the war itself also had a major effect on those who fought it, and violent attrition threatened to erode the organization. Drawing on state resources, the GoL was initially much stronger than the rebels that fought against it. Taylor mainly relied on a disparate assortment of militias to fight the war, while more elite units ensured the security of the regime in the capital. At the outset, Taylor’s forces were both more numerous and better equipped. At a later date, one LURD official gave the GoL a four-to-one advantage in numbers.⁴⁵ Taylor also possessed a force multiplier in the form of airpower, and used a few helicopters to bombard his enemies as well as to insert and supply GoL forces in the Lofa County.

The discrepancy between the force strengths is most evident with the dissidents’ rocky start with the failed military operations. While these failures eventually paved way to consolidation, there were at least three occasions when the whole organization almost disintegrated after important frontline commanders were killed and morale plummeted. This was a predictable outcome of a system of command that was based on charismatic commanders and their personal relationship with their fighters.⁴⁶ The war itself was of relative low intensity. Most often battles were of the hit-and-run variant, and occurred on lines of communication – roads – as means to reach the true aim of the war, Monrovia. Fighting ebbed and flowed, more often than not depending on the availability of arms and ammunition. Lofa County witnessed fighting for the longest period of time, and was thus called the “university of the bullet.” The LURD military wing saw that the only way to stop the GoL was superior firepower. While technically both the LURD and the GoL were subjected to the same arms embargo, the rebels relied on reliable Guinean support whereas the GoL had to smuggle in arms and ammunition from international arms dealers and from the RUF in Sierra Leone. While always insufficient according to the LURD interviewees, the Guinean support nevertheless allowed the LURD to adopt a strategy of attrition. The rebels actively sought to force their opponent to spend and exhaust their munitions, the replenishing of which was made difficult because of an arms embargo.⁴⁷ Members of the LURD also emphasized how they invested in winning over civilians, contrasting these practices with the GoL “operation no living thing,” which one LURD fighter describes as an attempt to “make the environment fearful” through punishing civilians.⁴⁸ These LURD strategies paid off, as the rebels were able to expand their ranks. While the GoL forces were said to be more united and to have better command than the LURD, their inability to replenish ammunition crippled their combat effectiveness.

The Krahn-Mandingo conflict ultimately derived from the question of who would assume power after Taylor, but was exacerbated by the memories of the ULIMO split. Several Krahn elites in the LURD felt that neither could rule Liberia: the Krahn because of their connection to President Doe, the Mandingo because they were still to some extent not considered a Liberian “tribe.” The division within the LURD went deeper, however. Conflicts existed both among the Krahn and the Mandingo subgroups within the armed group.⁴⁹

This internal fragmentation is evident in the attempt to replace Prince Seo, the second LURD Chief of Staff whose predecessor Charles Dent had died in an ambush. In October 2002 Seo was demoted and jailed after a shoot-out with another Krahn commander, Ofori Dia. Reportedly the dispute was about spoils that Dia did not want to share. In order to deal with such conflicts that threatened the “revolution,” if not his own standing, Sekou Conneh repeatedly relied on the Guinean military and imprisonment.⁵⁰ Seo was replaced by Aliyu Sheriff – a Mandingo-Loma commander better known as “Cobra” – with Dia as his deputy. This tilted the previous power balance between the Krahn and the Mandingo in the latter’s favor. With the Mandingo securely at the helm, the Krahn influence further declined thanks to the inclusion of other ethnic groups, which flocked to the LURD after its initial military victories, as well as their harsh treatment by the GoL forces. The manpower provided by these other ethnic groups proved essential for the LURD victory.

