Liberia Death of a President

By Guy D. Garcia

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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 ordering its 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.

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.