Word: liberia
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...WEANED on the horrors of Vietnam, sickened by the jingoism of Grenada, appalled by the silence of the Panama invasion. There were "proxy wars"--Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola, Afghanistan, Morocco, Mozambique. And times when the U.S. did nothing in Haiti and Burma, Somalia and Liberia...
Another African state was lurching into anarchy last week. The disintegration of order and government in Somalia looked like an agonizing replay of the collapse of Liberia last year. Almost duplicating the stages that shattered the West African state, a group of Somali rebel armies sapped the strength of a narrowly based and despotic regime over several years. They then closed in on the capital and smashed the government's rule without replacing it. If this is the end of Siad Barre, his successor has not yet emerged...
Much in the style of Liberia's late President Samuel Doe, Siad Barre, a onetime policeman who seized power in a military coup in 1969, sealed his own fate by depending more and more on his kinsmen and overreacting to any challenge to his autocratic rule. Former U.S. diplomat Chester Crocker, a professor at Georgetown University, calls Siad Barre an "old-style, feudal, tribal chieftain." The country is ethnically homogeneous -- 98.8% are Somalis -- so there are no significant tribal hatreds. But its 8 million people are split into rival clans that have been battling one another for centuries...
...American interests. In the 13 months he has served as America's top soldier, Powell has steered several important military operations, including providing support for the government of the Philippines against a coup attempt, the invasion of Panama and the rescue of Americans trapped by the civil war in Liberia. After years of reluctant generals and admirals, the White House values Powell as a man who unhesitatingly carries out his mission...
Visiting the area last week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Herman Cohen told Johnson and Taylor that the U.S. would sever relations with Liberia unless a truce was declared. Taylor, head of the 10,000-member National Patriotic Front of Liberia, took the hint and announced a unilateral cease- fire. But the prospect for fruitful negotiations remains dim: Taylor declared that his "government" was the only legitimate one and that he would "fight any attempt to install another one." The truce should at least afford some breathing space for the five-nation West African contingent, which has suffered from...