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The First Liberian Civil War was an internal conflict in Liberia running from 1989 until 1996. The conflict killed over 200,000 people and eventually led to the involvement the Economic Community of West African States and of the United Nations. The peace did not last long, and in 1999 the Second Liberian Civil War broke-out.

Samuel Doe had led a Coup d'état that overthrew the West African's elected government in 1980, and in 1985 held elections that were widely considered fraudulent. After an unsuccessful coup by a former military leader, former government minister Charles Taylor invaded the country in December 1989 from neighboring Ivory Coast to start an uprising meant to topple the Doe regime. During the civil war, factions formed around Taylor and those who supported his former soldier with the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, Prince Johnson. Johnson took the capital Monrovia in 1990 and executed Doe, while Taylor's forces, the Armed Forces of Liberia, and Johnson's forces battled for control of Monrovia.

Peace negotiations and foreign involvement lead to a ceasefire in 1995 that was broken the next year before a final peace agreement and new national elections were held in 1997. Taylor was then elected President of Liberia in July 1997. (Read more...)