SUMMARY

One-sided violence performed by the Government of Liberia to a large degree followed an ethnic dimension.

When Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) invaded the country in 1989 he rallied many Gios and Manos to his cause of ousting the Krahn-dominated government. The mainly Krahn forces of the Liberian government retaliated against this perceived disloyalty throughout 1990, and in essence, continued down the path of violently suppressing dissent against the government. Gio and Mano civilians in Nimba County bore the brunt of these actions, as the forces of the government killed civilians that they deemed to be supportive of the NPFL's cause. But actions against perceived civilian enemies of the state also took place in other locations across the country, for example in the capital city of Monrovia, and were not necessarily carried out on an ethnic basis.

The forces of the Government of Liberia were however also unprofessional and undisciplined and engaged in one-sided killings in order to procure loot from civilian villages. The discipline of the armed forces further deteriorated as the conflict dragged on, and the army, in the end, abandoned the government and became a military faction of its own, in UCDP data being viewed as the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL).

The Government of Liberia first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 1990, when the one-sided violence resulted in at least 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached in January when over 70 civilians were killed by government troops in Nimba County, Liberia.