SUMMARY
ULIMO – K (United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia- Alhaji Kromah 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 – K 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. Alhaji Kromah, a Muslim and a member of the Mandingo ethnic group, joined forces with the ULIMO movement early in the Liberian conflict, bringing with him from Guinea scores of Mandingo fighters from his relatively low-profile Redemption of Muslims group, hoping to gain a prominent seat within the movement’s hierarchy. Supported by these new recruits the 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 though, with the movement splitting in two as Alhaji Kromah 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 that was dominant during the first years of the movement’s existence. 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 – K is not recorded in UCDP data as being involved in a state-based conflict, since it opposed not the Government of Liberia, but the NPFL. Animosity between these two movements partially grew out of the NPFL’s persecution of the ethnic Mandingos, in turn a consequence of the perceived benefits that the Mandingo people had received during the regime of Liberian President Samuel Doe. Doe’s regime controlled the Government of Liberia in the early years of the conflict, and had at many times cracked down on the NPFL’s main constituents, the Gio and Mano ethnic groups, spawning inter-ethnic rivalry. ULIMO – K 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.
As stated above, the ULIMO – K was composed mainly of Mandingos, an ethnic group which is generally Muslim and dominated by business and trade professions. Unlike the ULIMO-J, which could boast having many veteran soldiers of the AFL in its ranks, the ULIMO – K relied mainly on Mandingo refugees (assembling in Guinea and Sierra Leone) for manpower, with the leadership being composed primarily of politicians from the Doe regime and prominent businessmen. At the peak of its power the ULIMO – K maintained an organisation of perhaps as many as 12 500 men and women in its organisation (not all under arms), and controlled large portions of Liberia’s north-west, where valuable agricultural and timber resources could be utilized. The ULIMO – K at one point also entered into the power-sharing government stipulated by the Abuja accords of 1995 and 1996, taking up mainly the financial portfolios of the transitional government. The ULIMO – K was finally disbanded when demobilization was completed after the second Abuja accord of 1996 (in preparation for the 1997 elections).
ULIMO – K maintained good relations with Guinea throughout its existence, dating back to when the group was part of the original ULIMO movement. The Mandingo-dominated ULIMO – Ks relationship with Guinea was in part based on the perceived ethnic kinship with the Malinké people (constituting a large portion of Guinea’s population) and shared Muslim beliefs, but also based on Guinea’s strategic goals in the region. ULIMO – K's excellent relationship with the Guinean army, which provided the movement with an abundance of weapons and ammunition in addition to training its soldiers, was built also on illicit commercial ties the movement had across the Liberian-Guinean border. ULIMO – K also had some ties to ECOMOG peacekeepers stationed in Liberia, engaging with ECOMOG in arms deals and illicit commercial activities. As was the case for most of the factions involved in the Liberian civil conflict the ULIMO – K however shifted its allegiances and alliances during the conflict, sometimes obscuring its actual goals of fighting. For example the movement was initially opposed to the NPFL, but at one time joined this adversary to attack the ULIMO-J.
ULIMO – K was led by one Alhaji Kromah, a Mandingo politician who had worked within the Government of Liberia under the Doe regime, amongst other things as Minister of Information. As the NPFL launched its invasion of Liberia in 1989, Kromah attempted to display himself as the leader of the Mandingo people of Liberia, calling for them to rally to the support of Doe’s government. After fleeing the country as the NPFL pressed onwards into Liberia he established the Redemption of Muslims movement as a refugee in Guinea, using ethnic rhetoric to rally people to his anti-NPFL cause. He then merged the Redemption of Muslims group into the ULIMO movement, before attempting to gain full control of ULIMO. When the ULIMO split into the Roosevelt Johnson and Kromah factions was complete he subsequently took control of the Mandingo faction, once again making use of ‘the ethnic card’. When the conflict ended with the Abuja accords of 1995 and 1996, Kromah attempted to make the transformation from warlord to politician and was a candidate in both the 1997 and 2005 presidential elections as the representative of the ALCOP (All-Liberia Coalition Party). He however never gained enough votes to seriously challenge either Charles Taylor (1997) or Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (2005).
ULIMO – K has been involved in the non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organized violence.
