Implementation of Abuja II accord and post-conflict security in Liberia

Abstract

In this thesis, I show that ECOWAS and the international community, in a bid to secure an end to Liberia's intractable civil war, acceded to a power sharing arrangement among the warlords. This arrangement, which granted the warlords political legitimacy and considerable influence and control over the transition process, led to the unsustainable warlord peace of 1997. The preoccupation of the warlord dominated Council, ECOWAS, and the international community with the 1997 elections as a means of resolving the conflict resulted in the failure to restructure the security forces before the inauguration of the post-election government as stipulated by the Abuja Agreement. The failure to restructure the security forces offered the post-war Taylor government the opportunity to carry out a bogus exercise inconsistent with the Abuja Agreement, which he readily seized. The exercise resulted in the selective demobilization and gradual marginalization of the Krahn ethnic group dominated Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), and the creation of several new armed units dominated by former National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) militias. These and the ruthlessness with which they operated escalated fears of vulnerabilities of former adversaries and this contributed significantly to the resumption of war in 1999.