Another conflict in the LURD was between the different elites. The political and the military wings agreed on little. While the chairman officially headed both wings, he risked being outsmarted by the Conakry-based politicians and ignored by the military commanders, who belonged to the Voinjama-based Defense. While the chairman claims that he spent no time in the frontlines, he was at least occasionally based in Voinjama.⁵¹ From the perspective of the politicians who sought to limit the use of force, Sekou Conneh believed that violence had to be brought to Monrovia in order to force Taylor out. At least six senior politicians left the LURD because of disagreements with the chairman in 2002-2003. And while the chairman could imprison political rivals, the LURD’s inherent weakness limited the use of violent coercion within its ranks.⁵² Violent coercion risked opposition and fragmentation,⁵³ leaving control of supply as the chairman’s main means of influence over frontline events.⁵⁴ This explains why endeavors like mining were curbed as dangerous by the LURD leadership.⁵⁵ By withholding supplies, Sekou Conneh repeatedly forced the withdrawal of LURD commanders from missions he did not approve. The chairman’s control and hence consolidation was thus enhanced by preventing opportunism and competition over natural resources.⁵⁶

The final conflict was within the marriage of the Conneh couple. Considering Sekou Conneh’s dependency on his wife’s relationship with Conté, it is not an exaggeration to say that the consolidation of the LURD under Sekou Conneh’s rule depended on the state of his marriage, which was far from strifeless. In what can be taken as proof of his concern about rebel cohesion, at least once during the war Conté intervened to restate his support to the Conneh couple when marital problems threatened to split the LURD.

While the LURD emerged as the hegemonic anti-Taylor force after it successfully consolidated the smaller dissident groups, it experienced a split in late 2002 when several Krahn elites left the armed group to join an emerging militia in Côte d’Ivoire. Three major reasons explain this divide. First, the power sharing structure of the LURD had been breached. Because of their closer connection to Conté, it was the Mandingo that dominated. The inclusion of other ethnic groups diminished the Krahn influence while Conneh’s control of Guinean supply allowed him control of force. He favored certain loyal commanders who tended to be Mandingo, making Krahn commanders in particular feel discriminated. The second reason for fragmentation was the somewhat connected perception that by the end of 2002 the war had stalled.⁵⁷ Tracing the issue to poor leadership but unable to change it from within the LURD structure, some believed it was best to leave. The third reason is at least to an extent opportunistic. Discriminated within the LURD, the Krahn correctly assumed they could gain more power in an armed group dominated by Krahn. That said, the urgent plight of the Krahn (and other southeastern) refugees in Côte d’Ivoire should not be underestimated as a factor in this decision. Far away from the LURD, these refugees were caught between Taylor-supported rebels and the Ivorian security forces, neither of whom viewed them positively. Their only chance appeared to be to fight for President Laurent Gbagbo, who followed Conté’s strategy of arming exile and refugee Liberians to combat Taylor.⁵⁸ Upon arriving in Côte d’Ivoire, the former LURD members encountered this Krahn-dominated militia. After fighting off the threat to Gbagbo’s regime, these forces crossed to Liberia in March 2003, thus opening a second front against Taylor. Presumably after monopolizing contact to Gbagbo and his armed forces, the LURD defectors effectively took control of the armed group, now called the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL).⁵⁹ Although smaller and militarily weaker than the LURD, the MODEL was soon able to capture large swathes of mostly sparsely populated territory from the GoL forces which were now redeploying from the interior to focus on defending Monrovia.

While the barriers to defect from the LURD were low, the risks for doing so were higher. The majority of the Krahn elites in the LURD stayed put, while departing to Côte d’Ivoire was much more difficult for fighters. The emergence of a rivaling rebel movement did not thus end the LURD leadership’s strategy of cooperative consolidation. In fact, the MODEL gave new impetus for the LURD to consolidate itself against future splits. Some viewed the MODEL as embodying problematic ideas of Krahn supremacy that had contributed to the splitting of the ULIMO. Indeed, several MODEL elites claim that one reason they fought was to prevent Mandingos from taking over the country. While a few Krahn commanders that stayed in the LURD later contemplated about joining the MODEL in case the two forces met, this never happened. Some LURD commanders have suggested that the reason was that Conneh cut supplies to the Nimba front at a crucial time to ensure that the two rebel movements would remain separate. With the LURD focusing on its march toward the capital, the MODEL began to race them there.

