SUMMARY
LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy) was a rebel group active in the Liberian conflict over government. In 1989, an armed uprising against President Samuel Doe erupted in Liberia, as he was first challenged by NPFL, and then by latter’s splinter faction INPLF. While the NPFL leader Charles Taylor was himself an “Americo-Liberian” – a collection term used to denote descendants of former black slaves from the Americas – many NPFL cadres were drawn from the Gio and Mano tribes. Consequently, the Liberian government engaged in brutal reprisal attacks against the Gio and Mano, which in turn led to NPLF atrocities against the Krahn – President Doe’s native ethnic group – and the Mandingo ethnic group, who were perceived as “Krahn collaborators” by the rebels because of the favors the group had received from Doe’s regime. In September 1990, President Doe was apprehended and killed by INPLF forces. However, ECOWAS’ deployment of the Nigeria-led ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) force in August prevented any of the rebel factions from ousting the newly formed interim government and capturing the capital Monrovia. From 1991 to 1996, Liberia was characterized by failed negotiations and non-state fighting between various armed groups. For example, a primary rival of the Gio- and Mano-based NPFL was ULIMO (established in 1991), which was based around the Krahn and Mandingo ethnic groups. ULIMO itself then split along ethnic lines in 1994, creating ULIMO-J (Krahn) and ULIMO-K (Mandingo). The 1991-1996 conflict also had a pronounced regional dynamic, with NPFL expanding its activities into Sierra Leone, where it cooperated with RUF. Likewise, ULIMO received support from primarily Sierra Leone and ECOMOG, and to some extent Guinea. Following negotiations in Abuja in 1996 and subsequent elections held in 1997, NPFL’s Charles Taylor became President of Liberia in August 1997; it was in this context that LURD emerged. Nominally, LURD claimed to pursue peace, reconciliation and equality regardless of tribes, religion, or social status. However, this coalition did not have a single overarching ideological direction, and was in reality united solely by their desire to overthrow the Government of Liberia, led by Charles Taylor.
LURD was created in February 2000 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, by Liberians fleeing from persecution by Taylor to Guinea and Sierra Leone. LURD’s founders were a disparate collection political figures and members of armed factions that had participated in the first phase of the Liberian armed conflict 1990-1996, and who had fled the country in 1997 and 1998 following persecution by Charles Taylor. Already in 1999, Liberians factions such as the Organization of Displaced Liberians (ODL), the Justice Coalition of Liberia (JCL), and the Union of Democratic Forces of Liberia (UDL) had initiated talks to create an anti-Taylor alliance; it were these talks that eventually led to LURD’s formation. It should also be noted that some of the would-be LURD factions had begun conducting attacks in Lofa county already in 1998-1999. While LURD was comprised of several different factions, it was in essence a reconstruction of ULIMO-K, which was one of the groups that had been opposed to Taylor’s NPFL from 1994. For example, ODL was largely comprised of Mandingo refugees from camps in Guinea, many of which were ex-ULIMO-Kfighters. It should however be noted that LURD contained a significant faction of ex-ULIMO-J members; this factions was essential for LURD’s claims that it also represented the Krahn group. JCL on the other hand was a faction led by Taylor’s former associate “General Liberty”. UDL was an umbrella organization comprising the various factions of Liberian dissidents present in Sierra Leone, led by Laveli Supuwood, a former senior figure in Taylor’s NPFL. Reflecting the disparate nature of its constituent factions, LURD lacked a coherent political agenda. For example, the various factions disagreed on to what extent it was acceptable for parts of Taylor’s government to remain in place, should the group be able to achieve victory.
The creation of LURD was also to a large extent driven by regional conflict dynamics, in particular the rivalry between Liberia and Guinea. Charles Taylor frequently supported rebel organizations in Liberia’s neighboring countries, including RFDG in Guinea, and RUF in Sierra Leone. Following attacks by RFDG – supported by Liberian forces and RUF units organized by Taylor - in September 2000, Guinean President Lansana Conté decided to facilitate LURD’s consolidation as a viable military threat against the Liberian government; President Conté intended for LURD to serve as a “buffer” between Guinea and Liberia. Conté also had personal ties to Ayesha Conneh, the wife of LURD’s top leader Sekou Dammate Conneh. The Guinean support to LURD was so extensive that some sources described the Liberian rebels as a Guinean “proxy”. For the duration of its conflict against the Liberian government, LURD received considerable support from Guinea in the form of access to territory, weapons, materiel, and logistic support. While it was not possible to confirm, it was alleged that Sierra Leone also supported LURD.
