Foreign Relations of Liberia - Liberian-African Relations

Liberian-African Relations

The First Liberian Civil War, instigated by Charles Taylor and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) on December 24, 1989, eventually spread to neighboring Sierra Leone in 1991 when dissidents of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, began using Liberia as a staging ground for NPFL backed military assaults on border towns in Sierra Leone.

By 1992, 120,000 people had fled from Sierra Leone to Guinea due to the RUF's practice of targeting civilians. In 2001, Liberian forces along with the RUF began attacking and burning refugee camps and Guinean villages along the border. This led to an inflammatory speech by Guinean president Lansana Conté which blamed the refugees for the border destabilization and alleged that the vast majority of refugees were rebels. He called for the Guinean population to defend its nation and this subsequently led to a large number of attacks, beatings, rapes, and abductions of refugees by Guinean police and military forces. This was a reversal of Guinea's previously open policy towards refugees and it further escalated the refugee crisis as refugees attempted to cross back through RUF territory. By 2002, the United Nations estimated that three million people, or one in five people of the Mano River Union countries, were displaced.

Neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone have accused Liberia of backing rebels who have devastated their countries.