The End of the War and the LURD’s Fragmentation

In the summer of 2003, the LURD forces reached Monrovia for the decisive battles of the war. The limited scale of fighting in the war is evident in the way individual battles were often dubbed “wars,” and especially the three intense ones in Monrovia “world wars.” In its final push, the LURD committed a great strategic blunder with immediate and irreversible international consequences. The LURD forces randomly lobbed 60 and 81-millimeter mortars on central Monrovia. Several rounds struck a compound close to the U.S. embassy, killing scores of civilians and prompting the U.S. ambassador to visit the LURD military headquarters. According to one LURD commander present, Cobra botched the negotiations. As bodies were piled in front of the embassy, the LURD appeared uncontrollable and unfit to govern Liberia.⁶⁰

Even though the LURD had emerged as the strongest military actor in Liberia, the LURD would never rule Liberia. While Taylor agreed to leave into exile in Nigeria, none of the three belligerents had been defeated. Even if the LURD was militarily much stronger, by the time the war ended the MODEL controlled half of Liberia, although fewer of its inhabitants. The GoL still held on to central Monrovia, as well as the Nimba County. When the three groups emerged from peace negotiations in Accra with a power sharing agreement that gave equal representation to each of them, some in the LURD leadership – including Conneh – were enraged. As the head of the largest rebel movement, he had harbored presidential aspirations. He may have even thought that because he had been mindful of the demands of the international community, he would be rewarded after war. Yet even other LURD politicians vied for the same presidential position.⁶¹ While some LURD officials noted that Conneh’s rule would not have resulted in democracy, military commanders planned to occupy the presidential Executive Mansion in order to establish their own rule. The ceasefire agreement interrupted these plans, as did the deployment of international peacekeepers. The war finished too soon for the LURD military commanders to seize power.

As one LURD official summarized, “the way the war ended [was] a catastrophe… We did not go to the bush [to fight] just go to the bush.” Ridding Liberia of Taylor was not the ultimate end, but mere means to gain control of the state in order to access its resources. With none of the three belligerents reaching their goals, “the war technically never ended. We all just agreed that we were tired now.” In addition to war weariness, even international pressure contributed to war termination.⁶²

With the benefit of hindsight, it was probably good for Liberia that no clear victor emerged. Many interviewees from both the LURD and the MODEL believe that capture of the Executive Mansion by either movement would have prolonged the war. It is likely that victor’s justice, too, would have caused new grievances and before long renewed fighting.

After the mortar rounds that had caused much suffering in Monrovia were traced to Guinea – a recipient of U.S. military assistance – Conté’s support to the LURD faced renewed scrutiny.⁶³ Overall, it appears that Guinea expected little in return for its material support to the LURD, and that Conté was satisfied with getting rid of Taylor. Guinean support to the movement soon ended. In order to ensure that the Liberian rebels would not cause trouble in Guinea (and perhaps in order to avoid any possible reputational costs), the LURD was told to return to Liberia.⁶⁴

Whatever other spoils would come to the LURD, the members of its National Executive Council had shared them long before the war ended. The disproportionate expectations and available spoils led to new struggle for positions of power in Liberian ministries and parastatal organizations. With the departure of Taylor, the overarching aim of the LURD had been achieved. While the simplicity of the LURD’s framing of the conflict had been useful in bringing together heterogenous forces, the ousting of Taylor and the termination of Guinean support unleashed competing interests that now began to pull the movement apart.⁶⁵ The investors scattered to reap whatever spoils they could amass. Previous agreements were scrapped, causing grievances amongst those who lost their claims. While elites felt that their “opportunities were denied,” the main losers as usual were the much more numerous combatants.⁶⁶

The scramble for the spoils fragmented the LURD, as well as split the Conneh couple. Sekou Conneh was soon accused of selling positions to people outside the rebel movement. After allegations that he gave the Finance Ministry to his former brother-in-law, Aisha Conneh too turned against her husband, seeking to wrest the mantle of the LURD leadership. While those who had received positions continued to support Damate Sekou Conneh, the majority who were left without positions rallied behind Aisha Conneh, who now declared herself the mother of the LURD fighters.

