SUMMARY
ULIMO – J (United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia- Roosevelt Johnson faction) was an anti-Taylor militia, active in combating Charles Taylor’s NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia), which had begun an attack on the government of Liberia in 1989. The group was active during the first Liberian civil conflict, which took place approximately 1989-1996.
ULIMO – J was an offshoot, or rather a splinter faction, of the original ULIMO group. ULIMO was founded in May of 1991, in Conakry (Guinea), by prominent Krahn and Mandingo politicians that had escaped the NPFL onslaught against the government of Liberia and the Krahn and Mandingo ethnic groups. The group became composed (mainly) of these politicians, along with soldiers that had left the AFL (Armed Forces of Liberia), and members of the large Krahn and Mandingo refugee populations that had fled to Guinea and Sierra Leone. ULIMO launched its campaign in the south-eastern regions of Sierra Leone, where the NPFL and the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) were making joint combat efforts against the government of Sierra Leone. The conflict however soon shifted also to Liberian territory.
Rivalries along ethnic lines soon burst into the open within ULIMO, with the movement splitting in two as Kromah (a Mandingo) attempted to make himself the overall leader of the movement, or at least lure over to his side those Mandingo who were loyal to the Krahn leadership. Control over the valuable natural resources of the Sierra Leone-Liberia border territories was also a factor contributing to this split. The split became official in April of 1994 (but had been in effect since at least some time during 1993), with one faction becoming the ULIMO-Johnson faction and the other the ULIMO-Kromah faction, split generally along Krahn (ULIMO – J) and Mandingo (ULIMO-K) lines.
ULIMO – J is not viewed in UCDP data as being involved in a state-based conflict, since it opposed not the government of Liberia, but the NPFL. Animosity between the two movements grew out of the NPFL’s general hostility towards the Krahn, in turn a consequence of the dominant place in politics and the military that this ethnic group had received under President Doe’s regime (Doe’s regime was the government of Liberia in the early years of the conflict). ULIMO – J fought to stop the NPFL from taking control of Liberia, but like nearly all of the factions in Liberia’s first civil conflict the group became embroiled in illicit commercial activities, plunder, factional rivalry and one-sided killings of civilians.
ULIMO – J was composed of three broad categories of people; Krahn elites such as former politicians and businessmen, veteran soldiers of the AFL and impoverished Krahn refugees fleeing the fighting in Liberia. The exact number of men under ULIMO – J arms is unclear, but the number was probably between 4 000 and 5 000. At the peak of its power the ULIMO – J signed peace agreements with the other warring factions, which brought the movement into a power-sharing government with, amongst others, the NPFL. These agreements, in the end, entailed the demobilisation of the ULIMO – J and its disappearance as a party to the conflict.
To pinpoint ULIMO – J’s place in the context of the Liberian civil conflict is complicated, since the group had a number of shifting allegiances and alliances throughout the duration of the conflict. In general ULIMO – J opposed the NPFL group, but at some points the group also worked together with the NFPL to balance the rising power of other factions. The group for example joined hands with the LPC (Liberian Peace Council) and the remnants of the AFL in 1996 to battle the rising threat of a joint NPFL/ULIMO-K alliance, but in 1995 maintained links to the NPFL, receiving military and financial aid from that source, as the NPFL jostled for dominance with the other factions to the conflict. Likewise ULIMO – J at times received support in its efforts from the ECOMOG peacekeeping force, whilst at other times, such as in late 1995, engaging ECOMOG in combat (in this specific instance since it did not wish to leave the valuable diamonds mines it was to abandon due to demobilisation). The relationship with ECOMOG was, however, in general a positive one. ULIMO – J at times also enjoyed the support of Sierra Leone, especially so at the beginning of the joint RUF/NPFL attack on Sierra Leone in 1991, when the group was still part of the wider ULIMO movement, and received weapons and financial support from the Freetown government. Before the split in the ULIMO cadres also received military training under the aegis of the government of Guinea.
ULIMO-J’s leader was Roosevelt Johnson, a former official of the Liberian Ministry of Finance and the deputy field commander of the united ULIMO movement. He took control of the Krahn elements of the ULIMO when ULIMO-K leader Kromah had his successor, General Karpeh, assassinated in 1992. As the leader of the ULIMO – J Johnson entered into peace agreements with the NPFL (and other factions), and became part of the power-sharing government from 1995. Johnson was however removed from the post of leader of the ULIMO – J by its executive council in March of 1996, and he was subsequently persecuted by members of his own faction and the power-sharing government. He however became a minister in Charles Taylor’s government after the elections of 1997, before fleeing the country in 1998 when Taylor turned against him.
ULIMO – J has been involved in the non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.
