Charles+Taylor

=THESIS: The warfare in western Africa was made possible by the tyranny of Charles Taylor.= = = =** What's going on in Western Africa? **=




 * “A Long Way Gone” takes place primarily in the 1990s, when Western Africa was engulfed in warfare due to widespread corruption in government.
 * Kleptocracy - when a government exploits its nation’s natural resources and siphons wealth away from its citizens for personal gain.
 * “Blood” diamonds were mined to support military action.

= So who was Charles Taylor? =
 * Charles Taylor was born in Liberia in 1948. He arrived in the United States in 1972 and studied economics in Massachusetts. He had a strong Baptist background and was a charismatic and influential speaker. He became the Union of Liberian Associations’ national chairman, and led a demonstration against Liberian President Tolbert in 1979 (Van der Kraaij, 2010).
 * President Tolbert was assassinated in 1980. Samuel Doe led a military coup and took over presidency. Charles Taylor returned to Africa that same year and demanded a job in the government. Impressed, Doe appointed Taylor head of the General Services Agency (National Geographic, 2003).
 * President Doe accused Taylor of embezzling $1 million and fired him in 1983. Taylor fled back to the U.S., where he was arrested in 1984. He escaped in 1985, and reunited with allies back in Africa, including the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaoré (Van der Kraaij, 2010).

==Allied with major political figures in Africa, and supported by foreigners such as Jesse Jackson and U. S. President Jimmy Carter, Taylor easily rose to power in Liberia, a country with a devastated economy that needed restructuring.== ==

= Leading the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, Charles Taylor invaded Liberia on Christmas Eve 1989. =


 * He was supported by many Liberians, most of whom had been exiled by Doe (Van der Kraaij, 2010).
 * A bloody civil war ensued, in which 200,000 Liberians were killed, one million fled to nearby countries, and another million were displaced within the country.
 * The economy, which was already in poor shape, took a turn for the worse.
 * Depression in the 1980s under Doe in which the government embezzled foreign aid, the per capita income fell from $400 to $370, and unemployment in Monrovia reached 50% (Wellington, 1996).
 * Taylor planned to fix the economy by raising the rate of exportation of Liberia's natural resources
 * " 'Taylor had a map he carried around with him called Greater Liberia,' said Douglas Farah, an analyst and author who has written extensively about Mr. Taylor's links of criminal and terrorist networks. 'It included parts of Guinea, diamond fields in Sierra Leone. It wasn't something abstract to him. He had a very clear idea of what he was trying to achieve. He had a grandiose plan, and he almost succeeded' " (New York Times, 2006).
 * Taylor was elected president in 1987 with three-quarters of the votes (Van der Kraaij, 2010).

He immediately got to work implementing his extensive, ambitious plans for Liberia's economy.
= Taylor traded heavily with neighboring countries, especially Sierra Leone. =


 * In exchange for “blood diamonds,” Taylor supplied the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone with massive amounts of weapons, thus enabling a bloody civil war (The Telegraph, 2010).
 * Taylor was a good friend of the RUF leader, Foday Sankoh
 * Charles Taylor was eventually indicted for war crimes and exiled from Liberia (Van der Kraaij, 2010).

The effects of his tyranny, however, live on in the aftermath of warfare in both Liberia and Sierra Leone.
= Without Taylor as an enabler, the RUF would not have had the resources necessary to initiate massacre in Sierra Leone. =

__ Bibliography __

National Geographic Society. (October 2010). //Liberia president Charles Taylor’s life of crime//. Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/07/0725_030725_liberiataylor.html

The New York Times Online. (2006). //Charles Taylor manipulated west African values//. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/weekinreview/02polgreen.html

Van der Kraaij, Dr. Fred. (2010?). //The warlord-president//. Retrieved from http://www.liberiapastandpresent.org/charles_taylor.htm

Wellington, Jeffrey. (1996). //Liberia’s economy//. Retrieved from http://www.earlham.edu/~pols/17Fall96/craighe/economy.html

Freeman, Colin. The Telegraph. (August 2010). //Blood diamonds and Charles Taylor: the inside story.// Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/liberia/7946198/Blood-diamonds-and-Charles-Taylor-the-inside-story.html