The international community understandably wanted to avoid any conflicts that could threaten the peace process. With LURD ceasing to exist as an actor by the end of 2003, Damate Sekou Conneh was declared unwelcome in most LURD-controlled territory. He soon turned his focus to an unsuccessful humanitarian organization as well as various business ventures. While he ran for the 2005 presidential elections, the self-proclaimed “Liberator” received merely 5,499 votes, or 0.6% of the total during the first round of voting.⁶⁷ His political career seemed over. In comparison, Aisha Conneh did much better, campaigning for Johnson Sirleaf in the same 2005 elections. The results after Johnson Sirleaf’s victory were disappointing. Aisha Conneh had made promises during the election campaign to those she wooed to go behind Johnson Sirleaf. Receiving no formal position in return, she could not meet the expectations from below. She stayed in Guinea until the death of Conté in 2008. After returning to Liberia, her loyalty was nevertheless rewarded by the Executive Protection Service, the law enforcement agency that safeguards top Liberian officials, which offered her personal protection. The fate of the vast majority in the LURD was worse. While able to return home, they were left to fend for themselves in a country damaged by years of war.

Conclusion

The LURD was based on three maxims derived from the situation and the lessons drawn from the fate of the ill-fated ULIMO, the fragmentation of which doomed the anti-Taylor efforts in the early 1990s. The first of the LURD’s maxims was that ousting Taylor required capturing the capital, and that this was only possible through joint effort. The second was that the only way to overcome elite divisions and ethnic barriers to cooperation was to institutionalize power sharing. The third maxim was that the struggle could only succeed with support from an external state actor in the form of access to foreign territory and material resources. While the first and the second maxims allowed the creation of the LURD, it was the third that offered it a fighting chance against Taylor and his GoL forces. Demonstrating the importance of consistent external support for consolidation, the Guinean support channeled through the chairman was crucial for reinforcing the first maxim of consolidation. Yet this support also later allowed some of the Mandingo to gradually establish their dominance over the rebel group and to effectively scrap the second maxim of power sharing. Betrayal of the second maxim led some frustrated Krahn to split from the LURD and to move to Côte d’Ivoire to assume control of another anti-Taylor group.

The importance of external support is unsurprising in the resource-strapped context of Liberia. Rebel victory necessitated not only consolidation of forces, but even safe haven and resources. Over the years, several interviews with aspiring Liberian rebel leaders who failed to attract foreign support illustrate how it was unimaginable to start a rebellion without external support. Even the LURD leadership status came with the expectation of material resources that the rebellion depended on. With few checks and balances, leadership status enabled corruption during the war, and offered a promise of a share of the spoils after its successful conclusion. Luckily for Liberians, the victory of an instrumentally constructed rebel coalition did not produce civil war recurrence caused by victors turning against each other for spoils.⁶⁸ When LURD elites almost immediately turned against each other after war to amass limited spoils the rebel movement disintegrated. War weariness and the presence of international peacekeepers contributed to making renewed fighting an unattractive prospect.

Despite the LURD’s success to consolidate itself during the war, the main factor that spelled the end of the rebel movement was its achievement of its goal of forcing Taylor into exile. Absent Taylor the rebels lacked their least common ideological denominator. Combined with the rebels’ failure to replace Taylor at the helm of the Liberian state, the end of the Guinean support too contributed to the fragmentation of the LURD. Against expectations that united movements not only win, but also shape post-conflict order, the rebel movement soon evaporated, leaving few traces behind.⁶⁹ In this sense, the LURD was victorious in war but failed to survive peace.

The LURD case defies the expectation that ethnic fragmentation is a major barrier to interethnic cooperation. Organizational learning permitted the LURD to unite several factions and ethnic groups through a power sharing agreement, while external state sponsorship allowed the upholding of a cooperative coalition just long enough for the rebels to achieve their overarching aim. Most importantly, the case of the LURD clearly demonstrates how contextualized understandings of both external and internal factors are necessary to understand the conduct of armed groups, including their dynamics of consolidation.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Ilmari Käihkö, “‘Taylor Must Go’ – the Strategy of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 26, no. 2 (2015): 248–70; International Crisis Group, “Liberia: The Key to Ending Regional Instability,” 2002, 8.