As indicated above, Sekou Dammate Conneh was the “chairman” of LURD’s National Executive Council; he belonged to the Mandingo ethnic group. There was however considerable factional competition within LURD, with many leading figures being particularly disgruntled by Guinean President Conté’s insistence that Conneh should lead the group, despite him lacking a broad support base. There was also competition between LURD’s armed wing – which supported Conneh – based in Voinjama in Liberia, and the political wing based in Conakry, Guinea. The political wing was worried about Conneh’s personal political ambitions and his insistence on forcefully removing Taylor from Monrovia. LURD was also to some extent marred by the rivalry between the Mandingo and Krahn ethnic groups, a conflict that had carried over from the rivalry between the defunct ULIMO-K and ULIMO-J groups. However, the appointment of Prince Seo from the Krahn group as LURD’s Chief of Staff in 2001 somewhat ameliorated these tensions. Nevertheless, Conneh – with help from Guinean authorities – removed Seo from command prior to the assault on Monrovia, as he feared the chief-of-staff’s increasing influence. Seeya Sheriff, a Mandingo known as “General Cobra”, replaced Sea as LURD’s top military commander.
In 2000 and during the first half of 2001, LURD’s fighting forces was mainly comprised of members of the Mandingo ethnic group. During this period, LURD’s forces were relatively undisciplined and poorly organized. The strong presence of ex-ULIMO-K elements and large share of Mandingo members meant that LURD initially had a hard time building popular support among Liberia’s broader, non-Mandingo population. A primary source for the distrust against LURD was derived from the widespread looting committed by ULIMO-K during the 1990s. There was also a suspicion among many Liberian ethnic groups against the Mandingos, who were perceived as “foreigners” and not “real” Liberians. The perception that the Mandingo were not “real” Liberians stemmed in part from their Guinean origins; some Mandingo had migrated from Upper Guinea and settled in present-day Liberia already during the 1700s, but migration happened also in more recent times. Aside from their geographic origins, the labeling of Mandingos as “foreigners” was also caused by an infected citizenship question, caused by the Americo-Liberians’ – who controlled Liberian politics until 1980 – refusal to grant “indigenous” ethnic groups citizenship. From the mid-1900s, the Liberian government also increasingly favored the Mandingos, as it sought to utilize the latter’s extensive regional trade- and economic networks. As such, the Mandingo became intertwined with the ruling – and widely resented – Americo-Liberians in the eyes of Liberia’s other ethnic groups. This – alongside their Guinean origins - contributed to the Mandingo being labeled as “foreigners”. Even after Samuel Doe’s coup in 1980, the Mandingos retained their favored position vis-à-vis most other ethnic groups as the new regime relied on the group’s support, such as their aforementioned economic resources. Nevertheless, LURD was eventually able to attract the support of an increasingly large segment of the population, and grew to become the largest anti-Taylor faction. Actions taken by the group – such as the aforementioned partial appeasement of the Krahn - gradually increased the support it could attract from various other recruitment pools. It should also be noted that LURD utilized forced recruitment of fighters, and that the group made used of intimidation to expand its ranks.
Reflecting the aforementioned regional conflict context, LURD was also joined by some 500 Kamajor fighters from the borderlands between Sierra Leone and Liberia. Furthermore, Liberian exiles in Cote d’Ivoire returned to join the LURD, as did Liberian dissidents who had fought alongside “Special Forces” of the Sierra Leone Army. This influx of new fighters - many of them experienced veterans from fighting in both Liberia and its neighboring states - significantly improved the LURD’s fighting capability. Estimations of the group’s total strength varied, ranging from 2000 to15 000 troops in 2002, and 3000-10 000 troops in 2003; the number of actual fighting troops was most likely in the lower ranges of these estimations at any given point. LURD was first active primarily in Liberia’s Lofa county, before it had accumulated enough strength to move into other parts of country as well.
On 18 August 2003, LURD, alongside MODEL, signed the Accra Peace Agreement with the Government of Liberia, led by Vice-President Moses Blah. As part of the agreement, LURD was made part of a new broad-based transitional government, the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL), which was inaugurated on 14 October 2003. After this, LURD ceased to exist as an independent actor in the UCDP data, and became part of the Government of Liberia.
