Word: doe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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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...
...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...
That was about the last time the U.S. had any control over Doe. When Thomas Quiwonkpa, a Gio and former army commander, tried to overthrow him, Doe had Quiwonkpa killed and eviscerated. Worse yet, Doe turned his soldiers loose on Gio tribal villages in Nimba County. Until then, Liberia had been relatively free of such hostilities, but the massacres started a tribal war that is still raging today...
Congressional indignation at the worsening corruption and repression led to substantial aid cuts, from $76 million in 1985 to $11 million this year. But Doe seemed indifferent to his country's growing bankruptcy. U.S. officials still urged reform, but Doe, who often consults a shaman, responded to one overture from CIA director William Webster by offering him a magic powder...
Last December Taylor, a former official in the government whom Doe had wanted to prosecute for allegedly embezzling nearly $1 million in government funds, led an army of some 170 guerrillas across the border from the Ivory Coast and gradually advanced to the outskirts of Monrovia. But the rebels split when Prince Johnson, a Gio, began accusing Taylor of criminality. U.S. officials say that Taylor is just about as bad as Doe, and Johnson is no savior either. "If we had nudged Doe earlier and harder toward an open society and a free market, it might have made a difference...