2 Peter Krause, “The Structure of Success: How the Internal Distribution of Power Drives Armed Group Behavior and National Movement Effectiveness,” International Security 38, no. 3 (2014): 72–116.

3 Nicholas Sambanis, “Do Ethnic and Nonethnic Civil Wars Have the Same Causes?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 45, no. 3 (2001): 259–82; Scott Gates, “Recruitment and Allegiance: The Microfoundations of Rebellion,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, no. 1 (2002): 111–30; Jeremy Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

4 Emily Kalah Gade, Michael Gabbay, Mohammed M. Hafez, and Zane Kelly, “Networks of Cooperation: Rebel Alliances in Fragmented Civil Wars,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 63, no. 9 (2019): 2093.

5 Gade et al., “Networks of Cooperation,” 2078; Stephen E. Gent, “Relative Rebel Strength and Power Sharing in Intrastate Conflicts,” International Interactions 37, no. 2 (2008): 215–28.

6 Jennifer Hazen, What Rebels Want: Resources and Supply Networks in Wartime (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013); Marie Olson Lounsbery, “Foreign Military Intervention, Power Dynamics, and Rebel Group Cohesion,” Journal of Global Security Studies 1, no. 2 (2016): 127–41; Evan Perkoski, “Internal Politics and the Fragmentation of Armed Groups,” International Studies Quarterly 63 (2019): 876–89; Henning Tamm, “Rebel Leaders, Internal Rivals, and External Resources: How State Sponsors Affect Insurgent Cohesion,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2016): 599–610.

7 Lounsbery, “Foreign Military Intervention,” 137.

8 Idean Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 3 (2010): 493–515.

9 Tamm, “Rebel Leaders.”

10 Perkoski, “Internal Politics.”

11 For a longer discussion of the methods employed, Ilmari Käihkö, Bush Generals and Small Boy Battalions: Military Cohesion in Liberia and Beyond (Phd. diss.: Uppsala University, 2016); Ilmari Käihkö, “On Brokers, Commodification of Information and Liberian Former Combatants,” Civil Wars 21, no. 2 (2019): 179–99.

12 Irving Kaplan, “The Society and Its Environment,” in Liberia - A Country Study, ed. Harold Nelson (Washington, DC: American University, 1985), 89.

13 Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War, 2nd edition (London: Hurst, 2007), 69–74.

14 Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy, 67–68.

15 Ibid., 94–95.

16 Mary Moran, Liberia: The Violence of Democracy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).

17 Charles T. Call, “Liberia’s War Recurrence: Grievance over Greed,” Civil Wars 12, no. 4 (2010): 354–56; Mitikishe Maxwell Khobe, “The Evolution and Conduct of ECOMOG Operations in West Africa,” in Boundaries of Peace Support Operations: The African Dimension, ed. Mark Malan, vol. 44, ISS Monograph Series (103–121, 2000); See the statement by Boi Bleaju Boi, the MODEL spokesperson, in Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, “Boi Bleaju Boi Part 3,” 2008, https://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/37478.

18 Call, “Liberia’s War Recurrence.”

19 Hanne Fjelde and Desirée Nilsson, “Rebels against Rebels: Explaining Violence between Rebel Groups,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 56, no. 4 (2012): 604–28.

20 Human Rights Watch, “Back to the Brink - War Crimes by Liberian Government and Rebels,” 2002, https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/liberia/Liberia0402.pdf; Wikileaks, “Liberia: Johnson Sirleaf Believes LURD Threat Is Real, But Exaggerated: Sees Liberia Reconciliation Meeting in Mid-March 02ABUJA622_a,” 26 February 2002, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/02ABUJA622_a.html.

21 According to others the consolidation was done in Guinea, even if initiated by Maxwell Khobe. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, “Joe Wylie, Part 2,” 2008, https://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/37440.

22 Nowa Omoigui, “Barracks: The History behind Those Names Part 7” (Dawodu.com, June 14, 2003), https://dawodu.com/barrack7.htm.

23 Khobe, “The Evolution.”

24 Omoigui, “Barracks.”

25 Special Court of Sierra Leone, “SCSL-2003-01-T Transcript 8 June 2010,” 2010, http://www.rscsl.org/Documents/Transcripts/Taylor/8June2010.pdf.

