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- <text id=90TT2501>
- <link 90TT2363>
- <title>
- Sep. 24, 1990: Liberia:Death Of A President
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Sep. 24, 1990 Under The Gun
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 61
- LIBERIA
- Death of a President
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>As the regional peacekeeping force dawdles, rival rebel forces
- brace for a showdown
- </p>
- <p> Like vultures fighting over a corpse, the various factions
- in Liberia's bloody civil war vowed to continue their armed
- struggle despite the death of President Samuel K. Doe last
- week. Since removing Doe was a common goal of the rebels, there
- was a faint glimmer of hope that his death might open the door
- to peace. But instead of signaling the end of the carnage,
- Doe's demise only set the stage for a new contest for military
- dominance between Prince Yormie Johnson, leader of a
- several-hundred-member force that captured and killed Doe, and
- Charles Taylor, head of the 10,000-member National Patriotic
- Front of Liberia.
- </p>
- <p> Doe's death came after he abandoned his fortified
- presidential mansion, where he had been bunkered since rebels
- captured most of Monrovia in June. He paid an unexpected visit
- to the headquarters of the five-nation peacekeeping force that
- had been sent into Liberia by its West African neighbors. There
- is speculation that Doe was seeking safe passage out of the
- country or that he may have been there to scold Lieut. General
- Arnold Quainoo, the Ghanaian commander of the peacekeeping
- force, for not paying him a courtesy call at the presidential
- mansion.
- </p>
- <p> But before he could meet with Quainoo, Doe and his
- bodyguards became engaged in a battle with the forces of Prince
- Johnson, who had declared a truce with Doe less than a month
- earlier. During the hour-long battle, Doe was wounded in both
- legs by machine-gun fire and captured by Johnson, who
- immediately declared himself President. Doe loyalists, for
- their part, remained at their posts under the command of
- Brigadier General David Nimley, head of the presidential guard.
- </p>
- <p> Next day came reports that Doe died while being interrogated
- on the whereabouts of millions of dollars of state funds that
- had disappeared during his 10 years in power. In an effort to
- downplay Johnson's reputation as a ruthless rebel, his official
- spokesman, Marcus Dahn, attributed Doe's death to loss of blood
- and denied that the President had been intentionally murdered.
- "As a matter of fact, Doe's death is a regret," Dahn said,
- "because we have maintained that we would not use the same
- brutal means by which the man ruled the country."
- </p>
- <p> Shells exploded and gunfire crackled in Monrovia through
- most of Monday as Johnson's troops hunted down the fragmented
- remains of Doe's army, which was almost entirely made up of
- Krahn, one of the two main ethnic groups that are involved in
- the fighting. Doe was a Krahn, while Johnson and Taylor are
- aligned with the Gio tribe. More than 5,000 Liberians have been
- slaughtered by the three factions, often because of tribal
- affiliations.
- </p>
- <p> In an effort to prevent another massacre, Gambian President
- Sir Dawda Jawara, the chairman of the Economic Community of
- West African States, which had organized the peacekeeping
- force, asked troops to intercede in the evacuation of Doe
- loyalists who had barricaded themselves inside the presidential
- mansion. Two weeks ago, ECOWAS representatives met in Ghana to
- select an interim government for Liberia, to be led by Amos
- Sawyer, a political scientist who in 1984 drafted the country's
- present constitution. Both Nimley and Johnson have indicated
- their willingness to turn power over to Sawyer once he has been
- installed in Monrovia.
- </p>
- <p> Taylor, however, vows to keep fighting. The rebel leader
- decries the interim delegation as a "puppet" of ECOWAS and
- contends that the credit for Doe's overthrow should be his,
- since Johnson and his army were trained under Taylor's command
- before they splintered off into their own faction last March.
- Taylor last week ordered his troops, which have been bogged
- down in eastern Monrovia for the past three months, to take the
- rest of the city at all costs.
- </p>
- <p> Responding to the crisis, Ghanaian Foreign Secretary Obed
- Asamoah told the BBC in London that it's time the peacekeeping
- force showed its teeth. Asamoah said the West African troops
- should enforce the peace and install Sawyer's interim
- government. His statement contradicted an earlier report that
- Ghana might withdraw from the regional force. A pullout by
- Ghana could spell the end of the organization, since it might
- encourage other member governments with second thoughts to
- follow suit. ECOWAS, meanwhile, is considering doubling its
- 3,000-member contingent to Liberia and orderits troops to take
- a more active role in enforcing the peace. The future of the
- peacekeeping force was scheduled to be discussed over the
- weekend at a meeting of foreign ministers in Gambia.
- </p>
- <p> By week's end Taylor's troops had moved to within firing
- range of the executive mansion, where Doe loyalists remained
- dug in. A few blocks away, Johnson's group was holding its
- position at the city's main barracks. People fleeing the area
- reported fierce but confused fighting between the presidential
- guard and both rebel groups. Johnson's forces, while better
- trained, are much smaller than Taylor's. As long as the
- regional peacekeeping force remains paralyzed by political
- indecision, Taylor stands a good chance of taking power--but
- not without a lot more bloodshed.
- </p>
- <p>By Guy D. Garcia.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-