26 Perkoski, “Internal Politics;” Weinstein, Inside Rebellion.

27 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, “Joe T. Gbala Part 1,” 2008, https://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/38168.

28 James Brabazon, “Liberia: Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD)” (The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2003), 2.

29 Johnson Sirleaf later lauded Grimes as “old, honest and without Presidential ambition”, and promoted him as a future head of interim government that would replace Taylor. Wikileaks, “Liberia: Johnson Sirleaf Believes LURD Threat Is Real, But Exaggerated: Sees Liberia Reconciliation Meeting In Mid-March 02ABUJA622_a”; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, “Joe Wylie, Part 2.”

30 Brabazon, “Liberia,” 3; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, “Sekous Damate Conneh,” 2008, https://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/37936.

31 The initial attacks were later portrayed as a part of a calculated strategy that succeeded to get Conté to support the Liberian dissidents. It is far from certain whether this was actually the case. Special Court of Sierra Leone, “SCSL-2003-01-T Transcript 8 June 2010.”

32 Mike McGovern, A Socialist Peace? Explaining the Absence of War in an African Country (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 126.

33 Christian K. Højberg, “The ‘Mandingo Question’: Transnational Ethnic Identity and Violent Conflict in an Upper Guinea Coast Border Area,” in The Upper Guinea Coast in Global Perspective, ed. Jacqueline Knörr and Christoph Kohl (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016), 266.

34 Alexis Arieff, “Still Standing: Neighborhood Wars and Political Stability in Guinea,” Journal of Modern African Studies 47, no. 3 (2009): 343; McGovern, A Socialist Peace, 142–5.

35 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, “Joe Wylie, Part 2.”

36 Hazen, What Rebels Want, 111; James Milner, “The Militarization and Demilitarization of Refugee Camps in Guinea,” in Armed and Aimless: Armed Groups, Guns, and Human Security in the ECOWAS Region, ed. Nicolas Florquin and Eric G. Berman (Geneva: Small Arms Survey Publications, 2005), 161, 163; McGovern, A Socialist Peace, 151–2.

37 Nicholai Lidow, Violent Order: Rebel Organization and Liberia’s Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 163.

38 Mariam Bjarnesen, Repurposed Rebels: Postwar Rebel Networks in Liberia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2020), 70.

39 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, “Sekous Damate Conneh.”

40 International Crisis Group, “Tackling Liberia: The Eye of the Regional Storm,” 2003, 4; Felix Gerdes, Civil War and State Formation: The Political Economy of War and Peace in Liberia (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2013), 169; Tamm, “Rebel Leaders.”

41 Hazen, What Rebels Want, 114.

42 Ilmari Käihkö, “Liberia Incorporated: Military Contracting, Cohesion and Inclusion in Charles Taylor’s Liberia,” Conflict, Security & Development 17, no. 1 (2017): 63.

43 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, “Joe Wylie, Part 2.”

44 Danny Hoffman, “Violence, Just in Time: War and Work in Contemporary West Africa,” Cultural Anthropology 26, no. 1 (2011): 34–57; Käihkö, “Liberia Incorporated.”

45 Käihkö, “Liberia Incorporated,” 67; Another assessment goes even further, claiming that the GoL forces were twenty times larger. International Crisis Group, “Liberia,” 6.

46 Brabazon, “Liberia,” 7.

47 Several LURD officials elevated the arms embargo as the main factor behind LURD victory. Käihkö, “‘Taylor Must Go’,” 255.

48 A war crime trial that opened in Finland in February 2021 partly focuses on the role played by the RUF in these efforts. The court case is ongoing at the time of writing. Brabazon, “Liberia,” 5; Economist, “A Region in Flames,” 3 July 2003, https://www.economist.com/special-report/2003/07/03/a-region-in-flames; YLE, “Sierra Leonean Man’s War Crimes, Murder Trial Begins in Finland,” 1 February 2021, https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/sierra_leonean_mans_war_crimes_murder_trial_begins_in_finland/11766704.

49 On the Mandingo subgroups, see Højberg, “The ‘Mandingo Question’,” 264. The three main Krahn subgroups correspond with the administrative division of the Grand Gedeh County into three districts. See Ilmari Käihkö, “The MODEL Social Structure of an Armed Group: From Liberian Refugees to Heroes of Côte d’Ivoire and Liberators of the Homeland,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 29, no. 4 (2018): 792.

50 International Crisis Group, “Tackling Liberia: The Eye of the Regional Storm,” 4–5.

51 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, “Sekous Damate Conneh.”

52 International Crisis Group, “Tackling Liberia: The Eye of the Regional Storm,” 5.

53 Käihkö, Ilmari. “‘No Die, No Rest’? Coercive Discipline in Liberian Military Organisations.” Africa Spectrum 50, no. 2 (2015): 3–29.

54 Käihkö, “‘Taylor Must Go’”. More generally, see Ilmari Käihkö, “A Nation-in-the-Making, in Arms: Control of Force, Strategy and the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions,” Defence Studies 18, no. 2 (2018): 158–9; Milos Popovic, “Inter-Rebel Alliances in the Shadow of Foreign Sponsors,” International Interactions 44, no. 4 (2018): 749–76.

55 Brabazon, “Liberia,” 6.

56 Weinstein, Inside Rebellion.

57 Hazen, What Rebels Want, 131.

58 The fact that Conté did not appear to have suffered any adverse effects from the international community because of his for his support to the LURD might have influenced Gbagbo’s decision to arm the Liberian refugees. Hazen, What Rebels Want, 120.

59 Lidow, Violent Order, 203.

60 Human Rights Watch, “Weapons Sanctions, Military Supplies, and Human Suffering: Illegal Arms Flows to Liberia and the June-July 2003 Shelling of Monrovia,” 2003, https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/arms/liberia/liberia_arms.pdf.

61 Brabazon, “Liberia.”

62 Hazen, What Rebels Want, 136; Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks allow a peek at the role played by the US behind the Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and his government. The US for instance encouraged Nigerian officials to establish contact with the LURD. Wikileaks, “Nigeria: ECOWAS Execsec Chambas’s Views on Liberia,” June 7, 2002, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/02ABUJA1725_a.html; in July 2003 Nigeria was lauded for its decision to deploy peacekeepers to Liberia, but also compelled to use its diplomatic clout with both Sekou Conneh and Conté to stop the LURD’s Monrovia offensive. Wikileaks, “Nigeria:-Two Battalions Can Deploy Quickly to Liberia-but Need Help,” 25 July 2003, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/03ABUJA1272_a.html. As Taylor was leaving to his exile in Nigeria, Obasanjo was asked if he wanted to send a message to Washington. He replied “just that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing (vis a vis Liberia)”. Wikileaks, “Meeting with President Obasanjo,” 12 August 2003, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/03ABUJA1367_a.html.

63 Embarrassingly for the US, at least one mortar round used in the fighting came from the US. Human Rights Watch, “Weapons Sanctions, Military Supplies, and Human Suffering: Illegal Arms Flows to Liberia and the June-July 2003 Shelling of Monrovia,” 25.

64 Dane F. Smith, “US-Guinea Relations during the Rise and Fall of Charles Taylor,” Journal of Modern African Studies 44, no. 3 (2006): 436.

65 Perkoski, “Internal Politics.”

66 International Crisis Group, “Rebuilding Liberia: Prospects and Perils,” 2004, 8–9.

67 The International Republican Institute. “Republic of Liberia National Elections October 11, 2005 November 8, 2005 Election Observation Mission Final Report,” n.d.: 22. https://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/fields/field_eo_report/liberias_2005_presidential_and_parliamentary_elections.pdf.

68 Sean M. Zeigler, “Competitive Alliances and Civil War Recurrence,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 1 (2016): 24–37.

69 Seden Akcinaroglu, “Rebel Interdependencies and Civil War Outcomes,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 56, no. 5 (2012): 879–903; Krause, “The Structure of Success: How the Internal Distribution of Power Drives Armed Group Behavior and National Movement Effectiveness.”